Be inspired at Grad Week, then celebrate at Grad Live: Class of 2020!
Grad Week is all about you, the extraordinary Class of 2020, and the unparalleled times in which you’re graduating: What has 2020 meant to you? What qualities have you drawn on? What does the next step in your career look like? And where’s the party?
Watch Grad Live here from 7pm tonight!
And don't forget to send us your photos of your celebration! #RMITgrad2020 #RMITforlife
Join us for Action Planning, an activity which will enable you to create personal action plans for life and work after graduation. It will break it down into a series of actions, audiences, timelines and measures of success so that you have a clear plan for implementation.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Join this workshop to ensure you create the action plans you need for your future success after graduation.
Join us for Action Planning, an activity which will enable you to create personal action plans for life and work after graduation. It will break it down into a series of actions, audiences, timelines and measures of success so that you have a clear plan for implementation.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Join this workshop to ensure you create the action plans you need for your future success after graduation.
ACTION PLANNING
[START OF TRANSCRIPT]
VISUAL: Louise Andersson, Development Director EMEA, Common Purpose Student Experience, addresses the camera.
LOUISE ANDERSSON SPEAKS:
Hello, I am Louise and I’m really excited that you’re joining me for this action planning session today. First of all, on behalf of Common Purpose and RMIT we would like to pay our respects to the traditional owners and custodians of the lands we all standing across the world.
We give thanks to the lands and the waters and acknowledge the gifts they bring us each day.
So congratulations on making it to RMIT Graduation Week. I know we’re all living under quite strange circumstances at the moment with an ongoing pandemic, which I’m sure isn’t what you pictured your graduation or indeed the months following would look like when you started university.
It’s all pretty, pretty crap to be honest and I am incredibly impressed and inspired by you students who are doing so to prepare for life ahead. This session will focus on action planning and the aim of the session is to give you some practical tools to help you create a personal action plan for life and work after graduation. So in the next few minutes we’re going to go through how you can take a goal that you have and through a few steps identify the actions you need to take to make that goal a success.
So what you need first is to think of a goal that you want to achieve in the next few months. Now this can be anything. Big or small. Could be something that you do on your own or need to collaborate with others to achieve, and it could be something that you've already started working or you’re just thinking of it now.
For example your goal maybe that you want to learn more about a field that you're interested in. If it helps, you can pause the video here and think of a goal that you want to achieve in the next few months. So hopefully now you have your goal. The next step is to think about the actions you need to take to achieve that goal.
We’ll split this into three categories.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson holds up an A4 sheet of paper with the words: Practical, Connection and Skills or Behaviour.
Practical, Connection and Skills or Behaviour.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson lowers the A4 sheet of paper with the words: Practical, Connection and Skills or Behaviour.
If I’m thinking back to the example goal that I gave you earlier, if I want to learn more about a field that I'm interested in, a practical action
VISUAL: Louise Andersson holds up and lowers an A4 sheet of paper with the word: Practical
might be to research organisations who work in that field and explore if they have any online events I can attend for free or career websites where I can connect with someone from that organisation.
The next action will be to
VISUAL: Louise Andersson holds up an A4 sheet of paper with the word: Connection
try to build a connection with someone who can help you achieve your goal.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson lowers the A4 sheet of paper with the word: Connection
Here you might look in your existing network or through platforms like LinkedIn. In my example I’d be looking for individuals who have experiences in the field and ask them if they have a few minutes for an informal interview.
This is sort of an opportunity for me to then ask questions about what they do for a living and what they enjoy about their job and in my scenario it would be very important to remember not to ask for open opportunities in that initial outreach, but simply to explain that I'm looking for understanding and learning more about that field and to hear from an expert in a role that I aspire to hold in the future.
The final action
VISUAL: Louise Andersson holds up an A4 sheet of paper with the words: Skills or Behaviour
would be around skills and behaviour.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson lowers the A4 sheet of paper with the words: Skills or Behaviour
What skills or behaviour do you need to work on to achieve your goal. In my example I might want to understand how my own experience and skills map out against those desirable in the field.
