Crisis as catalyst: Preperation for workforce plans

Deloitte’s survey shows that one of the key uncertainties around the world is how quickly labor markets will bounce back from COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions as companies recalibrate both customer preferences and alternative delivery methods. The companies in Deloitte’s survey express caution about their hiring plans for the coming year, with only 11 percent predicting an increase in headcount and 8 percent projecting a decline. The remaining 81 percent of the market is split between holding current employment levels steady, hiring on a contract basis, or hiring on a limit ed basis. Interestingly, companies with high resilience scores say they are more likely to hire in the year ahead.

In addition to managing their workforce needs against rebounding demand in the coming year, many businesses will be trying to determine what changes to the nature of work may persist beyond the pandemic and redesigning their organizations to match the new realities. Seventy-one percent of the respondents rate transforming their work, workforce, and workplace as being important or highly important to building resilience within their organization.

As the focus shifts from recovering to the pursuit of thriving, organizations may benefit from taking a more human-centric approach to dealing with future disruptions. Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report reveals how leading businesses are beginning to integrate wellbeing into work by focusing on meeting the needs of various worker segments, building digital wellness and productivity, and giving workers more autonomy to make meaningful decisions about what and how they contribute.

Some private companies have already laid the groundwork for this by employing flexible workforce arrangements and redesigning their organizations to be more agile and accomplish more with smaller, independent teams. Such moves have helped private companies in Deloitte’s survey build resiliency- 19 percent say they have fully transformed the nature of work at their organizations already and 38 percent say they are midway through such changes. And now those efforts are positioning them to add to their ranks, as those with high resilience scores say they are more likely to supplement their workforce in the coming year than those at the low end (66 percent versus 48 percent).

Another area where highly resilient businesses stand out is their focus on building organizations that are more representative of the communities in which they operate. Research shows that organizations with above-average diversity produced a greater proportion of revenue from innovation than those with below-average diversity, which translated into stronger overall financial performance. Leveraging a diverse and inclusive workforce, among the least important growth strategies for companies with low resilience scores, was a much higher strategic priority for those in the top tier.