The theme of bettering ourselves is prominent as we head into a new year. Many of us endeavour to make changes to ourselves and our lifestyles, often spurred on by a new year’s resolution or two. But how do we increase the chance that our resolutions will stick around past January? How can we avoid the February fizzle?

Good news: we know something about managing change from our work lives and those best practices can help us with the changes we want to make outside of the office. When you think about it, rolling out a new performance management system or reworking an internal communications strategy can be straightforward, as they rely on the more technical aspects of change. We create new processes, document new procedures, and train teams on what to do differently.

But when it comes to mindset shifts – getting people to think differently – the challenge is greater. Changing a mindset goes beyond altering the way we do things – we have to alter the way we perceive the world around us, and this requires time, intention, and effort. Adapting a few best practices from change management can help:

  • Set a clear objective and definition of success

Ask yourself: Why am I trying to adopt this new mindset? What do I hope to achieve? Perhaps you want to develop a more growth-oriented outlook or become more patient in your leadership style. Without a clear objective, it’s difficult to measure progress or stay motivated.

In change management, we establish clear success criteria and milestones. When managing your own mindset shift, it helps to do the same: define what successful change means to you. Is it when you instinctively approach challenges with curiosity instead of frustration? Or when your team starts to notice and appreciate your more open-minded approach? Defining success helps keep you focused and provides a sense of achievement along the way.

  • Prepare your stakeholders and create accountability with supportive partners

Every mindset shift has a ripple effect on those around us—whether it’s our colleagues, friends, or family. Ask yourself: Who are my ‘stakeholders’ in this change? How might my new mindset affect them, and how might they react? Providing some ‘advance notice’ to those affected can help manage expectations and foster support.

Accountability partners can dramatically increase the likelihood of a successful mindset shift. Just as we engage sponsors and champions in organizational change efforts, we can enlist trusted colleagues or friends to act as our personal support network. These individuals can provide encouragement, offer feedback, and help hold us accountable.

  • Build in some structure

In the workplace, we implement policies and tools to support technical change, so think about how this can be adapted for personal mindset shifts: structural changes might include setting up reminders, scheduling regular check-ins with your accountability partners, or keeping a journal to track progress and reflect on lessons learned. These reinforcements create an environment conducive to lasting change.

  • Be kind and patient with yourself

Finally, be realistic and kind to yourself. Organizational change takes time, and so does personal transformation. Don’t expect an overnight shift. Set realistic expectations for how long it might take for your new mindset to become second nature and remember that setbacks are part of the process…the key is to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

You may be thinking: “Best practices from work?  Really?” This approach may feel like overkill, but it is great way to demonstrate respect for your efforts through good planning. Applying proven change management principles to personal change increases the likelihood that your new mindset will take hold, and come February, those changes will be here to stay.

If you would like to discuss how we can help you build or strengthen a change management mindset, please get in touch with me at gordon.robinson@orgshakers.com or via our website.

OK, so what do you think the office is really for?

What was once seen as a logical and efficient way of working has now been brought into question by the “work-from-home” / “return-to-office” tug-of-war which has broken out between employees and business leaders in many organizations.

So, to work out where we’re going – we first need to rewind.

From the 15th-century scriptoriums of medieval monks to the modern skyscrapers dotting urban landscapes, the ‘office’ has always been in a shifting state with innovations like artificial light, telephones, typewriters, elevators, and computers progressively reshaping the working environment.

Then came the lockdown. An abrupt shift that turned traditional office dynamics upside down. Those able to work from home found their productivity and job satisfaction often increased. Today, nine in ten jobseekers say hybrid work is now as important as financial benefits.

