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The Shape of Work
The Shape of Work
#101 'The Great Resignation' and 'The Great Experiment' - Kim Curley on the renewed focus on organization culture, and the human side of business
“My number one job as a leader is to get stuff out of the way so that my great people can do the great jobs that I hired them to do.”
Kim Curley has spent her career focused on the human side of the business, enabling leaders and their organizations to do more, do better, and thrive through change.
As the Vice President - Workforce Readiness Consulting for NTT DATA Services, Kim leads consultants focused on solving clients’ most complex challenges by designing and implementing programs to address the people, process, and technology aspects of the business.
Named an ‘NTT DATA Game Changer’ for her dedication to client and team success, Kim is also one of the founders of NTT DATA’s ‘Women Inspire NTT DATA (WIN)’ employee resource group.
In this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, we discuss with Kim:
- The meaning of ‘Workforce Readiness’
- ‘The Great Resignation’ - employee migration and what this means for employers
- How the growth of the gig economy signals a tectonic shift in the workforce
- How up-skilling your workforce benefits your organization: building the pool
- Mistakes leaders might make during the pandemic, in terms of change management
The Great Resignation
People are leaving their current employer and are aggressively on the lookout for something better. A place that has a different culture offers a better salary or has core values that sync with the employee or anything. People are changing jobs like never before.
Such situations compel talent and resource managers to find out a solution. Suppose you look closely at the work culture that everyone fancies. In that case, you will realise that companies are taking severe measures to retain their top talent: from employee engagement activities online to mid-term appraisals, promotions, on-site opportunities, annual bonuses, and whatnot.
Sharing her thoughts on the ongoing trend called “The Great Resignation”, Kim says, “Yes. Reports say that around 40-50% of people are open to a job change right now. In April and May, over seven and a half million people quit their jobs, which is just double of what happened at the same time-frame last year.”
“Whenever somebody leaves an organisation, you lose 50-75% of their annual salary in attempting to replace them both in terms of the learning curve for the person when you get them in, the cost of recruiting, the cost of training etc.,” she adds.
The Great Experiment
While emphasizing on companies focusing on their people, she says, “Two years ago, how many companies did you hear talking about wellness? Or the importance of culture? We never talked about it. So, one of the biggest impacts of this pandemic is this shift in perspective.”
“The great resignation is going to trigger the Great Experiment because none knows what it’s going to look like for a while. And that’s not because the pandemic is continuing but because its impacts are continuing too. And it’ll take us a while to figure out what a workplace means,” she continues.
Because of remote working, everyone has a different set of priorities. Employees are managing office work along with several other things that they were not bothered about earlier.
Follow Kim on LinkedIn
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Abhash Kumar