How COVID-19 has accelerated the future of work

To close out the first season of the HR Trends podcast, Clare Morin welcomes futurist Ravin Jesuthasan, co-author of the new book Work without Jobs, and Greg Till, EVP and Chief People Officer of Providence Health Systems. They discuss how the pandemic has accelerated ten years of transformation in two years, and what the future holds for workers and employers.  Key TakeawaysThe pandemic put the tech-fueled transformation of the workplace on hyperdrive. “Alvin Toffler wrote about in 1970 that we’d soon all be living in electronic cottages, liberated from the offices,” Jesuthasan says. “Yet as of March 2020, only 6% of jobs were being done remotely full time. That number went to 56% overnight.” (4:40) The new focus is on flexibility, resilience, and agility. “We talk about these black swan events as though they’re the rarest of beasts, but we’ve had at least three major shocks the past 20 years—we had 9/11, we had the financial crisis, and COVID. [There’s a need] to be prepared for both shocks and opportunities, that’s what we see as really being at the heart of this pivot toward agility.” (8:30)Predictive hiring lets you get ahead of the labor market. “We can predict our hiring needs based on patient volumes and revenues with about 90­­–­95% accuracy,” says Till. “It typically takes five months to fill an ICU nurse role, and we can open up the requisition five months in advance of someone leaving.” (14:30)Reducing the dull and the dangerous through automation. Nurse scheduling, which would take a human hours to complete, can be done in about ten seconds using artificial intelligence and machine learning – while considering employee preferences and accommodating flexibility. It’s saved Providence Health an estimated $130 million. (15:00)Fluidity will create a more human-centered enterprise. “We’ve gone from very structured approaches to work, where people/humans were cogs in the machine,” says Jesuthasan. “Tight and precise job definitions, job architectures that were tied to the way processes were executed, one-to-one relationship between person and role.”  (18:31)Businesses shouldn’t be intimidated by the scale of possible change. “Don’t let it be daunting,” says Till. “A lot of things in Ravin’s book—in healthcare, because we’re highly regulated, we can’t implement wholesale.  We’re taking some really pragmatic aspects of a visionary philosophy and applying it in reality. Saving 130 million dollars and staffing more effectively to meet our community’s needs.” (28:00)Featured speakers: Ravin JesuthasanGlobal Leader for Transformation Services, MercerRavin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s Transformation Services business. He is recognized globally as a thought leader, futurist and author on the future of work and workforce transformation. Ravin has led numerous research projects for the World Economic Forum including many of its groundbreaking studies on the transformation of work and the global workforce.  Greg TillChief People OfficerProvidence Health SystemsGreg Till is the Chief People Officer of Providence Health Systems. In this role, Greg and his team aim to transform healthcare by bringing their innovative vision for the future of work to life. Using modern technology, unique partnerships, and grounded in Providence’s mission, Greg’s HR team has been able to effectively predict and shape labor needs, optimize workforce utilization, and significantly lower costs, while improving employee experience and strengthening the culture.