This shift challenges employers to rethink how office spaces can boost productivity while supporting employee well-being in remote settings. The strategy for this transformation focuses on policy, place, and purposeful leadership:

  • Policy: Clear and well-communicated hybrid and remote work policies are essential. Define when employees need to be in the office and when they have the flexibility to choose. Transparency in policy-making fosters trust and loyalty.
  • Place: Office space must cater to diverse needs. Some employees may need a quiet workspace every day, while others might prefer the office for collaborative tasks only once a week. Whether it’s a Superdesk for collaboration or cubicles for concentration, the office should accommodate various working styles.
    But beware! There is no ‘best way’ to do it – a recent study found that actively trying to make creative office spaces could be stifling creativity, whilst another discovered that changing from cubicles to open-plan saw a 70% drop in face-to-face interactions!
  • Purposeful Leaders: Leaders play a crucial role in implementing these policies and ensuring the office space delivers value. Effective leaders highlight the benefits of coming to the office, promoting collaboration, and enhancing company culture. This can transform the office from a chore to a place employees are excited to be.

Employers must recognize the benefits of hybrid and remote work, leveraging these models to optimize productivity rather than viewing them as obstacles. The purpose of the office is evolving, and it’s time to lead this change.

We are here to help you navigate this transformation, optimizing organizational effectiveness in hybrid work, crafting policies, and coaching leaders to meet your company’s unique needs and those of your workforce. So, to continue this conversation, you can either head over to our contact page, or reach out to me directly at andy@orgshakers.com

A staple of entering a new year is New Year’s Resolutions. Many of us will take a moment of self-reflection to look inside ourselves and identify a list of resolutions that we feel will improve us as a person in the year to come. The ‘new year, new me’ mindset will remerge across social media platforms like it always does and many of us will be begrudgingly attempting to lower alcohol and meat intake across Dry January and Veganuary.

And yet, despite this mindset seeming slightly performative, the idea of reflection and inciting change is actually a very positive thing to be doing – especially if you are a leader or executive in an organization.

For those in positions of power in the workplace, reflection on current working policies and practices is vital for ensuring that the cogs of your business continue to spin without any kinks. However, when things remain the same way for too long, these cogs can quickly start to rust…so, when it comes to the ‘new year, new me’ mindset in leaders, what are some things that leaders should be leaving behind in 2024 to ensure a prosperous 2025 for their organizations and for their people?

  • Any thinking that AI is a technical event/opportunity/phenomenon – it’s absolutely tied to the way we get things done across all the enterprise. It’s not an IT thing!
  • Any constraining of employee experimentation with AI or AI tools – good practices will emerge if we let people play with new processes and thinking — let this happen with AI!  Get out of their way! Instead, find a way for people to share their discovery of how to use AI in their jobs.
  • Any constraining of the strategic nature of the CFO role – the Chief Financial Officer is no longer just the ‘numbers’ person, they are a strategic thinker and contributor to the C-suite team. They are increasingly in charge of the large-scale, strategic investments that have broad impacts on company infrastructure and strategic positioning, meaning that their voice is critical in the ideation and trade-offs for such investments.
  • Similarly, any constraining of the CHRO role – the Chief Human Resources Officer can be a powerful, strategic role, and it is key to harnessing a varied, complex workforce.
  • Stop allowing politicization of best practices that work – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)…these are strategic approaches that are tried and true, and that drive success. They are key to innovation and good decision-making.

If leaders truly want to embrace a ‘new year, new me’ mindset, then they should start to consider the leadership practices which will propel them and their company forwards. This is where our Executive Action Series can help; a leadership development program that is laser-focused on supporting your senior leaders and executives with their strategic goals in order to yield long-term resilience and drive sustainability.

If you would like to discuss this service in more detail, please get in touch with us at anya@orgshakers.com or gordon.robinson@orgshakers.com

Last year, we asked the OrgShakers team what practices and ideologies they thought employers should be leaving behind as they ventured into the New Year.

Now, as another year comes to a close, we wanted to see what they believe should be left behind in 2024 in order to help propel sustainability and growth in the year to come:

