'People First' Approach Continues To Remain At Core Of Successful Businesses: Report

Leadup Universe, Asia's career acceleration platform for aspiring CXOs in association with Work Universe, conducted a study 'Employer of the Future 2023' with a specific focus on India Inc.'s preparedness to offer a conducive work environment to new-age employees. The study covered over 75 organisations across industry verticals and sizes and got responses from more than 500 employees who helped to identify relationships between profitability, employee, consumer stability and social good.

The study identified five factors for enhancing the competitive advantage of firms: i) Knowledge Economy anchoring Human Economy, ii) Leaders as Catalysts, iii) Non-standard forms of Employment, iv) Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Skill Shift and v) Focussed-growth through high performance and sustainability.  

On the first aspect of the knowledge economy, the study found that there has been a considerable shift with more focus now being attributed to tenets of the knowledge economy such as learning, creativity and openness to attract employees. Respondents to the employee survey which was additionally undertaken rated inspirational characters, walking-the-talk, inclusive decision making, fostering democratic systems, achieving top financial results and use of technology to drive performance as the top attributes that they aspire to have in their C-suite leaders. 

In the non-standard forms of employment, the gig economy brings a host of benefits to the table including cost-effective models, minimum hiccups and quick response to changing customer and market demands. The study revealed that a significantly high 85 per cent of the companies are willing to engage with gig workers for their specialist positions while 35 per cent expressed their agreement to have these people even in their board rooms. A hybrid workplace promoting inclusivity has also emerged as one of the prominent themes in the non-standard formats of the work.