Helping Organizations and Individuals Thrive in the New World of Work: A Conversation with SAP SuccessFactors Leaders

by Steve Boese

How to thrive in the new world of work is top of mind for leaders today. If you were to think about some of the most important challenges facing organizations, and business and HR leaders in early 2022 what would immediately come to mind? Probably some (or all) of the following: supporting workers in remote or hybrid work arrangements, fostering flexibility and agility in developing new products and services, equipping managers and individual employees with the new skills and resources they need to thrive, and updating or upgrading their HR and workplace technologies which play a key role in the new workplace.

Thrive in the New World of Work

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show Trish McFarlane and I were extremely excited to welcome Jill Popelka, President; and Meg Bear, Chief Product Officer; both from SAP SuccessFactors for a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion on these topics and more, and how the teams at SAP SuccessFactors have helped their many thousands of customers navigate successfully through these challenging times.  On the show, Jill and Meg shared some of the insights gleaned from the last two years of supporting customers through the pandemic (and beyond), on how HR and workplace tech can support extended hybrid working models, developing new solutions to provide employees with new opportunities to learn new skills and extend their expertise. It also helps organizations challenge their assumptions on how work should be organized and executed.

Sustainability and Technology

One key point that Jill and Meg emphasized is that going forward, organizations need to consider sustainability as an essential element to long-term success. This is important both from an organizational standpoint, i.e,, ensuring the organization has the needed skills, capabilities, and mindset to deliver on the business strategy; and an individual perspective – helping people grow and thrive throughout their career journey.  It is really about making decisions today that can still set up the organizations for success in what can be an uncertain future. No matter what the specific challenges that the business environment may present 5 or 10 years in the future, which is just about impossible to predict; we know that agility, wellbeing, and care for the community at large are all capabilities that can help organizations and individuals rise to whatever challenges come to pass.

Meg reinforced their commitment as a technology provider to help their customers become “future-proof” and thrive in the new world of work by developing innovative and easy-to-use and adopt tools designed for that purpose. Said a little differently, the best HR and workplace technologies supports sustainability by giving more of a voice and level of agency over how work gets done to the individual, and creating an environment and developing resources and data to allow the organization to be more flexible and adaptable.

Diverse Teams, Psychological Safety, and Opportunity Marketplace

There is plenty more that we covered in the conversation with Jill and Meg, (the importance of diverse teams, creating psychological safety and inclusion, and the new SAP SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace solution), so I definitely encourage everyone to take some time to listen to the podcast. Thanks so much to Jill and Meg for taking some time to share their expertise and insight (and their enthusiasm) for how organizations and all leaders can think more expansively and creatively about the challenges ahead, and the role of HR and workplace technology in helping them succeed.

You can listen to the show on the player below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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To learn more about SAP SuccessFactors please visit:

https://news.sap.com/2021/10/sap-successfactors-opportunity-marketplace-drives-internal-mobility-and-upskilling-to-help-organizations-future-proof-their-business/

https://news.sap.com/2021/10/dynamic-teams-power-future-of-work%e2%80%af/

https://www.sap.com/about/company/purpose-and-sustainability/economics/five-actions-for-business.html