I can find out more about this through looking at job postings for roles in the field and identifying which skills are mentioned as important for future candidates. Or I might ask the person who I'm connecting with to share what skills they consider important in the field.
So at this stage you should have identified three actions that you need to take.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson holds up an A4 sheet of paper with the words: Practical, Connection and Skills or Behaviour.
Your Practical, your Connection and your Individual Skills and Behaviour that you need to focus on.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson lowers the A4 sheet of paper with the words: Practical, Connection and Skills or Behaviour.
Your next steps would be to think of a timeline, when do you want to have achieved your goal by. In my case I might give myself a couple of months, so say two months. And this would be for me to be able to work through my actions that I’ve set for myself and I'm may even decide to do one action more than once.
Your final step is to decide how you measure if you've achieved your goal. What does success look like for you? And in my example I may decide that if I've learnt something new about the field that I'm interested in, I've connected with someone in that field and I've identified the skills and behaviours I need in that field, I feel like I've achieved my goal.
So that gives you a framework,
VISUAL: Louise Andersson holds up an A4 sheet of paper indicating three steps with the words: Identify your Actions, Decide on a Timeline, Outline What Success Looks Like For You
identify your actions, decide on a timeline and outline what success looks like for you.
VISUAL: Louise Andersson lowers the A4 sheet of paper indicating three steps with the words: Identify your Actions, Decide on a Timeline, Outline What Success Looks Like For You
I have this is a helpful framework for you to begin working towards your goals and I congratulate you again on graduating and I wish you all the best.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Join us Defining Your Purpose, an activity to support you to understand what your personal brand is, to both help potential employers know what makes you unique, and to articulate for yourself what they want to be known for in their futures.
Why should anyone employ you? What is it about your life experience, sense of purpose and skill set that makes you the ideal hire? Join this workshop to help define what makes you unique and what you stand for.
Join us Defining Your Purpose, an activity to support you to understand what your personal brand is, to both help potential employers know what makes you unique, and to articulate for yourself what they want to be known for in their futures.
Why should anyone employ you? What is it about your life experience, sense of purpose and skill set that makes you the ideal hire? Join this workshop to help define what makes you unique and what you stand for.
DEFINING YOUR PURPOSE
[START OF TRANSCRIPT]
VISUAL: Andy Coxall, Chief Executive, Common Purpose Student Experience, addresses the camera.
ANDY COXALL SPEAKS:
On behalf of Common Purpose and RMIT University we would like to pay our respects to the traditional owners and custodians of the lands we all stand on across the world we give thanks to the lands and waters and acknowledge the gifts they bring us each day.
Personal leadership brand three words that can evoke quite strong responses in people. You may have people who say personal leadership brand, god that sounds like that awful interview question, or describe yourself in three words, or they may say what, what is this about Instagram influencers and brand, or they may say we can't brand a person you can brand a cleaning product or a car but, you can't brand me.
All of which I understand and I’ve heard a lot of other things as well but I would also argue the other side to this is the, personal leadership brand or knowing who you are what you stand for and what others can expect from you it’s absolutely critical as you go out into your careers.
If you want someone to know why they should hire you over someone else, if you want someone to know why they should follow you, if you want people to understand why they should work with you for you to create great success they've got to know who you are and what you stand for.
That's a two-way street, you have to understand it yourself and they have to receive you that way, and if there is that connection and that commonality and that synergy between what you stand for and what you believe in and how you want to work with others and other people experience that themselves.
Then from that shared understanding and that common starting point you can create really powerful working relationships, make things happen, get things done, you will progress in your career as people know what they can turn to you for and what they can expect from you it's absolutely critical.
So critics aside, I think this is absolutely crucial as you embark on your career no matter, whether you have you're just starting out when you've had a previous career it's crucial for you to understand what is it about you that makes you unique what are you bringing to the table why should people come to you? Why should people turn to you? Why should people follow you?
