Part 1: Executive interview with Deloitte’s Michael Stephan

In the first of a four part-series spread over the next month, UNLEASH has captured the thoughts and insights of Michael Stephan, Clients and Industries Leader for Deloitte Consulting LLP, on some of the most important issues facing HR today.

Stephan recognises the importance of changing workforce dynamics as an agenda item that will be top of mind for most HR leaders the world over.

But, these dynamics are shifting all the time, with gig workers, remote and hybrid workers, and employers of record all often playing a part in the make up of an organization’s talent pool. In the parlance of Deloitte, we live in a ‘boundaryless world’, and Stephan is adamant of Deloitte’s mission, noting that “we’ve made a deep commitment to make work better for humans and humans better at work because we truly believe that people are, in fact, the enduring competitive advantage of organizations.”

Investigating the ‘boundaryless world’ concept

Referencing Deloitte’s landmark Global Human Capital Trends report, he continues: “if you can consider everything that’s happened in particular in the last few years…and how organizations are not just focused on choices they make inside of their organization, but also the choices they make, they know they now have an impact on the customers they serve, the communities they live in and serve, and even the ecosystem and alliance partners that they work together with to deliver outcomes.

“This world has become more boundaryless…now it’s really moving to outcomes that you can create for the humans inside your organization and the humans outside your organization.”

He’s keen to promote the idea of a knock-on effect, in that if your workforce is happier by being prioritized properly, it’ll lead to an environment “that ultimately creates better customer experience, for the customers that you serve.”

The idea of a boundaryless world is “all about creating greater longevity for the individuals, the workforce that then ultimately creates longevity and sustainability for your organization as a whole.”

Michael Stephan also emphasises that part of the philosophy of living and working in a boundaryless world is the need to look outward, and to consider the global impact of your actions, noting that far too many organizations were “focused on inside the organization and how to serve direct customers without broader consideration for the impacts that those choices could have on things like health equity, things like carbon footprint and sustainability.”

Thankfully this is slowly changing, with more people showing a “higher degree of awareness and consciousness around the upstream impacts of choices that organizations make inside their four walls and looking more upstream to say, what’s the positive impact or negative impact that could have down the road on those types of things.

“It’s that higher degree of awareness and that broader lens is really putting humans at the center of the conversation:”, says Stephan, as he concludes by underlining that often, the people most affected by upstream impacts could be potential employees in this ever-shifting, boundaryless and globalized workplace.

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.