globalworkforce-survey

25 Jul Global Workforce Survey: Ready to Adapt to New Working Methods

Posted in GenAI, Global Mobility by

Change is pervasive in today’s workplaces, and employees are acutely feeling its impact. PwC’s latest Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey, the fifth installment since 2019, reveals that more than half of workers feel overwhelmed by the pace of change, and 44% are unclear about its necessity. Concurrently, many report increased workloads, job security concerns, and ongoing financial challenges.

However, it’s not all negative. Many employees are optimistic and engaged, ready to adapt to new working methods. A significant number are eager to upskill and see the potential in leveraging generative AI (GenAI) to enhance efficiency. More than half of the respondents are optimistic about their company’s future due to recent changes.

These findings, drawn from over 56,000 workers across 50 countries and regions, depict a global workforce navigating the present while eyeing the future. Despite the pressures of today, global mobility specialists will like to know workers are open to future challenges. Yet, the need for clear communication from leaders is paramount. Employees must understand and support the changes for transformation plans to succeed.

This year’s survey highlights six critical actions that C-suite leaders and global mobility managers must take to build a change-ready workforce across key transformation themes: leading through transformation, unleashing the power of GenAI, and fueling performance through upskilling and the employee experience.

Leading through transformation

Many employees are embracing workplace changes, with three out of five feeling optimistic about their company’s future due to recent changes. However, even positive changes can be stressful, especially with an intense transformation rate. Nearly two-thirds of employees experienced more change last year than the previous one, and one-third faced four or more significant changes.

Leaders must support their workforce amidst this transformation. Two key actions can help:

  1. Lead in new ways to build resilience among a stressed-out workforce. With nearly half of respondents experiencing increased workloads and new technologies, the risk of change fatigue is high. Financial stress and job security concerns add to their anxiety. Leaders should prioritize well-being, fostering a culture that values work-life balance and transparent communication. Transformative leadership that inspires resilience is essential, especially for middle managers who often face the brunt of organizational pressures.
  2. Engage employees on change to drive transformation. Business leaders and employees largely agree on the impact of major forces like technology and climate change on jobs. However, leaders must communicate the reasons for change clearly, linking megatrends to company strategy and individual roles. Engaging and inspiring employees with a vision for the future is crucial for successful transformation efforts.

Unleashing the power of GenAI

While GenAI has potential, its widespread workplace use is still emerging. To maximize benefits, leaders must empower their workforce to experiment with GenAI and address challenges hindering its adoption. Two actions can help:

  1. Help employees lead on innovation. Both workers and CEOs recognize inefficiencies in administrative tasks that GenAI could streamline. However, employees need access to GenAI tools and upskilling opportunities. Leaders should encourage experimentation and a citizen-led innovation approach.
  2. Instill confidence in GenAI. Employees acknowledge GenAI’s strengths and weaknesses, with concerns about bias and misinformation. Leaders must ensure clear governance, guidelines, and training for responsible AI use. Transparent communication about AI systems and employee feedback channels are vital.

Fueling performance through upskilling and the employee experience

Job satisfaction has slightly improved, but many employees still consider switching employers. Upskilling and a positive employee experience are critical to retaining talent and fostering engagement.

  1. Recognize how critical skill-building is to workers. Upskilling is a key differentiator for employees deciding to stay with an employer. Companies should ensure all employees have skill development opportunities, leveraging on-the-job training, mentorship, and a culture of learning.
  2. Prioritize the employee experience for performance. Addressing gaps in pay, fulfillment, and flexibility is essential. Fair pay, flexibility, and meaningful work are top factors for employee engagement. Leaders should simplify technology setups and provide integrated tools to ease workloads and improve efficiency.

By focusing on these actions, leaders can build a future-fit workforce ready to thrive in an age of transformation. Furthermore, addressing the underlying factors that contribute to employee stress and dissatisfaction can foster a more resilient, innovative, and committed workforce. This proactive approach not only mitigates the risks associated with rapid change but also capitalizes on the opportunities it presents, driving long-term success for both employees and organizations.

Unleashing the power of GenAI

The true potential for groundbreaking innovations with GenAI will come from workers themselves, particularly those who use it most. However, widespread use of GenAI in the workplace hasn’t yet caught on. Although 61% of workers say they’ve used GenAI at work at least once in the past 12 months, far fewer are using it on a daily or even weekly basis.

To maximize the benefits of GenAI, leaders must empower their workforce to experiment and use it to rethink how work gets done. They must also address the challenges that keep some employees (and leaders) from exploring its capabilities, such as not seeing opportunities to use it in their line of work. And they must enable employees to gain the skills needed to get the most out of GenAI, in addition to continuing to help them build the human skills they also want, such as communication, leadership, and problem-solving. PwC’s recently published AI Jobs Barometer calculates that skills sought by employers are changing at a 25% higher rate in occupations most able to use AI.

Where to focus: Creating efficiencies with GenAI is important, but it’s only scratching the surface. The promise of GenAI lies in going beyond simply improving the way work gets done to using it as a means for growth. That comes from giving employees the freedom to innovate and iterate, such as through a citizen-led approach and by empowering employees to interact with new digital intelligence to fill gaps in creativity and innovation. The fastest way to get your business to adapt to new technologies and ways of working is to empower your people to experiment with both.

It’s also essential to upskill everyone on GenAI regardless of industry or role. Even if the benefits of GenAI are not immediately apparent in all areas, there may still be opportunities for employees to optimize their work processes or support decision-making using AI technologies. In addition, given that the ongoing advancement of AI technology is likely to significantly impact virtually all industries and job roles, upskilling everyone can help prepare workers—which helps ensure that employees are not left behind as industries evolve.

In addition, senior leaders can lead by example. Only about one in five senior executives and 17% of managers say they’re using GenAI daily—a clear call to action for leaders to upskill and use GenAI as much as employees do, not just for their own work, but so that they can coach workers on ways to use it in theirs.

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