So this activity is to give you a chance to think about that and to really test it. It's all well and good saying well I think I'm this and I'm that and this is what I bring to the table, but as I say there has to be a similarity between how people receive you so we're going to put that to the test now.
So what you're going to do to start is, you're going to write down three words. That dreaded interview question in terms of what you think you stand for, what your brand is as a leader and what people can expect from you, you're going to explain why and then you're going to do the critical bit you're going to email a group of people and ask them what they think of your personal brand.
You're not going to tell them your three words, you're going to ask them openly receive their thoughts and feedback and then start to see what that tells you where there's similarity where there's crossover where there's dissonance and difference and start to unpick it.
But when you do this the most important thing is not to, it's not to lie to yourself, we all have elements of ourselves that we would like to change.
We'd all have things that we would like to be, but put our hands on our hearts know that we're not and it's really important you don't kid yourself, I’ve in the past said one of my three is respect, you know I expect to be treated with respect by other people it’s because I treat other people with respect and I feel a lot better about myself, I pat myself on the back and think good on me, but in reality it's not true, you know if I’m honest with myself do I always give respect actively and consciously and also unconsciously with people do, I never disrespect people either actively unconsciously or even just by omission or not doing certain things of course I don't you know ludicrous for me to pretend, that is who I am, if I'm honest about who I am, so I can't put things like that down I have to choose other words.
Two of the words that I do know are actually quite true are driven and direct. So direct not direct in, I'm just going to say it, say it as it is but direct in terms of I prefer to address issues head on I prefer to be quite direct about having those conversations, I prefer to have conversations about what's actually happening rather than those slightly murky conversations where people are talking around subjects and not quite going there.
So I prefer to be upfront with these things and I expect other people to be upfront with me I don't want people to hide behind things people I work with, if they're having problems just tell me it's all good just be direct and up front.
Driven, I push myself very hard I'm very ambitious. I hold myself to a very, very high standard of what I think and what I should be proud of, and what I need to achieve and I’ll push myself very hard to do that. I'm really driven in that way and that drive is a really powerful force and a really useful force in terms of pushing me, pushing me on what I do, but the reality is these aren't always just positives you have to look at the flip side of that, that actually being direct sometimes means I can miss nuance it means I can maybe put things forward too strongly.
It might mean I miss the opportunity to have a conversation in a different way that would be better for the person I’m talking to and being driven the the biggest danger I have with that is that I can project my drive onto other people and it ain't their drive it's mine.
So I shouldn't expect from them what I would expect from myself you have to be careful with these things as well they're not sort of universal goods, but the important part is testing them and I’ve tested those on people that I work with and they agree with them and they say no that is you there is alignment there and certainly we know we understand each other. They know what they can expect of me, I know what I can expect of myself and how what I’m going to ask of them.
So that's the testing part so now what I'd ask you to do is to sit and think, think about your three, write down the headline words or description and then explain why you think that's the case. What it is you bring then think of 10 people that you can contact, these will be friends in your course, these will be friends from home, these will be family, people you work with on a part-time job, but try and think of a diverse range of people who know you from very different walks of life and in different ways and ask them the question.
I'm trying to work out what my personal leadership brand is please could I ask you to give three words that you think describe me? In terms of who I am what I stand for what you can expect from me what I believe in. Then give me a little description about why you think that just best described to me send it out to those 10 people, get the results and then look at what you find.
Where is there similarity between how you see yourself and how others perceive you great if you're living it if that's how you they're receiving you as well that's fantastic and it shows that you're really living those elements of your brand. There'll be other areas where maybe lots of people are saying a certain thing that you hadn't thought of, but then when you reflect on it you think well actually yeah maybe that is important to me you know that's great, I just haven't thought of it that way, great there's synergy and similarity and you've learned something and there's another word and something else you can bring to the table, if you look at it and say well I'm not actually sure that is me or actually I don't want that to be me.
Then you need to unpick well, how are people perceiving me that way? How are they receiving me that way? Why is it that I'm projecting that to them? If you want to change it, change it or you think about how you want to use or adapt it.
