Overview: The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the workplace forever, scattering employees across metro areas and even the country. In our free Zoom webinar on Thursday, January 20th at 9 am PST, we’ll discuss how to be inclusive when building the new hybrid, virtual, or in-person workplace.
Necessity As The Mother Of Workplace Innovation
In March 2020, more than half of the US workforce began working from home. Nearly two years later, that percentage stands at 45%, and 90% of those want to remain remote at least part of the time. For some, it’s a matter of convenience, as the average worker lost 100 hours a year to congestion during a commute, while for others, it’s a matter of work/life balance.
Nor is that the only challenge in building the new workplace. Ecommerce companies are buying out entire swaths of industrial and office parks. Issues of ability and workplace access have been forced to the forefront as workers with disabilities, some visible and some not, find they’re more productive at home. And then there are the more prosaic concerns about building a corporate culture when half of the people “in the office” are only on a screen, dealing with new problems like virtual meeting fatigue, and establishing professional standards in wildly different working environments.
This is a situation that requires much more than top-down commands. It needs workplace innovation on an organizational scale that’s inclusive, thoughtful, and balances the needs of multiple constituencies within your workforce. That’s the focus of our January 20th webinar.
What Is Inclusive Problem Solving?
Our free webinar, hosted by Bruce Fern and Natalie Jenkins of Change Ready Solutions, is built around the discipline of inclusive problem-solving. At its most basic, inclusive problem solving is an approach that ensures everyone gets a voice in processes that affect them.
This can be trickier than you might expect. Some people are shy, or have issues they don’t want to discuss publicly, or may view the issue of where the workplace should be as settled. Others may not feel valued or don’t think their ideas are up to the standards of others. New best practices are needed to both make these voices heard and ensure they don’t get lost in the shuffle.
Inclusive problem-solving changes management best practices, creates new expectations from employees that might surprise you, and demand more from leaders. Our webinar will lay out each of those changes in detail, what leaders can expect, and considerations of what the future might hold for organizations as they develop a fairer, more inclusive workplace.
We’ll also discuss three techniques you can begin using right away and how to begin developing longer-term tools to manage complex problems, tap into your organization’s creativity, and ensure everyone has a voice in what will become a more dynamic, diverse process.
The webinar begins at 9 am PST on Thursday, January 20th, 2022, on Zoom. And if you want to get a head start on inclusive problem solving, learn how a workplace innovation platform can let the ideas flow.
This article was originally published on the IdeaScale blog here.