  • Our Founder David Fairhurst believes that the end of the year is a great time for HR leaders to be considering their key areas of focus for 2025, and this includes looking at what practices should be left behind in order to foster more innovative, inclusive, and employee-centric workplaces. This could be done by adopting outcome-centered models of managing performance, or placing a greater focus on strategic workforce planning to ensure the workforce is a future fit, or even looking into comprehensive wellbeing strategies to avoid employee burnout, to name a few. But what’s important to remember when looking at new practices is to be realistic, and this can be done by thinking of HR strategic objectives on three levels:
    • What are the basics that need to be maintained?
    • What are the areas that must continuously improve?
    • What are the big moves we need to focus on which will offer a transformative impact?
  • Anya Clitheroe would like to stop hearing managers complaining about the Gen Z workforce! This year she has heard so many managers making the blanket statement that Gen Z have been spoilt and they don’t want to work hard or that they don’t show any initiative. Instead, Anya would like them to find a way to engage the younger workforce in a way that interests them. Have they clearly communicated ways of working expectations, and have they found out what does motivate them? At the very least, they need to see that not every Gen Z can be identical in their workstyle preferences!
  • Speaking of leaders, Marty Belle believes that employers should leave behind rigidity and paternalistic leadership operating styles. These areas of inflexibility include enforcing Return to Work practices in cases where remote workers are more productive, or only offering fixed work schedules without taking into consideration some workers may not be morning people and would choose to work mid-day rather than early morning. Additionally, more flexible scheduling would accommodate childcare needs and parental involvement in their children’s extracurricular activities.
  • Building on this, Lauren Kincaid believes that employers should be leaving behind a one-size-fits all approach when it comes to employment policies and employee benefits. The more personalized the employment experience, the more seen, heard and valued an employee feels, resulting in better employee engagement, loyalty and performance.
  • Echoing Marty’s sentiment of rigidity, Sayid Hussein also believes employers should leave behind in 2024 a “9-to-5, in-office only” mentality. With advancements in technology and changing workforce dynamics, it’s time to embrace flexible working arrangements that prioritize outcomes over hours. Trusting employees to manage their time fosters creativity, improves retention, and acknowledges the diverse realities of modern life.
  • Speaking of mindsets, Karen Cerrato believes that employers should be leaving behind short-term thinking. Whether at a corporate level or a management level, if we want longevity out of our employees, Kanen believes that need to start thinking strategically and long term. The days of people staying in a job for 10 yrs + “just because”, are long gone; we need to give them a reason to want to stay:  
    • Reactive decision-making: Shift toward proactive strategies that prioritize long-term growth and stability.
    • Underinvestment in talent: Invest in professional development and career growth opportunities for employees.
    • Top-down communication only: Foster two-way communication to engage employees and encourage innovation.
  • Amanda Holland believes that employers need to be conducting their final Covid pandemic clean up: it’s time to finish assessing any processes or procedures developed specifically during the pandemic. Operationalize any efficiencies your company will be keeping by ensuring the language is up-to-date and free from pandemic references. Eliminate those policies, processes, and procedures that are no longer needed or applicable.
  • Ken Merritt believes that employers should be leaving behind ‘reluctance’. Several companies have been slow to hire and fast to retire because there has been a ‘cloud of reluctance’ hanging over the economy since 2022 – it’s time for employers to be leaving that behind for good in 2024.
  • Therese Procter knows that 2024 has been a very challenging year, with the key topics of remote working, political uncertainty, and the skills gap taking many of the highlight spots. But an area that she believes is often pushed down the agenda (whether this be due to the amount of effort and/or cost it requires) is mental and financial wellbeing. That’s why she believes that employers should be leaving behind poor and ineffective mental health support strategies and programs that are outdated and not fit for purpose, and instead take on a fresh approach to wellbeing this new year that better supports mental and financial aspects of life.

If you would like to get in touch with us about any of the points raised by our team, or if you have a different concerns that you were hoping to leave in 2024 and need assistance in shedding it, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today!

Equally, if you want some on-demand advice and strategies, why not book in a 1-hour private consultation with one of our seasoned HR professionals? Take a look at our OrgShakers CL!CK service for more details!

From all of us at OrgShakers, we wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!

Grief is often linked directly to death. Our minds will picture someone who has lost a loved one, thus kickstarting the grief cycle – also known as the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance).

But grief is more insidious than many employers and employees realize. Humans can feel grief for a variety of different reasons; we may grieve after a breakup, the time we wasted,  even knowledge or a skill set that has become outdated.

