Organizations face a radically shifting context for the workplace that includes cognitive technology, intelligent automation, and machine learning. These technologies are disrupting and threatening many companies across many industries. As a result, organization designs and business models are being updated to defend existing market position and proactively seek the new opportunities that “digital” can offer.
Mercer’s 2017 Talent Trends study found that 97 percent of executives say that becoming a digital organization is important to their future, with 77 percent stating that their company is on a digital journey already. However, as few as 8 percent of CEOs believe their organizations are as digital (or even anywhere near as digital) as they must be to ward off emerging competitors.
This same study also uncovered striking discord between the digital strategy and people strategy. While most CEOs are focused on designing a more digital and agile organization to compete for the future, only 15 percent of human resource (HR) departments have organization and job design as key elements of their people strategy. Only 37 percent of HR respondents have change management on their radar screen. The risks created by this disconnect are significant. Without a culture open to change and a workforce willing and able to adopt new technologies, digital change efforts will rarely be as impactful as they need to be.
Boards are custodians of organization strategy. They also play a key role in overseeing the talent strategies required to execute and deliver on business objectives. By reviewing the organization’s talent strategy through the lens of digital disruption, directors can help uncover risks and ensure better alignment between their companies’ digital and people agendas that will be necessary for future success.
Here are five sets of questions to get started.
Without a robust people agenda, an organization’s transformation efforts to address the challenge of digital disruption will struggle. By applying a digital mindset to the talent strategy and asking questions like those above, directors can play an important role in ensuring the alignment between people and digital strategy, and better position the organization for success.
This article was originally published in NACD.