Building the Number One Talent Experience in the New World of Work

Now with a year under my belt as Deloitte Consulting’s Chief Talent & Responsibility Officer, I wanted to take a moment to step back and explain why I jumped into this role, my passion for talent development, and some of the biggest areas that I’m focused on as we continue building the number one talent experience for our professionals.

While my career path might not mirror that of other talent leaders who have come up through the ranks in talent-specific roles, I believe this is my secret weapon. I’ve been operationally enmeshed in everything related to talent from all sides over the years, instead of only having the perspective of a talent team member. I’ve been a recruiter, coach, mentor, team leader, client leader, offering leader, and more, and I’ve been able to see where we’ve been strong at engaging and supporting our talent – and where there’s room for growth.

When it comes to that growth, I’m focused on three major priority areas:

1.?????How to take a new approach to succeed in a new world of work

2.?????How to create a future of work that works for everyone

3.?????How to ensure our workforce can keep up with the future work

A New Approach for a New World of Work

As the way we work continues to evolve, now is the opportunity for thinking bigger. Whether we want it to or not, the future of work will look different and break traditional orthodoxies. How can we do the same? How can we embrace a disruptor mentality and look to not just adapt previous rules, but break them to create a better future?

There’s so much possibility if you take a moment and think beyond the orthodoxies you’ve always known. For example, how can we rethink our overarching models of work beyond just remote, in-person, and hybrid? How can we think about flexibility beyond just location and schedule? How can we continue to build our culture, advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, and foster connection?

As someone who prides himself on understanding how to navigate change and which rules are made to be broken, there’s never been a more exciting time to lead Deloitte Consulting’s talent priorities and have the opportunity to tackle these questions head-on.

A Future of Work that Works for Everyone

Regardless of exactly what the future of work looks like, it’s clear that culture is going to be a huge part of the puzzle. I think that one of the biggest drivers of the Great Resignation has been that people lost connectivity to their organization. Organizations need to figure out how to build this connectivity and culture in new and different ways to attract and retain top talent. This undertaking is critical not only to a company’s future as a business but also to making the future of work better by making it more welcoming to all types of people.

For example, the consulting industry has traditionally been known for having a heavy travel schedule, which can lend itself to a culture that excludes some people who aren’t willing or able to travel that much. Over the last few years, we’ve actively rolled out new hybrid work guidance so that our organization and culture are welcoming to everyone, including those with health issues or caregiving responsibilities that might make heavy travel difficult. That way, those people feel like they belong at Deloitte, and we benefit from their experience instead of losing them to another organization.

We’re also renewing our focus on well-being. This is something that I believe is critical to a workplace that works for everyone and helps us build a culture that people want to be a part of because they feel valued and are not just seen as employees. I don’t see well-being as a destination, but rather a journey. Individuals have their own version of what works for them and there is not a one-size fits all approach, however, it seems that recently well-being has been more focused on what you do outside of work. We are shifting the conversation to be more focused on how we can improve our well-being in the flow of work as part of everyone’s every day. This was a big focus during Deloitte’s Well-being Week in December! ?

Ensuring our Workforce Can Keep Up With the Future of Work

Today’s companies are larger and more complex than ever, with diverse workstreams, clients, and customers, and they will only become more so in the future. This means that our workforce must also be diverse in order to keep up. We need to be looking at different skill sets and experiences than we might have in the past.

I’ve always been a proponent of continuous learning, and I think it’s great so many companies are focusing on upskilling and reskilling initiatives to help their workforces meet the demands of future work. But there are a lot of other aspects to consider here as well. For example, as you start to bring in different types of workers with different experiences, how can you still maintain a single, strong company culture? How do you keep a focus on diversifying and upskilling your workforce while your company continues to grow, and the world continues to change?

One thing I think will have a big ripple effect is creating more flexibility in the talent experience to better retain the diverse types of talent required to serve our businesses. What do I mean by that? Well, whereas we used to mainly employ what you think of as traditional consultants, we now have teams filled with everyone from creative marketing professionals to highly trained technical engineers. The way these different types of colleagues work and grow in their careers is probably different, so why should we just have a one-size-fits-all talent model? By creating more unique, diverse, and customized talent models, we create better environments and career paths for those employees – which makes them more likely to want to work at Deloitte.

What’s Next

This may seem like a daunting task, but I’ve always approached my career with a coach’s mentality – how can we listen, learn something new, and improve what we’re doing? My goal is to continue applying that same mindset to how we think about talent and work.

As we navigate the path to the future of work together, I’m grateful for the trust the team has placed in me to break the rules necessary to make our talent experience the best, most inclusive, and most resilient it can be for the long term.