Just as loss comes in many forms, so does grief, and there are many instances in the workplace that can trigger the grief cycle. For example:

  • Loss of a Team Member – Employees today are much more mobile – especially with the mass adoption of remote working. Workers may find themselves grieving the loss of a valued team member who has moved on in their career. Or they may grieve the loss of comradery they experienced when they worked side by side rather than virtually.
  • Loss of a Leader – When a company leader moves on or retires, the stages of grief can flare to life. Leaders have a significant impact on a company and on team members. When leaders leave, it can take time to adapt to the workplace without them and employees may experience intense grief. To further complicate the experience, employees may be grieving while simultaneously having to adapt to a new leader.
  • Loss of Expertise – Individuals can experience acute grief when the work itself minimizes their hard-earned experience or expertise.  New technology can lead to new skills and knowledge, resulting in a previous expert becoming a novice overnight. Constantly changing mandates, policies, or procedures can also prompt the grief cycle when workers lose their standing as the resident expert or go-to resource in a given field, process, or system.
  • Loss of a Role – In-house promotions or job changes can result in compounded grieving. The new role has new responsibilities and requirements, which can emphasize a loss of proficiency. Concurrently, the newly promoted is no longer the go-to person for their previous role. This can manifest grief in those employees who relied on them as a resource. Sometimes, employees will deny the loss by expecting the individual to perform portions of their old job as well as the new role.

Sound familiar? These are just a few examples of the low- to mid-level grief employees can experience in the workplace. And while employees are going through this loss, employers may see an effect on productivity, engagement, and wellbeing. These reactions to loss are rarely recognized as grief behaviors and therefore take longer to understand and process effectively.

Employers who intentionally equip their teams with the mindfulness tools they need to recognize, acknowledge, and process their low-level grief can help employees advance to the ‘acceptance’ stage more efficiently, increasing overall employee wellbeing and engagement. Grief management activities can range from offering workshops around change management and grief in all its forms to actively promoting self-care and emotional intelligence. It’s also important for employers to highlight where employees can voice their concerns, reaffirming the wellbeing support available to the workforce.

It can feel silly to use such a heavy word like grief when talking about grappling with seemingly minor loss and change, but feeling loss is a very normal and common feeling that can have long-term, significant negative impact. Knowing how to recognize and manage grief can be a game changer in the pressure-filled retention and engagement arena. It can be the difference between working through a rough patch and being disrupted by a major roadblock.

If you would like to discuss how we can help build grief management skills and mitigate the effects of loss in the workplace due to change, please get in touch with me at amanda@orgshakers.com

More than one in ten employees have been victims of bullying in their workplace. As employers, this is an alarming statistic to hear, and this is why many workplaces have strict anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies in place to ensure that the culture of the workplace remains inclusive and welcoming to all.

However, it can get a bit trickier to manage bullying behaviors when they begin to slip into that elusive ‘grey area’. This is behavior that doesn’t necessarily fall into the black and white definitions of bullying (repeated unreasonable behaviour by an individual towards a worker (or group of workers) which creates a risk to health and safety) or harassment (behaviour that is or may be perceived to be offensive, abusive, belittling or threatening towards an individual or group or people based on a discriminatory characteristic). And yet, these behaviors still have the potential to have a negative impact on an employee and the wider work culture.

So, what are some of the grey areas of bullying that employers should be aware of?

  • Shouting – more than half (57%) of employees don’t consider shouting at work to be bullying, but is this always the case? Shouting at work has something that has become almost normalized by entertainment media creating the stereotypical angry boss character. But in reality, could shouting be considered bullying? It all comes down to context – are you shouting at one person in particular? Are you shouting aggressively or passionately? And is there ever really a need to shout at work in the first place? These things all need to be considered by employers in the face of an employee feeling bullied for this very reason.
  • Nicknames – nicknames are, more often than not, a harmless way of expressing camaraderie in the workplace, but employers must ensure that these names don’t use language that could be interpreted as demeaning in any way, as this can lead to individuals feeling victimized. 
  • Banter – the current workforce has the largest ever mix of generations working together, which means that lot of workplace banter risks being ‘lost in translation’ due to the fact that the boundaries of acceptability and what is tolerated have shifted so much across the decades. Consequently, what one person may intend as a joke, another may perceive quite differently. Having managers who have been trained to understand what is acceptable means that they can diffuse these situations and act accordingly if someone feels that banter is going too far. 
  • Physical Contact – physical contact can be a tricky one, but more often than not employers should encourage everyone to keep their hands to themselves (but this doesn’t mean that a friendly high five or introductory handshake can’t be shared). But for the most part, it’s best to avoid anything physical for fear this can be misinterpreted as a suggestive gesture.

