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How a Liquid Workforce will Propel Organizations into the Digital Landscape

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DQINDIA Online
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Organizations can use technology not only as a disruptor, but as a way to enable their people, projects  and entire operations to become highly adaptable, nimble and liquid to effectively compete in today’s ever-changing digital landscape.

Technology continues to strengthen its posi­tion as a primary driver of profitability and market differentiation in almost every industry. Pioneering companies, start-ups and larger enterprises are embracing social, mobile, cloud, and analytics to transform themselves into truly digital businesses. And advancements in technology continue to accelerate at an unprecedented rate, further disrupting the status quo.

According to findings from the Accenture Technology Vision 2016 global survey of more than 3,100 business and IT executives, 33% of respondents believe that the global economy is already impacted by digital. What’s more, 86% of survey respondents anticipate that the pace of technology change will increase at a rapid or unprecedented rate over the next three years.

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While keeping up with the pace of the digital landscape is critical to compete and stay relevant in the market, there is one essential ingredient which established enterprises and start-ups are overlooking in their fervent quest for growth—the workforce.

Companies cannot survive with only technology running their business; they need to harness the technology to enable the right people to do the right things in a highly adaptable, change-ready and responsive “liquid” culture. This is identified as the ‘Liquid Workforce’ – one of five trends (along with Intelligent Automation, Platform Economy, Predictable Disruption, and Digital Trust) – in this year’s Accenture Technology Vision 2016.

Look into the workings of any tech startup and you’ll witness work being done differently. These companies operate in a dynamic culture shaped by passion, innovation and agility. This is the kind of culture that a digital workplace will look like in the not-too-distant future.

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A dynamic culture is not often associated with traditional organizations. There are exceptions though. GE for example is changing its culture to push the historical boundaries of success. Through a new approach called FastWorks, GE is embedding lean startup practices into the workforce. It is empowering its people to change faster and make smarter decisions while staying close to its customers, in part by doing away with rigid approval processes. In the new approach, employees are empowered to make rapid changes to their projects or quickly switch direction. The organisation supports these projects by providing constant and relevant training that gives employees the skills they need to adapt and thrive.

And this shift is proving to be successful: Thanks to GE’s FastWorks methodology, the company built a new regulation-compliant diesel engine for ships nearly two years ahead of its competitors. The same methodology enabled GE Appliances to design and deliver in less than one year a high-end refrigerator that sold twice as well as preceding models.

The workforce as we know it, has changed and is rapidly changing. In the past, anyone—from accountants to machinists—could spend their entire careers doing the same job, using the same skills to support businesses with largely unchanging goals. But today, digital is disrupting industries to such an extent that businesses have no option but to continually change products, services, and sometimes even business models—not just once, but constantly. Businesses are using a digitally powered and highly adaptable liquid workforce to change not only what they do but how they do it.

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FEW FACTORS IN THE CHANGING  WORKFORCE LANDSCAPE

Fueled by significant numbers of millennials entering the workforce, the employee pool itself is also dramatically changing. In 2015, the millennial generation became the largest segment in the workforce, and it is expected to account for 76% of the global labour market by 2025. C l o s e r home, it is estimated that the Indian workforce will grow by over 8 mn per annum over the coming decade, and most of it will be driven by youth entering the labour market. Now let us view this against the backdrop of these trends:

Respondents from India in the Accenture Technology Vision 2016 predict that 47 percent of their total workforce will be made up of internal temporary positions and freelancers in three years’ time.

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„„51 percent of the business and IT executives surveyed in India believe that the workforce of the future will be structured more by projects than by job functions.

„„Our global survey further highlights that “deep expertise for the specialized task at hand” was only the fifth most important characteristic required for employees to perform well in a digital work environment, whereas other qualities such as ’ability to quickly learn’ and ’ability to multitask’ or ‘willingness to embrace change’ ranked higher, indicating that organisations are placing a premium on candidates whom they believe will evolve with their business.

Research from Accenture also finds that 38 percent of businesses globally are struggling to find the right talent.

These factors in the changing workforce landscape add to the larger problem of attracting, retaining and deploying talent, and leading enterprises are starting to re-think the whole concept of skills in their workforce.

While technology is at the center of these workforce disruptions, it also needs to be at the center of creating the solutions. To successfully create a liquid workforce, organisations must utilize various tools to facilitate the adaptation, such as: massive online open courses for scalable training; collaboration tools such as Slack that foster collaboration; and predictive workforce analytics that allow vast organisations to make better decisions. Pioneering organisations will also use intelligent automation to drive a new and much more productive relationship between people and machines.

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