Written by: Jutta and Ricardo dos Santos Miquelino, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Let’s face the facts. Several countries across the globe are facing a massive shortage of skilled workers. And unlike in the past, the current labor shortage is not limited to specific industries, but is prevalent across various professions, so while governments scramble to find solutions, companies are feeling the pressure from all sides.
Now, set these questions against a backdrop of uncertainty simmering among thousands of current – and potential – employees: humans in technical and engineering fields who keep hearing words like ‘automation,’ ‘digitalization,’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ and can’t help but wonder: will my job be taken over by AI in the next few years? Which career will help me develop skills to sustain my future? Which employer will support my motivation in the long-term? How can I be happy at work? Now, picture this. A client of ours who employs hundreds of thousands of people tried looking into the future for answers to this challenge, but found even more questions instead. Who are our workers of the future? What does their job profile look like? What do they need and expect from their career? And how can they work effectively and efficiently? How can they be happy?
Photo by Scott Blake on Unsplash
One thing was clear: the existing systems and structures within the company – from the job profiles and qualification processes to the culture across HR and beyond – were not attracting, empowering, and retaining the workers this employer needed. Or, as we like to say, what had gotten them here wouldn’t get them there. The transformation was the only way forward. That’s what the client entrusted us to do… and exactly what we succeeded in doing. So what made… and dos Santos, a think tank consultancy, the right choice for tackling this goliath task? How did our way of working set us apart from the crowd and enable us to master this challenge for our client? In a nutshell: we broke consulting rules and traditions by approaching our client’s challenge as a diverse whole, rather than a series of separate problems. And every step of the way, we focused on what’s most important: the people themselves. For us, transformation is not just a project. It’s a process that requires combined and collaborative expertise from as many different fields as the situation calls for. If the future is fluid, why shouldn’t we be? Working from this mindset, we operate on the power of collective genius, giving our clients a unique offering: a carefully curated selection from our network of world-class cultural thought leaders and innovators.
By combining our clients’ expertise with outstanding knowledge from movers, shakers and trailblazers in business, science, technology, and culture, we create radical yet sustainable solutions that delve deep and ring true. And by making room for every single consideration – internal and external stakeholders, naysayers, barriers to thinking, no-go's, structures, you name it – we cover the widest possible range of perspectives, leaving no stone unturned. Yes, it’s as intensive as it sounds…and yes, the results are outstanding. Back to the task at hand. Faced with both the employer and employees’ unanswered questions, we quickly spotted a common underlying issue and therefore, a primary solution: a much-needed shift in the company mindset. From this, we built our human-centric goal: to leverage hard facts and innovative concepts with a bulletproof vision, transform fear into motivation, and show workers that their active role in the company’s future was not only possible, but something to aspire to. Easier said than done, right? We got down to business along 5 successive Workbench Labs: intensive 9-week research and sparring programs during which our targeted collective and the client team worked together to 3 key future-proof concepts for the company:
Keep reading to discover the magic of the first two concepts we created, and why they worked so well:
Concept 1: The Job Profile
Who are our workers of the future? What does their job profile look like? To start, we needed to create effective job profiles that would also stand the test of time. Who could we trust with this? A team of experts in New Work, Organisational Leadership, People Management, DigitalTransformation, HR, DigitalCulture, and Change and TalentManagement, that’s who.
Alongside leaders from the client’s side, we conceived multi-layered personas for current and future employees to honour the spectrum of pain points and motivations that determine workers’ long-term commitment to the company. We also took cues from today’s richly diverse workforce, aligning our client’s values with the needs and care expectations of potential workers to ensure that sustainable, respectful working relationships could be fostered from the start. Looking at the situation from a human angle, we saw that much of the uncertainty regarding workers’ roles in the company stemmed from misguided expectations of how – and even when – technology would be impacting their work. For example, plans for automation of principal work tasks would not be implemented for decades to come, yet partly due to lack of communication, many technicians and engineers were worried about this. Our team tackled this head-on by enabling workers to understand how, rather than rendering their brains redundant, digitalization and automation will allow them to shift their time and mental energy onto more specialized tasks, such as:
monitoring, analysing and improving technical performance;
responding to unexpected changes (a skill for which current AI models are unsuited);
finding solutions to unforeseen circumstances, such as sudden weather changes;
communicating with control centres & counterparts in real-time during each situation.
Photo by Cédric Dhaenens on Unsplash
Through intensive research and open communication with employees, we combined all these considerations to form realistic, inspiring, and transparent job profiles for our client’s workers – laying the foundation for the second future concept.
Concept 2: Qualification
What do our employees expect from their work? Our driving force at this stage was a vision of empowered workers who would not only become competent in their roles more quickly and securely, but also experience enjoyment and motivation through continuous training supported by digital tools. To reach this, we worked on developing a learning and knowledge platform together with successful qualification systems for the employees, bringing in experts from fields such as Business Psychology, Interactive Content & VR learning, Organizational Development, Knowledge Transfer, Learning and Knowledge Management Systems (LMS & KMS), Talent & Succession Management, and Modern Learning.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Going beyond an ordinary redesign of teaching methods and materials, we uncovered essential elements for the long-term success of any learning and qualification initiatives.
Among these, we called for the development of a modern, digital learning system with practical components and a focus on knowledge preservation and transfer.
Still, how could we ensure that such LMS would be appreciated by employees? Simply by leveraging the power of technology:
Digitization of learning materials and incorporation into administrative tools (such as tablets used to perform work tasks) would vastly improve the accessibility and organization of knowledge content, allowing workers to retrieve information quickly and efficiently;
Digital tools such as learning videos and, where possible, VR experiences would enable trainees to learn safely and effectively, and serve as a valuable supplement for hands-on training;
Gamification and storytelling elements would bring playfulness into the learning process for more enjoyment and motivation, which in turn leads to better knowledge retention;
Data-driven evaluation of LMS would inform leaders of the performance and level of engagement of learning content, creating opportunities for continuous feedback and improvement among trainers and trainees alike.
What became clear at this stage was that effective learning and qualification could only be achieved through a strong culture of participation among employees. We observed the need for the participative, content-related design of training materials and platforms – not only to improve interdisciplinary knowledge transfer and make the most of individual skills, but also to bring the much-needed social aspect to the table, open up space for connection, and foster motivation and initiative among workers. This is where our human-centric approach proved essential: by combining the power of technology and learning management expertise with human factors, we created a well-rounded concept that would bring our clients quick wins as well as long-term, future-proof results.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we show how we worked our magic on future workspace designs that put humans front and center – the… and dos Santos way. Plus, a very happy ending and some exciting news to share! Until then: stay curious, keep discovering, and be fiercely human.
Jutta and Ricardo dos Santos Miquelino, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jutta and Ricardo share 50 years of experience leading business transformation projects in both the corporate and startup worlds. With their work, they have a strong focus on creating positive and inspiring environments where leaders and employees are excited about change and create freedom and awareness for innovation excellence in organizations.
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