With the rise of cancel culture and movements like Me Too, employers are now more obligated more than ever to ensure they are fostering a working environment where everyone feels safe and included. So, when it comes to managing these grey areas, employers simply have to take it as it comes. Context will play a key role in all of the above scenarios, and any more that may arise. It’s important to listen to the employees involve and investigate accordingly.

If you would like to discuss how we can help strengthen your anti-bullying policies, please get in touch with us today.

There has always been this outdated idea that in order to climb the ranks and come out on top you have to be ruthless, cutthroat, and manipulative. But in reality, there isn’t much evidence that supports this – one longitudinal study conducted over 14 years found that those who were selfish, aggressive, and manipulative were actually less likely to move up the ranks. It was those who were generous, kind, and agreeable who were more likely to be promoted to a position of power.

So how might they continue to be their authentic, kind self when in a position of authority? We can already see that kindness is by no means a symbol of weakness, but with a leadership role comes a certain expectation of having to make the hard decisions, delegate tasks, and maintain a sense of authority that some may feel gets diluted by a kind demeanour. The secret is not blurring the lines between kindness and friendship.

Kwame Christian – known for his work around compassionate curiosity – discusses how the best advice he was ever given was that to be successful, you need to be respected rather than liked. And this notion is particularly poignant when it comes to balancing kindness and authority in a way that leads to the respect of your peers rather than their affection.

Leaders have to actively be reinforcing professional boundaries with their team; you don’t have to be friends with the people who work for you to know them and what’s important to them, both in and outside the workplace. It’s about having and fostering that benevolent concern for your team in a respectful way.

As with many aspects of communication, it’s important to check your intention. Leaders should always be taking a step back when making a decision and think about why they are deciding this. This can be incredibly helpful when having to deliver difficult decisions or an undesired outcome to an employee, as it offers them an insight into why you have come to this conclusion and why it is a necessary one for the wider health of the company.

What I have personally found to be particularly effective in these instances is having an insight into the workstyle preferences of the people I am working with. Years ago, I had a boss who would frequently change her mind on the direction she wanted something to go in, which would require consistent reworking from me to the point that I once ended up on version 37 of the draft! Whilst this was frustrating, I now realize that if my boss and I had undergone a process like SurePeople’s psychometric assessment, I would have seen from her Prism profile what kind of a leader she was and how her decision-making process worked. Having that insight would have helped me better understand how to work with her needs, just as her having access to my own profile would give her an insight into how I worked best. Leaders who have access to tools such as Prism will find it much more manageable to have those more difficult conversations with their team members.

Overall, it can be a tricky thing to be a leader who is nice and kind but whose authority is still respected. That’s why I believe it’s best to steer away from the notion of being the leader who wants to be pals with everyone and instead focus more on being the leader who offers everyone respect and expects this back in return.

If you would like to discuss the executive coaching services that we offer, or if you would like to get a deeper understanding into the Prism psychometric profiling technology, please get in touch with me at anya@orgshakers.com

Employers spend a lot of time creating and implementing strategies to help manage and mitigate stress in the workplace. After all, excessive stress can lead to health issues, lower productivity, and increase the risk of burnout. But not all stress is ‘bad stress’.

Psychologists actually separate stress into two distinct categories: eustress and distress. While distress is the harmful type that leads to all of the outcomes listed above, eustress is known as ‘positive stress’ – this is the stress that enhances motivation, focus, and even wellbeing. Eustress acts as a powerful tool for driving personal growth and resilience, helping employees to thrive in challenging situations (which, let’s face it, are going to sometimes be unavoidable at work).

The point is, stress isn’t always a bad thing, despite its negative connotations. When we feel stressed about something, it’s often a signal that it truly matters to us—that we care deeply about the outcome. This awareness can sometimes provide the extra push and motivation we need to take action and achieve our goals.  

