Part 2: Executive interview with Deloitte’s Michael Stephan

Deloitte’s Michael Stephan, like many other HR leaders at the coalface of the workplace revolution, understands the power shift that organizations have undergone since the start of the decade – and the reasons for its newfound visibility too.

That’s an important distinction to make, though, because he knows that stakeholder capitalism (the idea that corporations are oriented to serve the interests of all their stakeholders, not just the ones who hold shares) isn’t that new: “…[it] was here even before the pandemic. And there were always conversations around, if your shareholders are not getting their return, they’re gonna invest somewhere else. And if your customers are not happy with the service of the product, they’re gonna buy somewhere else. And if your workforce wasn’t happy with how you’re serving them, they’ll look for some other place to work.

Now – we are in the age of employee empowerment, and it’s clear that “social injustices around the world have surfaced a higher degree of awareness and understanding of the choices that we make for our people inside our organization and outside our organization.” Businesses can’t afford to ignore this change.

But the change should be less of a power shift and more of a chance to listen to and collaborate with the workforce.

As Stephan says, it’s “an opportunity to co-create with leaders and the workforce, different types of solutions that better serve your workforce, your organization, and the communities. And this is an opportunity for organizations to significantly increase the work that they do around sentiment analysis and sensing inside their organization.”

Ongoing communication is key

Regular employee feedback won’t cut it either – you need to “identify the top challenges inside your organization and engage people throughout your global organization”, creating solutions together. “The more you co-create, the more those individuals feel part of that solution, the greater connectivity that they feel to the purpose and ultimately the better outcomes that you can drive.”

Stephan talks about the idea of “preference, expectation, and flexibility” – three different concepts/mindstates that ultimately all play a part in finding that workable yet unique mix for your boundaryless workforce.

Stephan warns of the “many organizations today…declaring top-down mandates that are often done without co-creating that with the workforce”, and that Deloitte’s own introspection has allowed them to “understand that there are truly different types of work in our organization.

“There are different types of workers in our organization, and that preference is often uniquely personal due to personal circumstances.”

Ultimately Stephan, and Deloitte, have a relatively simple goal – to “help our people understand where we hope to be, that not only helps us deliver great outcomes for our people, but allows us to keep our apprenticeship alive, our culture alive, and that connection alive.”

You can watch the full video above.

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Deloitte are a headline sponsor of both UNLEASH America and UNLEASH World. You can find all their activity on the Deloitte hub page here.