Transforming Leadership Communication Channels: How can Digitalization Help?

Digitalization of HR or Digital HR is one of the fastest growing trends in the digital transformation era. Automating the concept of leadership is considered to be one of the greatest transformations to have happened in global business organizations. Leaders in the US market had been pioneers in adopting technology while creating ‘performing organizations’. Nevertheless, adopting technology had been a continuous process in any professional business in the US market. Although American organizations had adopted technology in the past, a large scale technology penetration happened post the pandemic.

This Gartner chart visualizes the two mutually reinforcing loops that support the cultivation for a digital mindset of a business leader.
Source: 5 Steps to Become an Effective Digital Leader [Gartner]

Have the Business Leaders in the United States Started to Lean Towards Technology Adoption Strategies?

A majority of the business leaders have deployed technology to increase business capabilities while catering to evolving trends in building customer relationships. Human resource experts have acknowledged that penetration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created several advantages for business leaders who could lead from the core to achieve desired business outcomes in a digital era. 

Enabling Technology Leadership in the US: Pertinent Strategies

Leadership is a consequence of well-thought-out strategies, which enables to reach out and engage the employees to perform. US-based wing of Kodak Alaris, the information capture solutions provider has acknowledged that data capture and implementation of technology tools improved the business efficiency on a mass scale in the US. Allowing the users to adopt technology was a pertinent strategy while aligning technology with strategic business outcomes remained to be a priority. Cloud computing and mobile applications were increasingly used within business environments to engage the employees. Simultaneously, budding US leaders had focused on ensuring proper communication tools to be used within the workspace to create absolute role clarity.    

Enabling the Right Communication Channels Through Engaging Tools: Role of the Strategic Leaders in a Pandemic Stricken Economy

Delivery of timely information has been a priority for the managers in the US. While designing e-mails alone is not considered the right option, business managers had focused more on creating ‘workplace communication preferences’. Such processes are backed by engaging social media content and mobile applications to define community engagements. Social media contents coupled with mobile based communication techniques has been identified as one of the most preferred forms of communication while building digital engagement on a mass scale. 

Supporting Bottom-up Conversations: Is This a Strategy for Leaders to Harness Growth?

The business leaders have chosen bottom-up conversations strategy to enable effective strategies to communicate. Making the employees feel safe and comfortable within the virtual workspace has been a major trend post COVID-19. Contemporary leaders have emphasized the need for a ‘speaking minds out’. This strategy worked well for the employees through relieving stress.

Encouraging More Employee-Driven Content to Drive Communication: Are Leaders Really Working on This?

Social media had been a relevant tool for this, and leaders encouraged sharing content related to employee achievements. Posting impactful social media contents remained to be an effective strategy for leaders to harness employee engagement. Leaders interviewed across regional markets revealed that the strategy was effective to build a positive brand image. Besides, engaging social media contents created the right buzz for the customers as well. 

Switching to ‘Mobile-First Employee Communication’: Is This a Leadership Strategy?

During the post-pandemic phase, employees across the globe have adopted mobile as a major tool to communicate. Be it for shopping or work, online platforms were being accessed frequently through mobile phones to address customer requirements. Mobile hangouts replaced physical gatherings while a majority of the young aged US population looked for gaming options to be entertained. Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC), a global consulting firm from Luxembourg has estimated that employees had spent about 6 hours approximately surfing different websites using different phones.   

Recommended HR Technology News: Mobile-first Communications Solutions to Empower Diverse Hybrid Workforces

Video Conferencing Is an Emerging Tool for Leaders in the US?

Most US-based businesses had some software applications in place during the outbreak of the pandemic to drive team meetings. Software platforms like Zoom or Team have emerged as the most popular options available to bring employees on a common network. A major focus of the business leaders in the recent past was created through the implementation of ‘mobile-first conversations’ to facilitate team collaboration.  

Had Collaborative Workplace Culture Been Encouraged by the Business Leaders?

US-based business leaders have acknowledged that post-COVID-19 outbreak, team collaboration techniques experienced a paradigm shift.

Deploying podcasts and recording audio messages have been encouraged to freely build up an encompassing culture. Text messages have been exchanged to share operational inputs. Visual attention was considered to be crucial for building up trust in a virtual platform. Nevertheless, leaders ensured that employees were given fine inputs continuously on how to improve the performance while working from a remote location. 

How Had the Business Leaders’ Built up a So Called ‘Voice-Based Internal Communication’?

Building up voice-based communication has been one of the priorities of business managers while working together in the COVID era. This has helped to overcome the time barriers for operation. Recorded messages sent through online media platforms have created an instruction-based engagement without hurting employee sentiments.  Above all, stretched work schedules could be managed better- as no questions were entertained while a strict delivery deadline was being followed. 

How Could the Leaders Avoid Miscommunication?

Digitization has enabled better performance while allowing the business managers to avoid miscommunication. Job responsibilities during the outbreak of the COVID-19 were well documented through shared technology platforms. Mobile applications were very frequently used to get connected. Planned work schedules were communicated in most global business organizations on priority, and work based flexibility was encouraged. Digitization had enabled ‘late night workings’ and this was a major engagement tool promoting flexible workspaces.

Determining the Basis of Leadership Communications: Few Technology Interventions

Real-time data has become a powerful technology tool to generate performance within a close-knit team. Engagements were pre-defined by efficient business leaders so as to get virtually hands-on experience in taskforce management. Flexible promises were made to customers, while documentation was made easier by breaking traditional communication barriers. At the end of the day, it was all about technology tools, which have helped in augmenting human performance. 

Conclusion

Technology intervention in business organizations have largely changed the traditional outlook.

Driving virtual workspaces technology adoption brought in a paradigm shift in the role of strategic leaders post the pandemic. While assuming the role of a directive leader there were increasing expectation from business leaders to be futuristic. Defining and re-defining business outcomes in a continuously changing environment, leaders were forced to take a relook on their personal evolution as well.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]