Creating a workplace environment where stress serves as a motivator rather than a burden requires a delicate balance. The goal should be to empower employees to handle manageable challenges without crossing into the territory of excessive pressure. There are a few ways employers can do this:

  • Culture of Purpose – when employees feel a sense of purpose in their work, moderate stress becomes easier to manage and even desirable. This sense of purpose can transform potentially stressful situations into positive experiences that foster engagement and long-term job satisfaction. Employers therefore have to make an active effort to help employees understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture of the organization’s goals.
  • Sense of Control – when people have control over how they manage stressors, stress becomes less overwhelming. This is linked to the psychological concept of perceived control, which is the perception that one has the ability, resources, or opportunities to achieve positive outcomes or avoid negative effects through one’s own actions. Studies have shown associations with perceived control and the management of stress, so those employers who are giving their employees a say in their workload, deadlines, or how they tackle projects are more likely to foster positive stress that fuels performance.
  • Recognition and Reward – if employees feel that their hard work is acknowledged, the stress they endure can become meaningful – even enjoyable – as it’s directly linked to recognition and reward. This positive reinforcement reassures employees that their efforts are appreciated, helping them associate stress with growth and achievement rather than struggle. It’s therefore imperative for employers to have recognition programs in place that highlight not only successes but also the hard work and effort that lead to their success.
  • Supportive Environment – a supportive environment is crucial when turning stress into a positive motivator. This is why it’s important for staff to know that they can rely on their teams for support and guidance, as this results in stress becoming more of a shared experience rather than an individual burden to bear. Encouraging team building activities and creating opportunities for collaboration can aid in fostering this supportive environment where stress can remain moderate and positive.

Everything is okay in moderation – even stress. Eustress can be a powerful motivator that helps employees reach new heights of performance, but the challenge is creating a work environment where this stress is stimulating rather than overwhelming. If you would like to discuss how we can help you harness the power of positive stress, please get in touch with me at karen.cerrato@orgshakers.com, contact us through our website, or book in a 1-hour consultation with one of our seasoned HR professionals for instant advice through our OrgShakers CL!CK consultation service.

Up to 70% of companies with flexible work schedules are planning to increase the days employees must work in the office by 2025. However, with many major companies – including Disney, Apple, Google, and Zoom – issuing ‘Return To Office’ (RTO) mandates this year, there has been a significant rise in the latest ‘quiet’ rebellion … ‘hushed hybrid’ working.

‘Hushed hybrid’ working is when, contrary to company policy, managers quietly allow some employees to work from home or work flexibly. According to a survey by Owl Labs, 70% of managers have allowed team members to work from home despite an official company policy mandating otherwise.

The rise in this trend signifies a strong disconnect between executives and middle managers that could result in unwanted ripple effects if this gap were to widen.

As first point of contact between employees and the wider organization, it’s important that middle managers feel able to communicate employee feedback to the company’s leadership. However, the rise of this trend suggests that many middle managers believe senior leaders are not prepared to listen to employee’s views on hybrid work, preferring instead to stand behind their RTO mandates.

But whilst ‘hushed hybrid’ working may provide middle managers and their teams with a convenient workaround, it is an ultimately unsustainable solution that could damage the wider culture of the organization.

For one thing, managers letting some if their team quietly work from home whilst others are required to come into the office will inevitably create tension between employees. Pair this with the element of secrecy that is rooted in ‘hushed hybrid’, and you create a recipe that could result in a workplace culture which becomes ‘toxic’.

In addition to this, ‘hushed hybrid’ also plays a role in the widening the gap between policy and practice, which should be a huge ‘red flag’ for HR as, if RTO policies are not being followed by managers, it raises alarms of what other policies are being flouted or simply ignored.

All of this risks a collapse of trust across the organization.

Instead, middle managers need to feel that they can openly and honestly communicate with their leaders to give feedback on policies that don’t seem to be working well.

We have all seen the problems with the rise of these ‘quiet’ trends since the pandemic ended, so it’s important for employers to break the cycle of these hushed practices by fostering a culture of openness and honesty so that they can enhance their workplace culture and become an employer of choice.

