Article | Harvard Business Review | May–June 2019

Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think

by Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Judith K. Wallenstein and Alice de Chalendar

Abstract

In 2018 the Project on Managing the Future of Work at HBS teamed up with the BCG Henderson Institute to survey 6,500 business leaders and 11,000 workers about the various forces reshaping the nature of work. The responses revealed a surprising gap: While the executives were pessimistic about their employees’ ability to acquire the capabilities needed to thrive in an era of rapid change, the employees were not. The employees were actually focused on the benefits that change would bring and far more eager to learn new skills than their leaders gave them credit for. This gap highlights a vast reserve of talent and energy firms can tap into: their own workers. How can a company do that? By creating a learning culture, engaging employees in the transition instead of shepherding them through it, developing an internal talent pipeline for the entire workforce, and collaborating with outside partners to build the right skills in the labor pools it hires from.

Keywords: Management; Employees; Attitudes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

Format: Print Find at Harvard Read Now

Citation:

Fuller, Joseph B., Manjari Raman, Judith K. Wallenstein, and Alice de Chalendar. "Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 3 (May–June 2019): 118–126.

About the Author

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Joseph B. Fuller
Professor of Management Practice
General Management

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