If businesses have learned one thing during the pandemic it is that resilience, rather than being a tactic to respond to crisis, is a discipline cultivated over time. Today, to not have a digital strategy is to not have a strategy.
Robin Fisher, senior area vice-president of Salesforce Emerging Markets
To build resilience at work, organisations need to start thinking about virtual and remote models, provision of tools that enable collaboration from anywhere, and strategies to look after their peoples’ mental health and wellbeing. Leading with values, embracing flexibility, and investing in innovation and partnerships, we can embed resilience at work for the long-term.
Leading with values, and flexibility
As the pandemic emerged, we saw how the best companies went back to their core values, ensuring the wellbeing of their employees, customers, and stakeholders. Communication and transparency has been critical in this regard, whether that’s been to confirm actions taken to ensure a safe return to offices or to encourage employees to find out more about vaccinations.
Businesses have a responsibility to ensure employees are informed and have the confidence to take care of themselves. Technology has a key role to play in ensuring workplace safety, for example through emergency response management and collating data to help teams make smarter decisions.
The pandemic has also accelerated the evolution of industries and how they serve customers. The shift to telehealth is one example. In hospitality, technologies are reimagining the entire customer experience, enabling hotel guests to check-in, open doors and order food all from their mobile phone.
Across all industries, companies’ migrations to cloud computing will accelerate in the months ahead – enabling scalability, availability and accessibility of information from any location. Increased automation, AI, as well as forecasting models will help them to better predict and prepare for what the future may bring.
The future of work, too, is in the cloud. As hybrid working models become more common and offices become hubs for collaboration and social interaction, employers must encourage flexible work arrangements. They must provide better remote work tools to ensure productivity and collaboration from anywhere. Investing in innovative ways to engage with employees and customers alike, responding to their expectations and experiences, will only become more important.
Investing in skills and collaboration
To make the most of new technologies, investing in reskilling and development programs must be a priority. Just as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) demands that we close existing hard skills gaps, the work-from-anywhere world we now live in requires us to further invest in soft skills.
In the digital economy, every company is going to need teams which can leverage new technologies fast. Increasingly, too, they will rely on individuals who can solve complex problems, challenge the status quo, and engender a shared sense of purpose among distributed teams.
As we emerge from the pandemic, partnerships will be key to driving long term positive change across business and society. Technology can and is already playing an important role in ensuring the safe and equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines to potentially billions of people.
From innovation to mass vaccination, we cannot overcome our shared challenges in silos. We need everyone engaged. Beyond incentives, we need to educate and assure buy-in. Only through collaboration can we build more resilient workplaces, workforces and communities.