Ollie Monroe Bowman Howie, CEO of New Community Transformation Fund.
In 2020, we saw an uptick in virtual employment and remote work. Due to the global pandemic, businesses were encouraged to hire more people who worked in different countries, states, cities or even within a home office in the same city.
During this time, the businesses I worked with that were most effective were those that embraced a lens of a new global economy when considering their respective business models and labor forces. Folks who realized that the economy would shift in America—from primarily being in-person brick-and-mortar to being online and Web3-powered—during this period thrived. From blockchain infrastructure to how we send money and receive goods, the ways we interact with commerce and each other have shifted.
To ensure a successful digital transformation within a company’s labor force, I believe business leaders must embrace change through labor specialization and upskilling. In my experience, friction usually ushers in digital change more quickly, with urgency creating amicable adaptability. We saw this during the pandemic with the introduction and acceptance of regularly scheduled video meetings.
However, when digitalization occurs in normal work environments, employees may feel as though their jobs are threatened or their normal cadence is thrown off. To prevent that, I recommend introducing new ways to optimize your workforce’s time, using technology that can help usher in your new transformation successfully. The assembly line is a great example of using technological transformation along with labor specialization to create efficiency. Now, in 2023, we have more tools than ever before to focus on what matters most.
Unit Of Account
The unit of account and store of value are two primary use cases of money that derive from humanity’s desire for specialization and shared resources. Because of a national unit of account and store of value (USD), our neighbors can work at different companies—or we can work at the same company doing different functions—and still be able to trade freely with the dollars we earn as wage.
Say, for instance, that we did not have a national unit of account. Then we would be restricted to only the goods and services that we could trade for our specialization directly. If you were a plumber, you would only get food, and only when someone is willing to trade plumbing for food. Alternatively, the plumber could learn to farm in order to feed himself, but he would be much less efficient than the farmer who has years of farming expertise. Society benefits more when the farmer and the plumber can give maximum output for their specializations. Since we have a universal monetary system, we can all specialize and trade globally to ensure we have what we need, and we can attach a dollar figure to all services to ensure everyone receives commensurate value for their effort.
I believe we should take the same philosophy of specialization and trust exchange inside our companies. Now that so many are working remotely, we must trust coworkers more than ever to do what they do best, seek upskilling opportunities and use technology to optimize. But as leaders, we can also create needed functions, help each employee be better at what they do best and eliminate anything that does not produce the highest team output. When done well, this can increase company performance and economic output.
Using Digital Transformation To Foster Specialization
New startups emerge each day to solve unique digital problems. Over the past few years, venture capitalists have invested well over $30 billion per quarter on technology startups in the United States alone. With so many options available, here are a few tips for finding the precise areas where your company can benefit from digital transformation.
• Focus on your key performance indicators (KPIs).
Why does your company exist? What metrics do your customers and investors care about the most? This needs to be clear and defined. These metrics may change from quarter to quarter, but they should be consistent enough to forecast value. For example, say a bakery that sells only cakes has a KPI of the number of cakes sold in the U.S. They know that if they meet or surpass this KPI, their investors and customers will perceive them as more valuable. They don’t take away time and resources from that goal by suddenly selling ice cream. Find your most integral KPIs so you can determine the best path and technology for reaching them.
• Focus on how each team member can contribute most to the team’s KPIs.
Each team member has different skill sets. Depending on their department or job function, there should be a direct, tangible connection between each person’s work and the overall goal of the company. I believe this sense of each person’s importance should permeate the whole organization. With the right tools and company culture, the CEO and the janitor can both understand and improve how their day-to-day tasks help the company reach its goals.
• Help each team member improve and utilize their best skills.
Once you’ve determined a team member’s skill set, select tools centered around teaching them to upskill and specialize in that area. Use personal check-ins and feedback from your team to determine what tasks each team member can best specialize in and which digital tools are best helping them reach those goals. Ultimately, the goal of digital transformation should be to provide resources and motivation that help both the company and the individual grow and increase their output.
We have more resources than ever before to maximize human capital on our teams. A company is only as valuable as its team, and I believe we must upskill our respective team members to ensure a long-term competitive advantage.
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