Then there may be some areas where it's just totally different but it just gives you a different perspective and you may want to have a follow-up conversation with them about, I didn't understand that or I haven't seen that please help me understand it.
Through doing that you will develop a much deeper self-awareness of yourself. You will reflect on yourself and your own perception of yourself, but you'll also develop most crucially a really much deeper self-awareness of how others perceive you.
What you stand for and why they follow you and why they like you and why they want to work with you and then it gives you a really tight powerful thought through reflective sense of who you are, what you stand for.
So in an interview when you get that question “describe yourself in three words” you don't just give a nice answer of how you would like to be thought of, you actually give a real answer. You explain how you came to that realization and what you did to develop that self-awareness and it'll be hugely powerful.
But also when you go into your work after graduation and you're working in teams and people ask you to introduce yourself and as you start working with your new manager or your new team you can really start to share at a much deeper level, who you are and what you stand for.
And start to build the relationships that are much deeper and more powerful level to help you progress in your career. So there we go personal leadership brand, please give it a go and I wish you the very best luck.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Join us for The Leader You’ve Become, an activity to help you to understand what the critical moments and people have been in your life, how they’ve gotten you to this point and what you want to achieve and stand for as you head out into the world.
What kind of leader do you want to become and why would anyone follow you? Join this workshop to explore the pivotal moments in your life and how they have shaped you, define what you are passionate about so you can, as Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see.”
Join us for The Leader You’ve Become, an activity to help you to understand what the critical moments and people have been in your life, how they’ve gotten you to this point and what you want to achieve and stand for as you head out into the world.
What kind of leader do you want to become and why would anyone follow you? Join this workshop to explore the pivotal moments in your life and how they have shaped you, define what you are passionate about so you can, as Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see.”
THE LEADER YOU’VE BECOME
[START OF TRANSCRIPT]
VISUAL: Louise Andersson, Development Director EMEA, Common Purpose Student Experience, addresses the camera.
LOUISE ANDERSSON SPEAKS:
On behalf of Common purpose and RMIT University, we'd like to pay our respects to the traditional owners and custodians of the land we will stand in across the world ,we give thanks to the lands and waters and acknowledged the gifts they bring us each day.
You are at a critical and hugely exciting moment of your life where you transition out of University, out into the world, and out into the world of work and for some of you, for many of you, this will be the first time you've left education since you started when you were a little kid, for others of you, you will have had the opportunity already to go into your careers and may have studied already and now you'll be embarking on your second or third or even fourth group. But nonetheless, for all of you, now is an opportunity to stop, reflect and take stock on what have been the pivotal moments and people that have made you who you are today and how they shaped your beliefs, your values, your ambition, your aspirations, your passions and your purpose as you won't go out into the world. So, we'd like to invite you to take this moment to reflect, to take stock, before you dive out into the busy world that you are heading into and we do that through a reflective activity called the leader you've become. We're going to do that by looking back over your life through the analogy of a River. So if you think of your life as the start of a rivers life, so rivers start, they come out of a spring, a small piece of water grows into a stream, grows into a river, swings, meanders overtime, has waterfalls, rapids and various other features, we're going to think of your life in the same way and we're going to think about what have been the moments that shaped your river and have made it go faster, have been moments of great calm and tranquillity, there might have been moments of change or turbulence, the rapids and the waterfalls and really think about what have been the moments where your life has suddenly taken a turn, where your River has suddenly turn 90 degrees and you've got in a very different direction, why did that happen and where did that take you. So, on a piece of paper, you're going to draw this, it is very much a drawing reflective activity, on one side you're going to have top left: people, top right: events and experiences and then you're going to have your river, and I'll explain mine in a second so that you think about how that works. But, you know people, it might be as a young kid, it might have been one of your grandparents who had a major impact on