Through a partnership between two HR specialist organisations, LACE Partners and Actual Experience plc, collaborative research reports have found that organisations need to do more to be truly prepared for the future of work. This includes upping the game when it comes to Chief People Officers (CPOs) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and their respective functions working together to deliver on the future needs of the workforce and productivity of their businesses.
In July 2022, HR and Payroll transformation consultancy LACE Partners asked 30 CPOs from a wide variety of industries and company sizes to provide the answer to a simple question on “what their ‘one big thing’ is for the next 12 to 24 months”. Three common themes emerged: talent attraction, flexible / hybrid working and the Employee Value Proposition (EVP).
Cathy Acratopulo, Managing Director and Co-Founder at LACE Partners, said:
“Talent attraction, hybrid working and the EVP are deeply interwoven future of work themes and dominate HR’s 2023 agenda. Employee experience underpins them all and today, critically, this relies on the digital workplace working properly for everyone, everywhere, all the time”.
In October 2022, Actual Experience plc commissioned Savanta ComRes to interview 1006 demographically representative UK adults about their hybrid working experience. The study has found that work-life flexibility is welcomed with 51% wanting to work from home more often (only 8% want less). But the employee experience of the digital workplace is poor. 89% say they experience technology problems, 46% say this is very or fairly stressful, and 53% say this makes them less productive.
Dave Page, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at software company Actual Experience plc said:
“People have embraced their new technology-enabled work-life experience, and want more of it, but the digital workplace isn’t yet fit for the Future of Work. Data emerging from customer deployments of our Digital Workplace Management Platform confirm these findings and, without urgent attention, will continue to undermine employee experience and productivity, and the 2023 HR agenda.
“Organisations are now seeking to embrace and institutionalise the Future of Work, and there will be significant sustainable competitive advantage in doing so. Critically, this will rely on a new C-suite partnership between CPOs and CIOs, where a deep and mutual understanding of the interplay of technology and human factors will govern success. This is why we have decided to partner with LACE Partners, whose wealth of cultural and digital HR thought leadership and experience will be critical in the Future of Work transformation in 2023. We are delighted to be working with LACE Partners on an increasing number of client opportunities.”
Cathy Acratopulo added:
“There is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the EVP and workplace technology. The CPO and CIO must come together to make this transformation a success, but this has to be a human-centric, data-driven process. CPO’s have an opportunity to embrace data and lead their business through systemic, quantifiable improvements in employee retention and productivity. Equally, CIO’s have an opportunity to embrace new data and deliver more directly than ever to top-level business objectives. This is why we have decided to partner with Actual, whose insights into the human experience of the digital workplace uniquely bridge the gap between technology, employee experience and productivity, and create a new, actionable common language for the CPO and CIO. We are delighted with the response we have seen from our clients to Actual’s offering.”
