In Conversation with Jacob Morgan, Author, Keynote Speaker, and Futurist on War for Talent in 2022
Jacob Morgan is a four-time best-selling author, keynote speaker, and futurist who explores leadership, the future of work, and employee experience.
He speaks in front of tens of thousands of people each year and his content is seen over a million times a year. Jacob is the best-selling author of four books: The Future Leader (Wiley 2020) The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, 2017), The Future of Work (Wiley, 2014), and The Collaborative Organization (McGraw Hill, 2012).
He speaks at over 50 conferences a year including TED Academy which is one of the largest TED events in the world. In addition, Jacob provides advisory and thought leadership services to various organizations around the world.
Q- Companies are fighting with each other to win the talent war. How to win this war in 2022?
By focusing on employee experience which I define as putting people first by focusing on three environments which are culture, technology, and space. These are the things organizations can control and design for.
Culture is about how people feel working for you, technology is about the tools and resources employees have to get their jobs done, and space is exactly what it sounds like…the spaces in which employees are worth whether that be a home office or a corporate headquarters.
Every decision and strategy that leaders take needs to be filtered through the lens of these three environments and leaders should constantly be asking themselves how they can create a better experience for their employees in these three environments.
Q- How the Employee Experience can help if your goal is to win the war for talent?
Employee experience is about changing the core workplace practices inside of your organization to put people first. For many years now organizations around the world have been focusing on employee engagement programs.
Even though we have never spent more time, money, and resources on these things, the engagement levels have stayed the same or in many cases have gotten worse, how can that be possible?
These things started off with good intentions but over time they became nothing more than perks and benefits that were used to distract employees from the reality of what it’s like to work for an organization. As we have come to realize over the years, you can’t pay people more, treat them poorly, and then expect them to keep wanting to work for you.
Employee experience is about making those deeper changes by getting to know what your employees care about and value.
Q- How can we attract talent in today’s competitive world? How do you see the role of Leadership in engaging employees?
Leaders used to think that employee experience was an “HR thing” but I’m telling everyone that employee experience is a “leadership thing.”
This means that leaders need to understand that part of their role is to actually be in HR. Leaders need to know their employees as human beings not just as workers.
If leaders want to attract and retain the top talent they need to embrace the 9 skills and mindsets that I talk about which include things like having a growth mindset, thinking like a futurist, coaching and mentoring, having a global citizen mindset, and more.
Q- What trends are shaping the future of work the workforce and the workplace?
When I interviewed over 140 CEOs around the world for my book, The Future Leader, one of the things I looked at were the greatest trends that were shaping leadership over the next decade.
These included AI and technology, the overall pace of change, the changing nature of talent, purpose, and meaning, morality ethics and transparency, and globalization. These are the 6 things that leaders need to be aware of and also take action against.
Q- Any concluding remarks?
I’ve always believed that the future isn’t something that happens to you, it’s something that you help shape, design, and create.
My question for everyone reading this isn’t “what’s the future of work?” it’s “what’s the future of work you want to see and how are you going to make that a reality?”
Thank You, Jacob!
