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 Today in Health it, this story is dealing with the workforce shifting priorities. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT a channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current. I. And engaged VMware has been a committed sponsor of our mission to provide relevant content to health IT professionals since the start.

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All right. Here's today's story. I'm reading stories. About the changing workforce and shifting engagement drivers across the board. We shouldn't assume that a remote workforce is a happy workforce. I am trying to figure out if I'm gonna cover multiple stories today, or break it up and do multiple. So whats to this topic over some time, and I'm probably gonna do the latter.

Uh, human Resources Director at New Zealand Australia Magazine sites. A recent Qualtrics study on the changing workforce expectations. I normally wouldn't cover a New Zealand Australia article for something like this, but in this case, we're facing a global pandemic and a lot of the factors facing US workers are facing workers around the globe.

I'll cover the article and you can make your own judgment on how you want to handle this information. All right. Here's the article. While a hybrid work offers a raft of benefits, it has its challenges too. Businesses are wondering, how do we keep our people engaged if remote working continues long-term?

Good question to ask. With greater physical distance from the office comes the possibility for engagement and connection to crumble. For hybrid to be successful for years to come, HRDs must tackle. The engagement conundrum head on hrts is Human Resource Directors. New research from Qualtrics revealed that the top driver of engagement has changed over the last 12 months in previous surveys.

Confidence in senior leadership and their ability to give employees a clear direction of where the company is heading has come out on top. But Qualtrics latest employee experience trends. Indicate that after the pandemic employees sense of belonging has become the biggest driver of engagement. And this might be pandemic induced, but this is where people are at right now.

Speaking to HRD, Steve Bennett, head of Growth and Strategy of Employee Experience Solutions at Qualtrics said organizations need to rethink how they approach certain moments of the employee lifecycle. I think that's gonna be our so what, but we'll keep going. We've seen some of the core drivers of engagement have radically shifted more so than we've seen during any period of time that we've studied engagement.

I think that's very true as well, and we'll, we'll talk about that as well in the So what, as a response, we have to rethink the model of how we create a sense of belonging amongst employees. For example, on day one, it's not so much about getting the new employee their laptop. But if you got somebody working remote, how do you get them to link in with their team?

What does that look like at the end of the first day, the first week? And how do they feel? Do they feel like they are a part of the organization? Key moments like onboarding present an opportunity to create a sense of belonging. Bennett said. Alright, so that sense of belonging keeps coming back up.

Qualtrics identified the second biggest driver of engagement as a sense of the company continually improving the way work gets done. Confidence in leadership ranked third with the effective collaboration demonstrated by managers in fourth. Naturally, the research found a high correlation between the feeling of belonging and the high level of wellbeing.

Alright, so it goes on. But as organizations begin to juggle their employees desire for flexibility with the needs of the business, which will prevail, that's a great question. I. Jason Loughner with Qualtrics said, priorities have changed and employers need to respect that if they wanna maintain high levels of engagement.

Loughner goes on said Qualtrics. Research has shown that out of their three working arrangements, most commonly used by organizations hybrid in office and remote hybrid has the most benefits in areas like wellbeing and engagement. Respondents reported a 10% rise in their ability. To be customer focused in a hybrid environment compared to being either in the office or remote full-time.

As the fight for talent continues to get tougher, organizations may no longer have a choice about whether they retain a certain level of flexibility. Once C Ovid 19 is behind us, either they match the competitors in the market or they risk losing staff who are no longer willing to negotiate their work-life balance away.

Either way, staying one step ahead of the curve is going to be key. There's so many, so whats just sort of baked into the article itself, but let's go ahead into it. The so what, let's encapsulate it first. Confidence in senior leadership. Ability to give employee clear direction was the primary drivers before.

Now it is number one, sense of belonging. Number two, continually improving how work gets done. Number three, confidence in leadership. Number four, demonstrated collaboration amongst managers. I don't think this is gonna be all that different. From Australia, New Zealand than it is in the United States. I think we're gonna see the same pattern.

That's why I'm covering this. These are significant shifts. My first, so what is to get? And keep your finger on the pulse of your workforce. This is the most significant shift in work arrangements that we've experienced since the introduction of the laptop or mobile phone. What is important to your staff in your hiring area is all that matters right now.

The second thing I would say here is shift your hiring practices. What does your onboarding process look like? How do you create a level of engagement, a sense of belonging to the group? Assuming a 10% turnover, which might not be a good assumption based on another article I just read. Uh, you're looking at close to 20%.

Of your staff being a post covid hired staff, that means they didn't have the face-to-face foundation that many of your staff took into the pandemic induced work arrangement. This becomes a critical aspect of ongoing success. Finally, you know, I'm really getting tired of the toothpaste. Back in the two phrases.

Of course, this isn't going back to pre pandemic work models. You would have to be a knucklehead to think that people have adjusted their lives during the pandemic, and now each person has a decision to make. The companies that make a misstep in the come back to work decision will face a serious turnover in their workforce.

Some people have taken on things like a new pet, caring for a loved one, homeschooling their kids, or even moved halfway across the country and found that the quality of life is much better. In a remote work arrangement, if you move the cheese too far too quickly, you're gonna force their hand and a majority of them have choices now that hiring has gone national and remote.

Alright, that's all for today. I'll cover the other articles later on. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Apple, Google. Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, you get the picture.

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