your life and your upbringing, if you want to put in there as a pivotal person who really shaped you. It might be your first teacher at school, it might be starting school is a key event, or moving schools or moving towns or moving countries, it might be losing a grandparent or losing a parent or losing a friend around you, it might be experiencing loss at a young age, it might be finding a passion for music or art or sport or a subject at school. Going to your teenage years, it might be people, you know, a best friend, a group of best friends, a first love, a first heartbreak, it might be becoming captain of a sports team or class rep, it might be the work experience you had or the opportunity to travel that helped you to broaden out your thinking and that a real impact, it might be really nailing your exams and real success, it may be having to learn to cope with not maybe having achieved exactly what you wanted, all of which are really critical moments and we want to give you the chance to map those out. To explain mine, however, just to bring it to life for you, so, almost before, my parents, so, my dad's English and my Mum’s Japanese and that's been unbelievably influential in my life and how I see the world, growing up between two cultures, I grew up in the UK but I always spend at least two months a year in Japan as a kid doing a bit of schooling, spending time with my large family over there and that experience of being between two cultures, of being of two cultures, and recognising just how big the world is from a very young age has been so critical and has shaped so much of what them then followed. From my love of travel, to studying social anthropology at University, to my passion for global news and current affairs, to my work now, you know running a global team in a global business has been absolutely critical and it's been a thread running throughout my life. From the very beginning, how I view myself and how I view the world and what world means to me as someone who's grown up with a real appreciation of it. A slightly more random one,I guess we come here, actually on reflection is a career test I did when I was 15. So, when I was 15 I did a career aptitude test at school, no doubt many of you would have done them, where you look at what kind of careers you might do and the type of work you should do and the type of work shouldn't do. I didn't think it was important at the time and I haven’t really thought about it since but actually on reflection what it did show was that it was absolutely spot on, it absolutely showed me what I now know to be 100% true, that in the work that I do I need variety, I need fast paced, I need changing circumstance, I need to be completely pushed and tested. Repetition and routine bore me very quickly and I can’t cope with that, I need that space and that creativity that comes from being in very fast pace changing environments. It's absolutely right and it has now had a massive impact on what I've done and the type of work I've done, I just didn't know it at the time. Then we come to University, obviously very fitting, but a really important one for me, a real formative experience moving from growing up in a small countryside rural town, going to a big city 500 miles away, studying with people from all over the world, from very different walks of life, different backgrounds, huge diversity energy, different, scary, you know totally out of my comfort zone and being pushed from a sort of small countryside bubble and being in school where I never tried very hard, I just sort of coasted along in the middle, never achieved much, that wasn't what drove me, but it was just all very easy. To then being somewhere where the bar was just so high and I was having to work with, and engage with people who were just stretching me so much, and so that grew my confidence, my inspirations, my ambitions and really gave me a sense of purpose, what I wanted to achieve in the world. I didn't leave knowing what I wanted to do, I didn't know what career I want, I hadn't even drafted a CV yet, but what I did know was what my purpose was, what impact I wanted to create, and that was really to help others to have same education and opportunities that I'd had ,if they were not as lucky as I was to have had them, and that sense of purpose and that desire to work with young people to support them in those ways absolutely shaped my work, my career, the voluntary work I've done both in the UK and globally. Then we come to two more, we have a person and a place. So, after University I worked for a year to raise money to go to South America for a year to travel, have fun and do some voluntary work which is amazing. I went with a person, I went with someone called Catherine, who was my then girlfriend. We left together, we came back together and have since been married for nine years and have two small boys. So, that's been a hugely important moment of my life, that year and of how we grew together and fell in love and built a life together when we came back. Then work, the final piece here, I walked into a recruitment agency, said “I don't have any money, I need a job, ideally it would be purpose lead and it could do something relating to young people, but honestly I'll do anything” they offered me a two week temp job at an organisation called common purpose, never heard of it, didn't care frankly, just wanted to get started. 