If you would like to discuss how we can help coach your leaders in communication, as well as foster a culture of openness in your workplace, please get in touch with us today, or book in an hour with one of our experienced HR practitioners through our confidential online consultation service OrgShakers CL!CK.

As we look to 2025, enlightened organizations will be planning to invest in enhancing the capabilities of their senior leaders.

Why now?

Because across multiple areas of business, opportunities are emerging to gain significant competitive and commercial advantage – and smart companies know that seizing these opportunities means shaking things up: Appointing new leaders. Building new teams. Giving existing teams important new goals and objectives. Enabling and empowering executives to think and act differently. Strengthening working relationships across the senior leadership group.

And for these changes to be successfully implemented, the development of key executives is vital.

At the same time, cost management is at the forefront of the C-suite’s agenda, which is why we have created the Executive Action Series – a leadership development program which is laser-focused on the five areas that will create the greatest return on investment:

1. Customer Experience

Customers are the fuel that keeps the fire burning for organizations, and so 2025 needs to be all about driving customer experience. This means personalized marketing that delivers what someone needs when they need it, an easy setup and installation, and efficient problem resolution. The idea is that companies will be creating business strategies that promote a sense of individuality and value for each customer, making their experience unique to them and putting their specific needs at the forefront.

2. Generative AI

A recent survey from Access Partnership discovered that 93% of employers expect to use generative AI in the workplace in the next five years. While the presence of AI isn’t necessarily new, generative AI has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for organizations, and is seemingly the harbinger for the age of working smart. But in order to optimize its uses, business leaders need to have a deep understanding of generative AI to unlock its full potential.

3. Remote and Hybrid Working

The tug-of-war between employers issuing ‘return to office’ mandates and employees wanting flexible working arrangements has been going on since lockdown ended. But aside from flexibility being a strategy for attracting talent, the digitalization of the working world has seen the barriers of place and time evaporate, allowing organizations to gain access to the best talent on a global scale. Hybrid and remote work, if managed successfully, can play a huge role in a business’ economic strategy.

4. Skills-Based Hiring

Employers have increasingly relaxed their need for qualifications in favor of skills, aptitude, and attitude. Skills-based hiring continues to gain momentum, and by identifying areas where this can be woven into business strategy, employers will catalyze social mobility and foster a more diverse workforce.

5. Resilience

An organization that can foster resilience is going to be best prepared for disruptive events that can happen at any given moment (economic downturns, cyber-attacks, global pandemics, etc.). Having the knowledge to recognize, predict, and mitigate risk will be fundamental to the health and sustainability of a business.

The Executive Action Series is divided into five modules that are spread across the corporate calendar. Each module covers the theory behind best practices, and then brings these to life through a combination of case studies, real-world scenarios, and visits to organizations where these practices can be experienced first-hand. Participants will also hear directly from world-class subject matter experts, as well as collaborating with other leaders in their organization.

Executive Action Series

Each module will help equip leaders with a variety of new tools and knowledge that will create resilience and sustainability for the future:

Module #1: Leadership Portrait

We use comprehensive diagnostics, alongside personal and team reflection, to gain actionable insights into individual leadership brand and enhance contributions to team effectiveness. We also consider how the ensuing levels of trust allow leaders to leverage differences of opinions for enhanced outcomes.

Module #2: Shaping Strategy Through Customers, Diversity & AI

Together, we examine the impact on strategy of three levers that the research above identifies as critical to current success: customer experience, workforce diversity, and generative AI. Further, we introduce world-class thought leaders to facilitate discussions about key issues that will be important to future success.

Module #3: Activating Strategy

At this stage, we explore a range of powerful tools for activating strategy through operations, including effective leadership of large-scale change and the impact of operational choices on customer experience. We also introduce the concept of the Program Acceleration Office as a best practice for optimizing a portfolio of projects.

Module #4: Winning Through Talent

Knowing that 46% of CEOs have Talent in their Top-3 immediate priorities, we explore the evolution of the workplace and the talent strategies that will help us win the war for talent. What can senior leaders do to enable the recruitment, development, and retention of the right people across the right organization?

