‘Enterprise of tomorrow’ is often used to signify companies that work as dynamic systems aimed at growth and productivity. They are driven by layered digital architecture that enables insight and quick decision-making. With technology being the key driver of change, an ‘enterprise of tomorrow’ hinges on the capability to harness tech advancements to better their processes and increase profitability. Such companies, often defined by their future-looking policies and the adoption of the latest tech, set the path that others would follow in the coming time. This means being on top of not just the technological growth but also having meaningful and relevant people strategies

In the current world of rapid changes, both externally in the market ecosystem and internally within companies, talent remains a key consideration. Business leaders know that their vision of making their companies resilient and agile hinges on having the right people. Many have begun identifying and investing in key areas like recruitment, learning, employee engagement, etc that remain important for them to remain productive. All these are critical in driving performance in the ‘enterprise of tomorrow’. 

As a changing business world brings newer opportunities for companies to grow, so do the employees. For companies that hope to drive up their performance, ensuring they have the right people at the right place isn’t just enough. The key is to ‘continously’ offer them career development and options. 

In the digital world

“Today the skills required for the future are constantly evolving and companies require time to quickly assess their needs,” said Jacely Voon Chief People Officer, Fujifilm Singapore in a recent webinar, noting how with “the rise of remote work in the last year, many talent restrictions like geographical barriers have also gone away.” While this allows companies to hire more broadly, she highlighted how the rise of the digitally enabled workplace also brings in new concerns for companies. While businesses have become more purpose-driven, changing talent considerations and a digital world have put a great onus on companies to act timely. From identifying the areas where their employees can grow to manage career expectations and learning needs, companies need to proactively provide solutions. While the digital age means employees come into the companies with a host of opportunities, companies have to quickly assess the best fit for their employees and ensure they remain productive in that role. Robust performance and career management system allows for this.

To do this effectively, Jacely adds, ‘companies need to shed their one size fits all approach. Having a robust view of talent assessments and guides for skill development is needed. This can be supplemented with to tap into external services which improve performance are necessary.’ Identifying skills gaps and providing the right solutions is necessary to help people develop holistically and in tune with their strengths and weaknesses. While it has been the advent of the digital world that has made companies search for new skills, it also facilitates employees to build such skills and define their careers.

Issues with performance management 

‘Performance management is ensuring individual, team and organizational goals are aligned and achieved,’ adds Arun Sundar Chief Marketing Officer, entomo elucidating the problems with performance management today. ‘These then combine to ensure the company’s goals are fulfilled. But often that is not the case. Performance management has today become like a ritual where the crux of assessment is done once a year. This in addition to the lack of agility of performance management systems, remains two core problems.’

Arun goes on to explain how often business leaders decide to change or evolve their processes but the time this trickles down to different departments and they begin to manage performance based on this new change, is significantly large. This impedes the agility that many companies carve in today's often volatile and unpredictable external ecosystem. To shorten the lag will be to implement more agile performance management systems as they provide the mechanism through which business changes can be rooted in the employee's everyday work.  It is important today for performance management to ensure organizational goals and people roles are tightly knit. It also has to be a continuous process where the objective has to be to empower employees and not solely monitoring them.

Companies have long existed in a world where they operate as separate entities, often limited in their integration with the external ecosystem. But that has changed with the advent of digitalization. Companies are ever closer to their consumers, their employees, and other stakeholders. From a talent perspective, companies require performance management that reflects the realities of the current world. To make them agile while ensuring they reflect employees' expectations of growth is a challenge that Business leaders and HR professionals across the board will have to figure out.