New Shape of Work
Using prediction to navigate the return to work
August 20, 2020 | Episode 2 | 19:37
The New Shape of Work interview series addresses the challenges and uncertainty brought by the coronavirus and how to transition to a more agile workforce for the future.
This conversation between Kate Bravery, Mercer Global advisory solutions & insights leader, and Ethan Murray, Partner and Global capabilities leader for the digital practice at Oliver Wyman, covering:
- How forecasting models and scenario analysis can provide insights for better management of health and economy during uncertain times.
- How the Pandemic Navigator™ can support business decisions by providing robust and accurate forecasts for the evolution of the pandemic for the next 3 to 6 to weeks as well as macro-economic forecasts, industry-specific revenues and costs under a number of plausible epidemic scenarios until medical breakthroughs or vaccination emerges in mass scale.
- How to more efficiently manage contact tracing and connect it in to business processes and decision-making.
- How the data and tools can support the employee experience by providing information about the current and forecasted COVID-19 spread information across 90+ countries, often down to a county.
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Interesting moments from the interview:
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Understanding precautions after a pandemic
“The unique thing about this crisis is that the human is everything - we are the ones most affected, we are also the vector of the problem, and the creator of the crisis. So we're right at the centre of it all and feeling it intensely. A company that forgets that human are at the centre is going to be in trouble, and a company that thinks it was just the one lockdown and then were coming back to the office business as usual is in trouble.” -
Engaging in the workplace after a pandemic
“At the individual level we have to change how we think about, manage, and engage with our workforce. A company that relied on traditional casual office encounters of the manager and an employee - ad hoc coffee chats to keep the pulse on things - those are gone, and they're not coming back for at least a year. So if you're still reliant on that to know how people are doing, take care of your workforce, and keep them engaged and productive, then you're flying blind. And that's a very scary place to be.” -
Freeing up time
“We're trying to think about the future and how we need to rethink our strategy…and we don't have time because there's so much inefficiency in how we're responding to daily fires. Well, this [pandemic navigator] gives us that advance warning to plan ahead better, be more on top of things and have everything flow more smoothly. And then free up our time to do what we really need to be doing right now.” -
Adding value
“The real value add is that we build very accurate business focused projections on top of [good public data sets]. And so it really gives us a peek into the future at a granular decision making level, not only for the pandemic related things…but also for how individual companies or even whole industries, whole verticals, are exposed to the virus and to the containment measures done in response. And so it goes not only to the what's happening with case counts, but how does that affect my customer demand, the companies that I'm giving credit to, the industry's I'm exposed to in my business or my portfolio of companies, whatever it may be.”
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