Module #5: Sustaining and Evolving a Resilient Strategy

To sustain success, we must smooth out the peaks and troughs that are typical of ongoing change. We explore the latest methods of building strength and flexibility throughout the organization to cultivate resilience across your workforce, your culture, and your strategy, and to help weather turbulent business cycles.

To ensure skills and insights gained from the program are applied when executives return to the workplace, Program Guides will provide virtual facilitation between modules and encourage ongoing collaboration through small group peer support coaching.

If you would like to discuss the Executive Action Series in more detail, please get in touch with us via gordon.robinson@orgshakers.com or anya@orgshakers.com

As we continue to navigate new technologies and advancements in AI, it can be challenging for employers to keep up with the rules of the working world when the rules are always changing. That’s why this month we’re recommending Gary A. Bolles’s The Next Rules of Work: The Mindset, Skillset and Toolset to Lead Your Organization Through Uncertainty.

Gary is the Chair for the Future of Work with Singularity University and a Partner in strategy consulting firm Charette, LLC. As a globally recognized expert on the future of work, he regularly consults with C-suite leaders of global companies, labor and education leaders from Brazil to Canada, and global non-profits.

This vast amount of experience and expertise has been channelled into his latest book, which acts as a guide for employers to thrive in the modern economy where the rules of work are changing almost as fast as people can learn them.

‘Old rules’ have long dominated modern companies – under this ethos, bosses embraced the idea of presenteeism and the basic hierarchical structure that leaders called the shots and workers obeyed. But the new way of working is shedding these old rules, and in its place the ‘Next Rules’ are emerging.

Those companies embracing these new rules are following a new mindset. Managers are not the source of all knowledge, but rather the guides who help workers achieve their goals and flow in the right direction. It’s about embracing innovation, creative thinking, and autonomy to result in a workplace that is fluid enough that it can take change in its stride whilst still growing in an upwards direction.

However, change has always been a tough pill to swallow, for employers and employees alike. But if employers are proactive about change and creating and implementing strategies to mitigate change fatigue, then those businesses can thrive under the new rules of work.

Gary’s book captures the notion of change and the mindsets that are needed to thrive from it expertly, pooling his own knowledge with psychological data and analytics to create a guide that all employers should read if they want their organization to not just survive, but thrive in a contemporary working world.

If you would like to discuss how we can help you strengthen your change management strategies, please get in touch with us today.

And in the meantime, make sure you grab a copy of The Next Rules of Work – you can purchase it here in the UK and here in the US.

You can do a lot in sixty minutes.

In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright marked the dawn of aviation with their FOUR successful sustained human flights. All four of these happened in the space of just one hour!

In 2022, Filippo Ganna cycled 56.8km in one hour setting a new world record. To achieve this, he sustained an average speed of over 35mph for a full 60-minutes. Try matching that at your next spinning class!

And, today, it’s estimated that Jeff Bezos will be earing around $3.5 million an hour.
(So, Jeff, if you read the whole of this article it will have taken up just $120,000 of your valuable time which I’m sure you’ll agree is great value!)

What we are seeing here is that although 60-minites may seem like a relatively short amount of time – the length of a lunch break, the time it takes to travel home, the duration of an episode of TV – it’s also possible for an hour to be highly productive … and maybe even groundbreaking.

At OrgShakers, we believe in The Power of the Hour … 60-minutes where leaders can bounce around ideas, receive expert advice, or get the objective feedback they need to start something incredible. After all, every successful business we’ve come to know started with an idea – and someone who was willing to listen.

That’s why we have launched our brand-new consulting service: OrgShakers CL!CK.

OrgShakers CL!CK is a one-hour, private and confidential online consultation with one of our seasoned HR professionals. It offers instant advice and is designed specifically for those times when you need help figuring out how to overcome a challenge, when you need advice on your HR processes, or if you simply just want a sounding board for new ideas to see what sticks.

With years of first-hand corporate experience on a global scale, our team can advise you on any HR question you may have, whether that be the day-to-day tactical challenges or a complex strategic issue.

If you would like to learn more about this service and book in time with one of our team members, head over to https://orgshakers.com/orgshakers-click/

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