13 years, later 9 promotions and I'm still here and I'm loving it. It's taking me in ways that I never thought it would and I'm growing and developing constantly, being tested with so many ways but I think the important point here is that often, on reflection, coincidence and luck, often can be just as important. You can plan that river as much as you want but it will go its own way at times and you've got to be open to that and go with that and see where it takes you. So, I invite you all to do the same thing, people on the top left, events and experiences on the top right and then draw that map, draw that river, how has your life grown, what's happened, what have been the people, the events, the experiences, that have shaped you? When ass your life suddenly changed direction with the river changing direction, when has there maybe been turbulence and change, put in a waterfall, maybe some rapids, when has it been bigger, when has it been smaller, when has it been going fast, when has it been going slow and really think creatively about those experiences and then when you finish and you get to where you are today, look back and think about what are some of those reoccurring themes, what are some of those things are constantly happening or influences in your life as you go through it because they're hugely important to who you are, your beliefs, your values and your ambitions and aspirations and your sense of purpose, what you want to achieve in the world. As are the moments of great change, when your river changed course, how did that come about or what impact did that have and also some of the more smaller subtle things that maybe you haven't thought about, or haven’t reflected on, but actually had a real impact on who you are, and all of that will bring you to where you are today. And, as you graduate and as you go out into the world, that next chapter is yours to write. So, you can think about and decide where you want your river to go next and, you can think about the people that you're going to go on that journey with and, who you're going to need to help you go on that journey and, think about what are the kind of experiences that you want to have and create for yourself or seek out to enable you to grow and to have the opportunity to create what you want of your life, to live the kind of impact and purpose you want to live and, to really find a way of taking what matters to you, having reflected on your life, and ensure that you're continuing to live it.
So, I want to wish you the very best and I hope you find this a useful activity and it helps you think about what has been and, then think about what could be next. So I wish you the very best, good luck and thank you.
Want to know what the future world of work looks like? Want to know how best to prepare yourself to succeed after graduation?
This short video introduces our three global leaders based in the UK, Dubai and Singapore who will share their experiences working for organisations such as BP, Johnson Controls, Africa Finance Corporation, GE, Accenture, EY, Cisco and the World Economic Forum.
Don’t miss out! Register for the LIVE event on Wednesday 16 December.
Want to know what the future world of work looks like? Want to know how best to prepare yourself to succeed after graduation?
This short video introduces our three global leaders based in the UK, Dubai and Singapore who will share their experiences working for organisations such as BP, Johnson Controls, Africa Finance Corporation, GE, Accenture, EY, Cisco and the World Economic Forum.
Don’t miss out! Register for the LIVE event on Wednesday 16 December.
TRENDS OF THE FUTURE
[START OF TRANSCRIPT]
VISUAL: Andy Coxall, Chief Executive, Common Purpose Student Experience, addresses the camera.
ANDY COXALL SPEAKS:
On behalf of common purpose and RMIT University, we would like to pay our respects to the traditional owners and custodians of the land we all stand in across the world. We give our thanks to the lands and the waters and acknowledge the gifts they bring us each day.
Welcome to the introductory videos for the trends of the future with global industry leaders. We are delighted you are joining us and hope to see you with us on the 16th of December at 6pm ADET. But now is your chance to hear from Alvin, Sanjeev and Julia and get their perspectives from across Singapore, the UK and the UAE on what are the big mega global trends that are shaping the future world of work and what are the skills you’re going to need to thrive in that future world of work.
VISUAL: On screen written question: What are the most significant mega trends that are shaping the future world of work?
VISUAL: Julia Harvie-Liddel, Group Head of Talent Acquisition, BP, addresses the camera.
JULIA HARVIE-LIDDEL SPEAKS:
I think what we are seeing are big mega trends sitting in one of the biggest FOOTSE companies globally is we have had to shift to remote working. What does that mean? I think what it means is with my recruitment hat on is we will see the location of work changing so actually that is quite exciting. I think what we will see is the job market open up globally in a way that it hasn’t been able to before when people have always thought about people sitting in a location to do a role.
