Origami: "Future of Work" Getting Started

Origami is the art?of paper folding, which is often associated with Japanese culture. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques. ?Paper in our life has been replaced by technology, similarly the world of work is changing. Artificial intelligence and automation will make this shift as significant as the mechanization did in the prior generations of agriculture and manufacturing. The COVID-19 crisis accelerated existing trends and caused organizations to re-evaluate many aspects of work: future of work, workforce, and workplace.

Future Fit Skills: This time it’s personal. Shaping the ‘new possible’: This is currently an era of workplace upheaval and will become even more important for companies that create tailored, authentic experiences, strengthen employee purpose, ignite energy, and elevate organization-wide performance, will become employer of choice for generations to come. There will be major workforce transitions for millions across the industries, many of whom face a widening skills gap and other challenges. And because more and more roles are becoming disaggregated and fluid, work will increasingly be defined in terms of skills. In Unilever, we are in the journey of bringing Future Fit Plan for all team members. This is our fresh approach to development planning supporting a more holistic outlook towards building the skills we need. Being curious and learning Future Fit Skills are going to be extraordinary for surviving and accelerating.

At Unilever, Flex Experiences is a tool for upskilling and reskilling our employees. It is a talent marketplace powered by AI that matches employees with project opportunities globally cross functional, cross geographical that were created and posted by team leads to access internal talent across the organisation at speed. The platform empowers employees to develop themselves in line with their Future Fit plan by building skills and gaining new experiences through these projects.

Experiment Future Fit Work. Great Resignation or Great Attraction: The Choice: A record number of employees are quitting or thinking about doing so. Organizations that take the time to learn why—and act thoughtfully—will have an edge in attracting and retaining talent. Organisations who are willing to look at work skills differently, is willing to challenge old norms: employment model, ways of working and pay attention to employees, will survive, and thrive. Untimely organisation who crave investment in the human aspects of work, will become choice for workforce.

At Unilever, we are making an attempt to define new employment models as either pro-active (pull) or reactive (push). Pro-active models are where we promote opportunities to work or learn differently and allow the individual to choose to access them when they feel ready.

Another sincere attempt to challenge and bring Agile in Unilever. Components of an agile organisation - dynamics of an agile workforce allow the team / individual to focus on value and impact aligned with business strategy. Workforce shifts from a fixed to a growth mindset (creative, continuous learning, high energy, embraces uncertainty, willing to risk and possibly fail). This creates a shift away from rigid processes, policies and structures to more nimble delivery that emphasises prioritisation of work based on value, demonstrates incremental value and real time feedback. This also helps Self-organisation of teams around areas of customer and consumer value rather than skillsets that fosters decentralised decision making and cross-functional.

The Future Fit Workplace after COVID 19. People with Purpose Grow. The pandemic accelerated existing trends in remote work, e-commerce, focus on health & wellbeing, with up to more than 50 percent workers are not willing to compromise on remote work (or refusing to come to office everyday of week). Considering only remote work that can be done without a loss of productivity, its estimated that about 20 to 25 percent of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week. This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic and could prompt a large change in the geography of work, as individuals and companies shift out of large cities into suburbs and small cities. It is also experienced that some work that technically can be done remotely is best done in person. Negotiations, critical business decisions, brainstorming sessions, providing sensitive feedback, and onboarding new employees are examples of activities that may lose some effectiveness when done remotely. However, it is also estimated that more workers will stick to organisation which will provide flexibility at all fronts, will keep pushing boundary for inclusive workplace and eventually bring heart & mind together with purpose.

During pandemic, as the industry moved towards working from home we at Unilever Australia New Zealand pushed our boundaries and needed to continue to find new ways to remain one of ANZ’s leading employers of choice. We launched as an experiment 4 Days Week in New Zealand on behalf of Unilever. The 4-day working week is based upon principles outlined. In simple term, it is 100% pay, 80% time and 100% productivity. Once the result is final, we will take decision for future. However, one year gone by and progress has been encouraging, has given us some amazing learnings. Ultimately, the 4-day work week is a great experiment to take the speed, agility, productivity, and flexibility of Unilever NZ to the next level.

Future Fit Environment (Workplace): Getting more precise on what inclusion really means:?What is good for equality is good for economy and society as well. In Australia New Zealand Unilever our effort has been the frontrunner for building an inclusive organisation where all individuals feel safe, valued and supported. We have DE&I Board which meets quarterly to engage, sponsor & sign off DE&I interventions, driven by cross functional, cross Business Units team that drives initiatives across the business. Purely volunteer based, on top of the day jobs, that is the best part! Close linkage with external industry networks, partnership that inspires us on this agenda. We were one of 1st FMCG company awarded by Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) and continue to be getting awarded as Employer of Choice since 2018.

Inclusion is primary goal for us as an organisation, this is our next big effort. Unconscious bias in the workplace is a performance issue unless this is carefully looked at and will be pillar for Inclusive organisation. Everyone has biases. The human brain evolved to embrace biases as survival mechanisms. The brain receives an enormous load of information. To deal with the gargantuan task of processing this input, it devised shortcuts, such as putting people, things and events into categories, so one doesn’t have to analyse every piece of information. “If you were to say, ‘I don’t have bias,’ you’d be saying your brain isn’t functioning properly!” To tackle, learn and develop plans, all Leadership teams in Unilever have undergone a training program: “#Unstereotype : Leadership for Purpose & Performance”. In coming months, years, effort will be to work on unconscious biases, which will ultimately become our edge.

Last week, I had a LinkedIn post and asking question what is Future of work? 59% voted “How the work done?”, 20% said “Definition is unclear”, 12% “Where the work done & rest 10% mentioned who does the work”. In summary, based upon some reading, a bit of experience on Future of work: this concept is evolving. Above few points made hopefully describes changes: how work will get done over the next decade, who will do this with ever evolving skills enhancement, influenced by technological, generational and social shifts and who will do them, and a great inclusive workplace will be hygiene. Future of work: Getting Started. Go out, experiment, learn, share success & failure. It’s all in our hands how to create Origami: Future of work.

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