Council Post: Five Lessons For Business Leaders To Apply In 2022
Mark Roberts is CMO at TPx Communications, responsible for marketing worldwide, driving growth opportunities and building brand recognition.
It’s hard to believe we are entering another year under the cloud of the pandemic. Given the circumstances in which we find ourselves, I think we should stop looking at the situation like it will soon be over.
To be successful in the new year, we should stop looking at the world through the lens of how we operated pre-pandemic and how we operated since the start of the pandemic. Instead, we should recognize that the workplace and the world are constantly evolving and that this just represents the latest shift.
Have a well-communicated plan.
No one would opt for the past two years if they were given a choice. However, we can learn from those years, live with this new reality and set ourselves and our organizations up for future success.
But it begins with how well we tell our story and how we build support for our path forward.
The pandemic clearly emphasized the importance of planning for the unexpected. If few anticipated the pandemic, we should recognize how our sense of normalcy and routines can easily be upended.
Success in 2022 begins with a plan for navigating and thriving in the new landscape. However, a plan is only as good as its implementation, and communications should play a key role in building support for its rollout and implementation.
Increase diversity.
While we’ve been jumping from one crisis to another amid the pandemic, it’s time for communications teams to get in front of the narrative. Communications leaders should work with their organizations’ senior leadership teams to build and implement a plan for sharing a revised vision in the new workplace.
The key to any plan is making sure team members understand how they can support it and benefit from its implementation and success. In order for a rollout of a new plan to be successful, leaders should be sure to obtain broad organizational buy-in.
In addition to making it easier to find and hire the right talent, I’ve found that remote work also allows organizations to assemble the most diverse teams possible.
EisnerAmper’s 2021 executive survey revealed that 79% had taken steps to improve diversity and inclusion over the past year. We should celebrate this positive progress while also recognizing that more work remains.
Make technology a centerpiece of the path forward.
Much like a new vision, increasing diversity requires buy-in from the entire organization. We often hear about larger workforce trends as part of the national conversation, but sometimes we don’t communicate why these trends are important to our organizations.
If we don’t do that as leaders, how can team members understand why changes like these are important to them? Without broad buy-in, an initiative as important as diversity may never succeed, no matter how much money we invest, how much we play it up on our websites or how much we discuss it in our marketing collateral.
In the midst of workforce trends such as the challenges of recruiting and hiring talent, remote working can enable companies to hire team members regardless of their geographic location. The enabler of such flexibility is technology.
Make connections more meaningful.
As we work to attain laudable diversity goals, we should ensure that everyone who needs and wants access to connectivity has it. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to solving this conundrum, but every organization should look at the communities in which they operate and explore how they can help.
The good news is that companies seem to be investing in changes like these despite the headwinds. According to EisnerAmper’s executive survey, 65% of leaders expect to invest in technology over the next 12 months. Additionally, 49% plan to invest in human capital and 44% in cybersecurity, numbers that have all increased since the 2020 survey.
For many, the shift to remote work was a culture shock. The ability to come together as a team, even if it’s virtually, is critical to building a cohesive unit.
We should embrace our opportunities to connect, whether those opportunities appear on a weekly status call, at a team dinner or at an in-person planning session. The personal connection has arguably never been so important.
Redefine value.
A more personal work environment may very well be the differentiator that helps an organization attract and retain talent.
Do organizations take the time to show their appreciation for these connections? Perhaps in the new post-Covid-19 landscape that is emerging — or will emerge — we should take the time to reflect on our efforts and reevaluate how we show appreciation.
During the pandemic, the notion of value has taken on new meaning. With supply chain disruptions, increasing costs and other broader economic trends at play, it often seems like we’re getting less for more.
There are two ways to look at this.
But the better view is that companies are redefining the meaning of value. Because of how we now operate, we are no longer beholden to many of our former ways.
We should view this circumstance not as a hurdle but as an opportunity. The pandemic has given us the ultimate reason to try a new approach, and we should continue to experiment in the year ahead.
We have an opportunity for organizations to forge new — and, if necessary, repair existing — relationships between team members and leadership. We also have an opportunity to strengthen existing relationships with current customers and build them with new ones.
Relationships likely won’t thrive if we don’t first take the opportunity to listen. Only then can we know what we should say, how we should say it and who we should tell.
There are lessons in even the most trying times, and the best solutions are often simple. The incumbency is on us.
Are we listening?
Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Originally published at https://www.forbes.com.