We have got an increase set of employee data, we know that data and technology are a huge growth area globally for all organistions so for the first time we can now see when, as an employer, we can see when people are logging on, logging off whether we can make some interventions because they are actually online too long and really we can start to measure the productivity of the time they are spending online because that’s the majority of the way we are doing our work at the moment. So I think there is going to be an increase use of employee data. I think companies that have thrived this year have shown quickly a strong sense of social responsibility, I think all of us have been able to troll through career pages for the last 20 odd years and seen very homogenous similar comments around care of for their employees, care for the environment, care for the workplace, actually covid has really forced companies to either compete in that space or not so, I think what we will see as a mega trend is a huge push around that social safety net that employment and the employer can offer that employee.
I think we will see a redefinition of critical skills in terms of critical skills around what do we actually need as an organisation to be successful, I think there is going to be a radical change in that and I have seen that even in the last nine months. For a lot of companies I don’t think they have had to think about crisis response, they have been able to work in really quite controlled environment and have a limited number of external factors that affect them Covid again has turned that on its head and I think companies will really now need to build a much more resilience around crisis response and so I think they will ask for that from their employees too. That leads into my final point which I think there is a big push around resilience and that I think this year has become as important as efficiency which always use to be the thing that companies hung their hat on. So, I think a huge push around resilience and being able to cope with the uncertainly that we all find ourselves in.
VISUAL: Alvin Ng, Vice President and General Manager, Johnson Controls, addresses the camera.
ALVIN NG SPEAKS:
So the way we think about the mega trends about the future of work is around defining purpose. I think with a post-covid environment understanding that the way we are working no longer looks the same way as before and that mega trend number one is defined by if we work what is really the purpose so that the heightened focus on purpose, heightened focus on if I need to return back to the office, heightened focus on can I work remotely can I achieve both outcomes and the objective of what I do, the role and responsibility can it be done anywhere around the world. So the first trend is the heightened focus on defining purpose for the employee and as a company we need to really define a why, we need to define a purpose.
The second mega trend is the future of work spaces are evolving where the future of work where the space and place are evolving because with technology whether it is zoom, Teams, WebX and due to covid that entire collaboration and remote and virtual aspect of working has completely transformed the level of productivity.
Traditionally, we do that because we want to save costs in travel, but productivity is not very high, we want to get together and we want to collaborate. The advancement of collaboration technology has allowed that ability to be a lot more focused and experience in the collaboration and virtual has increased significantly as a result of technology evolution. So now the workplace is now becoming a place where you want to spend time with a colleague because you want to build relationship so the workplace is no longer a place for you to come to work but potentially a work place is for you to come and create a community, create a relationship, create a personal touch. That is the second trend, the workplace is evolving - dynamic, purpose driven, agile workspaces are coming.
The third trend if really around the fact that as you work technology become no longer Is a no nice to have it becomes a must have in whatever you do therefore to create seamless between working virtually to working face to face everything is going to be enabled by technology and technology is going to drive that ability to collaborate, it becomes an enabler to collaboration and how you collaborate and how fast you collaborate. Therefore, knowing technology, leveraging technology, using technology is now a must and not a nice to have.
The fourth thing, as you think about the future of work, trying to build a company based on a structure, trying to create an organisation based on levels, trying to have real good organisation structure is evolving because of agile culture because of flexible work nature. Therefore, you are beginning to see the acceleration of agility culture, the acceleration of what I call the adoption of teaming. So, you no longer organise by function, you organise by team and a mission. So, you will have, for example, a salesperson, a product person, and a business analyst but we are one team with a vision. We are not organised by business analyst, sales function but in one team you have multiple functions then we function as group to achieve a certain mission.
So, we become more dynamic, we become a organism as the company evolves the future will become more as a organism rather be a structured form of an organisation. The organism grows and it shrinks, and capabilities can move from one team to another and that is beginning to happen. Lastly, as we think about the future of work that who recognition of it needs to be safer and more secure, it needs to be more sustainable, sustainability is becoming critical in everything we do whether it be the vision of the company or the work that we do to be it the things that we use, becoming more sustainable.
