Insights

Organizing for the Now of Work

Robert Dutile, Chief Commercial Officer at UST

If we look at the illustration from 2013-2014, we can see that the future is now, thanks to evolving technology and global disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. The experience of millions of people and organizations over the past few months is valuable data for every organization to learn how they performed; how they can develop insights and adapt what they have learned to the environment we face ahead.

Supply management, demand navigation, organization models and revised and augmented processes are all opportunities for competitive advantage for companies that can effectively change.

This attributes list is a reasonable structure to use as a framework for assessing the relative capability, and identification of obstacles in each organization. When applied to my own organization, I can rate confidently that we are better than comparative organizations on about half of the attributes, AND that we have clear opportunities to improve. We also can identify some of the contributions to value that we believe are enhanced by improvement to each attribute. Here is a shortened example:

Work Anytime -

• BETTER THAN AVERAGE -
• Our global operations have long required many of us to work at the times most convenient for others in wide-spread time zones. We have the habit and culture as well as methods to support.
• Client satisfaction is HIGH because of round the clock availability. Has been a competitive advantage. Does risk employee burnout.
• IMPROVEMENT - To review policies and methods to improve the experience of the employee in this demanding environment. Survey employees on preferences. Apply ML against preferences and current experience to look for improved assignment and scheduling

or

Focused on Adaptive Learning

• NOT SURE OF RELATIVE PERFORMANCE
• Expected value arises from increased suitability and capability for wider range of opportunities for employees. Leading to higher utilization and profit as well as higher employee satisfaction
• IMPROVEMENT - Survey, benchmark and analyze relative performance and validity of value hypothesis.

At UST, we acknowledge that we are continuing to experiment on new agile structures, revisions to policies, and knowledge management and communication methods. Recently, people interested in the recruiting process, on operational efficiency, on training, as well as those looking how best to navigate through the current crisis, got together and quickly structured and launched the "21 Days of Transformation" initiative. It was one way in which an informal, internal group devised a way to organize our e-learning resources, advertised the predicted skill demands we have over the next few quarters, and made it easy for our people to learn.

We changed in multiple ways as we grew from 15 people to 25,000 in 20 years. Experimentation, innovation in process and policy, while continuing commitment to our mission and values, and ongoing promotion of an inclusive culture, have yielded success. However, at the pace of change in the world, we have to not only continue embracing change, but we need to learn to evaluate, experiment, and execute faster on future iterations.