Building a Resilient Workforce That Steers Organizational Success

The Evolving Employee Landscape

To deliver for today’s agenda and prepare for years to come, organizations must ensure their
workforce is capable of adapting to change. As employee needs, skills and behaviors evolve,
it’s crucial for employers to invest in building a resilient workforce that can effectively
navigate new challenges and opportunities.

Resilient workforces provide positive business outcomes. When the resilience of a workforce rises, so
does client satisfaction, profit margin, innovation, net promoter scores and employee
retention.¹ To build resilience, all aspects of employee wellbeing need to be addressed,
including physical, social, mental and emotional, work/life and financial needs. This also means
developing a human-centered employee value proposition (EVP), where an employer’s values,
culture, policies and benefits provide a positive employee experience.

Sixty-three percent of organizations say wellbeing is more important to their company since 2020,
while just under half say that wellbeing has become a more significant priority in that
timeframe.² This rise in prominence brings wellbeing to the forefront of an
organization’s EVP.

In fact, Aon’s Global Wellbeing survey shows wellbeing as top priority for 38 percent of
organizations over the next five years. And the higher an employer’s wellbeing ratings, the
better they score when it comes to maintaining a sustainable working life — which includes a
combination of resilience, agility and belonging. According to our findings, sustainable working has
the potential to increase company performance by at least 11 percent and up to 55 percent due to
improved morale, higher productivity and lower absenteeism.

To deliver improved wellbeing and a high-performing workforce, HR leaders must assess and address the
specific needs of their people, while also championing a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion and
belonging (DEIB). Delivering improved employee wellbeing can also have favorable impacts on
corporate reputation, regulatory compliance, and shareholder engagement.

This article explores how industries and companies are navigating the evolving employee landscape,
with solutions to steer organizational success through building workforce resilience.

Converging Tides: Industries are Threatened by a Sea of Human Capital Challenges

Organizations without resilient workforces were most affected when navigating workforce changes
during the pandemic. If a company downsized to cut costs only to rehire as business ramped up again,
for example, it generally had to pay more than 100 percent of a role’s annual salary to
replace the employee. In contrast, organizations that looked towards reskilling existing employees
spent on average around 10 percent of the employee annual salary.³

As high inflation challenges today’s global and local economies, HR budgets are being squeezed.
Despite this, 43 percent of companies are increasing their investment in the wellbeing of their
people.⁴ From financial earnings of employees and stakeholder pressure to meet production
quotas, to the rising cost of living, macroeconomic factors impact all aspects of wellbeing —
directly or indirectly.

This rising tide is putting pressure on HR to optimize return on investment (ROI) of wellbeing and
benefits. At the same time, organizations also face challenges from the convergence of
digitalization, evolving skills, social and macroeconomic factors.

Although digital transformation enables more efficiency, employees must have the necessary skills to
adapt and press play on the future of work. Every global region is facing a digital skills
gap,⁵ forcing companies looking to innovate at pace to reconsider how they upskill,
reskill, attract and retain digitally-enabled talent. The need for social and emotional skills is
also in high demand.⁶ Soft skills, such as adaptability, problem-solving, active
listening and communication, are transferable across sectors and vital across hybrid working models.

Sink or Swim: Industry-Specific Challenges

To respond effectively to rapidly changing risks and opportunities, organizations must address
industry specific challenges. The food, agribusiness and beverage (FAB) industry must meet an uptick
in demand for consumer goods while facing a skills shortage. Financial institutions (FI) are facing
high employee turnover, stemming from a younger workforce attracted to employers who align with
their environmental, social and governance (ESG) values and remote working needs.⁷

As 71 percent of companies in the life sciences sector planned to increase their workforce in a
post-pandemic ‘revival,’ the demand for skilled employees still squeezes their talent
pipeline.⁸ For renewables, pressure to power secure and sustainable futures to reach
net-zero carbon requires accessible reskilling programs for the transition from fossil fuel energy
organizations.

Feeding a Need — Building Agile and Innovative Workforces Across Food, Agribusiness
and Beverage

In a competitive world of consumer choice and decreasing space in the market, FAB organizations must
be more connected to their customers. To build loyalty with a wide-ranging and diverse customer
base, they must actively recruit an equally diverse workforce across ages, backgrounds, gender and
ethnicity. Organizations in the FAB sector are challenged to sustain a growing population while
achieving net-zero carbon emissions commitments.