The future of work really dwells in creating that experience because now that with Covid we can change anytime, whether we work from home or work from the office, it changes all the time, so having that experience and it you sum it all I call it resilience. The future work needs to be resilient; resiliency you think about safety and security, sustainability, and new experiences.
VISUAL: Sanjeev Gupta, Vice President and General Manager, Johnson Controls, addresses the camera.
SANJEEV GUPTA SPEAKS:
To me and I am sure there is many views on this I think the first thing that hits me is the trend that is here to stay that because human beings have tasted blood and that is what I call the remote work phenomenon. I don’t know whether enough research has already be done or cooperate strategies are looking at it but please understand that when you think of remote working it is not a simple case of sitting in a room and working of a computer screen it is a whole ecosystem. It is a whole social system, it is a whole way of having a relationship which is domestic as opposed to having a relationship that is professional it is looking forward to looking forward to the trip on a bus or a train, aeroplane, having the me time to do things that you can’t otherwise. Suddenly, all your world is one world and what does it mean in terms of how housing societies will develop and how homes will develop, how the entertain, social, networking system will develop because we are so used to spending time with or our professional colleagues during the day and friends and family during the evening or the weekends and suddenly the whole thing is coincided. I think that is something that needs a lot of thinking and I call it a trend in the making.
The other thing that I would like to highlight is what I would like to call the digitisation. I think the extent to which work, contracts, documentation, way of doing business, processes, it will change massively toward a more digital way of doing things, now again, to me that is not a simple matter of just doing things electronically that you used to do physically.
There are legal issues involved, there are learning issues involved and there are certainly issues around how adept and how capable technology will be to deliver on those requirements as the physical world took for granted. So, digitalisation in its migrate form is a trend to watch out for and linked trend to that is technology itself. I’ve been arguing with some people lately about zoom and I have said that the zoom share price has quadrupled but the technology your using is still the same technology as last year.
It still doesn’t allow me to record well, it still doesn’t allow me to create an interactive way having calls and I think technology has a long way to go to deliver on that real world promised. I think the current tech companies are taking things for granted and I wouldn’t be surprised if some stealth strategy are going to come and catch them napping. It shocks me how little innovation and progress has been made to existing technology tools we have been using so that’s a linked part to the digital argument.
The third trend that we can not run a way from is and Covid has probably embellished it further it’s the geopolitical issue. I don’t think in the next 10-20 years the world will be looking at convergence it will be looking more at localisation and therefore, by definition create more divergence than convergence. I think the fight for global influence, the populism of the more democratic or develop economies will have a big influence on corporate decision making, on setting global standards and probably will brings us back to the less converged world.
What it does to supply chains, business models, training, cultural diversity I don’t know but it is a trend to watch because it is here to stay.
VISUAL: On screen written question: What are the skills that students will need to thrive in this future world of work?
VISUAL: Julia Harvie-Liddel, Group Head of Talent Acquisition, BP, addresses the camera.
JULIA HARVIE-LIDDEL SPEAKS:
What are the skills to thrive and what am I seeing? We are looking more and more for as we look to hire early careers talent into organisations. I think there is a massive push around looking for examples of partnering with technology and data to come out with a better outcome so how you seeing that as friend and colleague rather than a competitor in terms of how you make decisions and how you get stuff done.
I think another thing that will help students stand out when they are applying for jobs is really dialling up and showing that they have good emotional intelligence. A phrase that is often over used in my humble opinion but really what we are looking at there is how do you monitor how you feel and how others are feeling to really guide you in actions and getting the best possible outcomes and the quickest possible change.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
RMIT staff share their congratulations to our awesome Class of 2020!
RMIT staff share their congratulations to our awesome Class of 2020!
Head to the Graduation page for info about free professional photography sessions (with academic gowns!), grad merchandise, framing and more.
If you have any questions about Grad Week or Grad Live, you can contact us via RMIT Connect.
Acknowledgement of Country
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.
Acknowledgement of Country
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.