Deloitte: 61% of Executives, double pre-COVID 19 levels, focused on transforming work

5 May, 2021 - Amid unprecedented workforce disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are enacting radically new ways of working and operating – and the C-suite is taking action to reimagine the future of work with human capital issues at the top of their agenda. Executives are shifting preparedness strategies from planning for the familiar and are instead synchronizing across the C-suite to develop human-centric strategies that allow organizations to better adapt to ongoing disruption.

Deloitte’s 2021 Global and Middle East Human Capital Trends report, "The social enterprise in a world disrupted," examines how organizations and leaders can leverage the lessons of this pandemic to fundamentally reimagine work, shifting from a focus on surviving to the pursuit of thriving.

Completed by more than 3,600 executives in 96 countries, the report included responses from more than 1,200 C-suite executives and board members, in addition to other management functions. For the first time in the Deloitte Human Capital Trends report’s 11-year history, business respondents (56%), including 233 CEOs, outnumbered HR respondents (44%) in the survey – underscoring the growing importance of human capital in organizational decision-making.

Reimagining preparedness and workforce potential

The report shows that human capital issues are at the center of leaders’ thinking as they shift organizational views on preparedness. In the 2021 report, 17% of executives said that their organizations would focus on planning for unlikely, high-impact events moving forward, as opposed to just 6% before the pandemic. Nearly half (47%) of executives said that their organizations planned to focus on multiple scenarios, notably up from 23% pre-pandemic. To effectively deal with multiple possible futures and unlikely events, the importance of real-time workforce insights and data as they set new directions has become even more critical.

However, the most important factor in making that preparedness shift is unleashing worker potential through a new focus on capabilities. Almost three-quarters (72%) of executives identified “the ability of their people to adapt, reskill and assume new roles” as a priority for navigating future disruptions. However, only 17% of these same executives said that their organization was “very ready” to adapt and reskill workers to assume new roles, pointing to a substantial disconnect between leaders’ priorities and the reality of how their organizations support workforce development.

“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the resilience of the workforce. When workers were asked to expand their roles to accomplish whatever was needed, they rose to the challenge,” said Roshik Shenoy, Consulting Partner, Deloitte Middle East. “No longer are human capital issues relegated to HR. Amid disruptions, organizations in the Middle East and across the world either sink or swim based on their workforce’s capabilities like collaboration, creativity, judgment and flexibility. It’s clear that workforce and human-centric matters are top priorities for C-suite and board leaders.”

Integrating humans and technology to re-architect work

The report shows that executives in the Middle East are increasingly shifting away from the optimization of automation and moving toward re-thinking how to best integrate humans and technology to complement each other and drive organizations forward. Sixty-one percent of executives say they plan to focus on reimagining work in the next one to three years, compared to only 29% before the pandemic. COVID-19 has heightened leaders’ awareness of the potential benefits of this approach, including higher productivity, increased agility, and greater innovation.

During the pandemic, organizations utilized team structures to enable greater adaptability, which allowed them to better survive an unpredictable year. Executives in this year’s survey recognized that the use of technology and people is not an “either-or” choice, but a “both-and” partnership. The top three factors for transforming work were organizational culture (45%), workforce capability (41%) and technology (35%) – factors that must all work together for an organization to assemble effective superteams.

“It’s not about replacing humans with technology. When deployed thoughtfully and effectively, technology can change work so that it makes the most of workers’ distinct capabilities and gives team members new methods to learn, create, and perform in ways that achieve new outcomes,” said Shenoy.

Integrating well-being into work

As the lines between work and life blurred even further during COVID-19, leaders moved from prioritizing work-life balance to designing well-being into work — and life — itself. In fact, 69% of executives reported they implemented policies during COVID-19 designed to empower workers to better integrate their personal and professional lives. Among executives, 7 in 10 said shifts to remote work had a positive impact on well-being.

Looking ahead to the next one to three years, however, executives ranked improving well-being as their second-to-last ranked priority in the context of transforming work, yet workers ranked improving well-being within their top three priorities. This points to an ongoing debate about how the focus on well-being will be sustained in a post-pandemic world.

“Organizations in the Middle East that integrate well-being into the design of work at the individual, team and organizational level will build a sustainable future where workers can feel and perform at their best,” said Shenoy. “The pandemic has shown us that human-centric work strategies are not just a nice-to-have, but a need-to-have. Moving forward, those leaders who address human capital holistically and build business decision-making around human potential will thrive.”

To view the full report click here.

About Deloitte & Touche (M.E.) LLP: 

Deloitte & Touche (M.E.) LLP (DME) is the affiliate for the territories of the Middle East and Cyprus of Deloitte NSE LLP (“NSE”), a UK limited liability partnership and member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”).

DME is a leader in professional services with uninterrupted presence in the Middle East since 1926 with 26 offices in 14 countries and around 5,000 partners, directors and staff. DME’s presence in the Middle East and Cyprus is established through its affiliated independent legal entities, which are licensed to operate and to provide services under the applicable laws and regulations of the relevant country. DME’s affiliates and related entities cannot oblige each other and/or DME, and when providing services, each affiliate and related entity engages directly and independently with its own clients and shall only be liable for its own acts or omissions and not those of any other affiliate.

About Deloitte:

Deloitte refers to one or more of DTTL, its global network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of each other. DTTL, NSE and DME do not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more.

Deloitte is a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services. Our network of member firms in more than 150 counties and territories, serves four out of five Fortune Global 500® companies. Learn how Deloitte’s approximately 300,000 people make an impact that matters at www.deloitte.com.