Although diversity of skills and thought are vital ingredients for business success, the FAB industry
is struggling to acquire manufacturing employers. An identity crisis around job roles in
manufacturing means that organizations are finding it difficult to attract new, diverse hires, as
well as reskill current employees to work in critical production roles. As development of automation
within the industry progresses,⁹ companies must focus on shifting the traditional
perceptions of manufacturing through improved EVPs and ensuring employees feel valued.¹⁰

Supporting the emotional and work/life needs of their employees is key for the FAB industry, which is
evident through the push for benefits that support young families. The sector leads the charge when
it comes to providing backup care vendors, with 22¹¹ percent of FAB businesses reporting
that they have a policy or initiative as part of their non-insured family support benefits. This is
6 percent higher than the figure reported for other industries. However, when supporting and
retaining older talent, less than half of FAB businesses offer flexibility related to the design of
roles, location and working hours, compared to a 66 percent average across industries.

New Ways to Pay — Contending with Competition Through Employee Experience in Financial
Institutions

Faster, more efficient customer-centric banking has led to wide-spread digitalization across
financial institutions. Innovative business models are driving change in FIs, as new banking
capabilities call for digitally-enabled talent. However, with competition from disruptive FinTechs
and established institutions, FIs must have effective incentives in place to attract and retain the
talent they need to offer desirable customer value propositions.

From commercial banks to brokerage firms, FIs are assessing the experience they offer to their
people. To remain competitive, improved customer and employee experience is essential.

A company’s EVP should focus on more than financial wellbeing. Today’s workforce
increasingly values social, physical, emotional and work/life balance as key drivers when choosing
an employer. With competitive pay and compensation already a given in the financial industry,
potential talent now considers professional development opportunities, flexible work arrangements,
company culture, recognition and supportive feedback when making a decision.

With increasing numbers of FI employees seeking employers whose values align with their own,
it’s critical for companies to maintain a strong understanding of what motivates their people.
Collecting people data will enable organizations to tailor more personalized and relevant benefits,
shaping effective ESG and DEIB strategies.

While FI organizations are starting to offer increased work/life balance, financial reward is still a
high priority. Aon’s Pulse survey shows that 42 percent of organizations plan to offer
increased workplace flexibility and 94 percent are focused on adjusting base salaries.¹²

Growing Culture — Sustaining Success with Resilient People in Life Sciences

Seventy-one percent of life sciences companies planned to increase their workforce in 2022 and more
than one third of businesses increased their employee numbers by greater than 15
percent.¹³ Despite this, the industry still faces unstable talent pipelines. As new
technologies are revolutionizing traditional healthcare delivery models, highly skilled workers with
scientific expertise, industry acumen and digital skills are in both short supply and high demand.

With 78 percent of life sciences companies attributing their rising turnover rates to better career
opportunities and 77 percent to higher pay,¹⁴ organizations are constantly competing with
businesses who offer better career progression and financial reward. In this competition for top
talent, a focus on compensation, health and benefit strategies and total rewards will be critical to
building a resilient workforce, while also enabling internal innovation.

Life sciences companies should also focus on the health needs of their workforce and their families.
The industry is falling behind other sectors when it comes to providing advanced mental health
support. For example only 33 percent of life sciences companies provide access to a psychiatrist
compared to a 43 percent global average.¹⁵ Across all areas of family support, the sector
also lags other industries, from infertility treatment coverage to supporting people with care
responsibilities.

Power for the Future — Empowering People to Develop Sustainable Skills in Renewables

With the clock ticking to reach net-zero carbon emissions, it’s no surprise that renewables is
one of the fastest growing industry sectors. The need for sustainable and secure energy continues to
increase across industries. This encourages significant investment in renewables, which is evident
by a geographically expanding industry footprint.¹⁶

This high-growth sector has an imminent need for skilled labor to meet operational demands.
There’s a critical gap in the talent required to deliver on the increased number of development
projects, especially in the offshore wind sub-sector. But with rapidly evolving new technologies,
such as green hydrogen or battery storage, the challenges and opportunities of workforce resilience
are dialed up.

Organizations must look to utilize talent from sub-sectors in the wider energy industry, such as oil
and gas. As employees transition from fossil fuel sub-sectors, an untapped pool of talent is
available for organizations who are willing to invest in wide-scale reskilling programs.

In line with the growth of renewables organizations across all continents, businesses will need to
ensure they are exploring talent pools globally, including those in developing countries. This will
ensure the renewables industry is better equipped to build and operate the infrastructure needed for
a sustainable and environmentally secure world.