About 91% of businesses reportedly recognize the value of employee experience as important to the ... [+]
A new, large-scale global survey shows that corporate management is significantly more satisfied with how they have adjusted to new working norms compared to their employees. It is imperative for leadership to gain insight into how they can help their employees meet their needs and desires.
NTT, a leading global technology company and business solutions provider, has released its Global Workplace Report, offering important insights into the future of work gathered from a survey of 1,146 executives across 23 countries. The results clearly indicate that “business leaders are significantly more satisfied with how they have adjusted to new working norms than their employees are.” This chasm in experiences and expectations highlights that managers are not listening or understanding the mindset and wants of their workers.
Here are some of the highlights:
Future Of Work Reassessed
In a wide-ranging interview, Alex Bennett, NTT global senior vice president of the workplace and employee experience division, offered color and texture to the international study. One of the biggest takeaways of the report is that “what employees really want is flexibility and support.”
Bennett, who has spoken with business leaders at top organizations around the world to gather intelligence about the current and post-pandemic world of work, shared that the top four strategies being applied to meet the demands of a modern workforce consist of: flexible hours, wellness, remote/hybrid work and improved work environment.
The report refers to the “Voice of the Employee” (VoE) in describing what they want in their work lives. The data shows that, when offered a choice of at-home, hybrid or in-office working arrangements, employees are relatively evenly split between the three—at 30%, 30% and 39%, respectively. This breakdown shows people want choices. The future of work is not one-size-fits-all.
Whereas the media is mostly portraying that almost all workers want to work from home, the global survey reflects that this is not the case. Seventy-nine percent of organizations believe employees prefer to work in an office. Two thirds of employees responded that they don’t feel as if they possess the appropriate tools and technologies required for successfully working remotely at home. Meanwhile, in direct contradiction to the workers’ concerns, 55% of management claim they are “strongly satisfied” that their companies are up and ready for hybrid working.
Employee-Experience Disconnect
Employee health and well-being is the number one driver of employees’ overall experience. About 91% of businesses reportedly recognize the value of employee experience as important to the organizational strategy, but only 23% of employees say they are very happy working for their employer and only 38% say that their employer fully values their health and well-being. An alarming 63% of chief human resource officers responded that “employee well-being levels have deteriorated since the start of the pandemic.”
This correlates with a survey conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management that found “nearly 100% of all human resources professionals ‘agree that they encourage a culture of open and transparent communication.’ About 72% of executives, vice president and higher in rank, report that ‘their overall organizational culture has improved since the beginning of the pandemic.’ Whereas, only 21% of HR and 14% of Americans agreed with the executives’ assessment.”
Diverging Thoughts About The Workplace
Employees say that hybrid and remote working have a positive impact on both their personal and work lives. With greater autonomy, workers have been more productive. As Bennett points out, remote and hybrid workers are seen for their output and not face time in the office.
It opens the door for relocation, which could afford a better life, earning the same pay but living in a less costly location with good schools, clean air and more time to connect with family and the community. With fewer people commuting long distances to an office, the environment and climate will improve. Despite the yearnings of employees to have more flexibility in the decisions of where and how they work, employers aren’t completely sold on this new movement.
- Nine out of 10 no longer view the workplace as a physical building.
- Only slightly more than half (54%) of organizations have been able to define and agree their future workplace strategy.
- Eighty-nine percent of businesses agree that environment, social and governance (ESG) objectives are at the heart of the organization’s agenda.
- Seventy-nine percent of organizations believe employees prefer to work in an office, but just 39% of employees would prefer to work from an office full time.
- CEOs are 41% more likely than operations staff to be satisfied with their organization’s employee experience capabilities.
- Fifty-seven percent of employees will now select an employer based on work-life balance.
There is awareness of the situation by company leadership, but it doesn’t seem to translate into taking proactive measures. Compared to operations staff, CEOs are more likely to believe that their organization is “very effective at managing working hours.” Management also contends that they are effectively preventing burnout, and are satisfied that their employees are enjoying a good experience. What could be described as somewhat tone-deaf, only 23% of employees say that they are happy working for their employer and feel that their employers don’t fully value their health and well-being.
Bennett said about the divergence of perceptions between employees and management, “Currently, the narrative is all about remote working, but the reality of employees’ needs is much more complicated, and any failure to accurately assess and respond to that fact presents a serious risk to organizations.”
Bennett added, “These are not mild preferences: we found that work-life balance and commute times are now the two biggest factors people look at when deciding where to work, and so performing well on workforce and workplace strategy will be a real competitive advantage.”
What To Do Now
“I would look at this as a call to shift our thinking from being about actions to being about outcomes,” concludes Bennett. “What’s important is not what we do to improve the workplace, but how it actually benefits the workforce—and an organization cannot know that without a mature approach to measuring employees’ sentiment.”
Bennett believes, in an era of a Great Resignation and war for talent, to attract, recruit and retain talent and ensure long-term success, businesses must rethink their workplace strategies.
This includes initiating policies and programs to enhance employee well-being, intelligent user-friendly technology and digitization and collaborative workspaces that fairly include in-office and remote employees. These, and related activities, will create environments that shape superior employee experiences, leading to increased employee engagement, productivity and profitability.
The decisions companies make today will decide the future of work. Enabled by technology—designed for non-techies at home—and a supportive empathetic management team, people will feel appreciated and empowered. Both the workers and business will benefit.
