Ann O’Dea spoke to HP’s Anneliese Olson at the HP Imagine event in Palo Alto this week about the importance of empathy and flexibility in the workplace.
At a time when organisations are still grappling with the post-pandemic fallout of hybrid workplaces, remote working and heightened expectations of work-life balance, HP’s Work Relationship Index had some interesting insights into what might work to ensure employee retention and satisfaction.
In its second year, HP’s Work Relationship Index, launched on Wednesday (25 September), demonstrated that leaders still have much work to do in adapting to today’s new workplace realities.
According to Anneliese Olson, HP senior vice-president and managing director for the North America market, leaders themselves acknowledge the benefits of empathy (90pc), yet only 44pc feel confident in their human skills to demonstrate this.
“Leaders are understanding more about self-awareness and EQ and empathy and mindfulness, and that these things matter,” says Olson. “Intellectually they know, but only 44pc of them have the confidence to actually behave and work in this way.”
We were speaking at the margins of HP Imagine, a now annual briefing that took place in Palo Alto this week, where AI was, of course, centre stage, but even more so the future of work in general.
She also noted that some 72pc of employees believe that empathy and EQ are very important to see from their leaders, but only 28pc are seeing their leaders demonstrate them.
However, there was a bright spot in this year’s index, she says. It found that female leaders scored far better this year in both soft skills and hard skills.
On average, women business leaders were 10 points more confident in their hard skills (technical, computer, presentation, etc), and notably 13 points more confident in human skills than their male counterparts.
Additionally, female business leaders’ confidence in both skillsets grew over the past year (up 10 points in human skills, and up 4 points in hard skills), while confidence among male business leaders remained stagnant in human skills and decreased in hard skills (down 3 points).
“As a female leader, honestly, it is a fascinating thing, because a lot obviously has changed since Covid [when] the work world was thrown up in the air. Hybrid became the way, there’s so much around personalisation that opened the doors for people to have both different kinds of work experiences different personal and life experiences, not just work, and it started focusing on the personalisation even between employees and their managers and leaders,” she says.
“And quite frankly, this is part of my leadership philosophy for a long time. You unlock human potential one person at a time. So, it can’t be one size fits all. Yes, there are company strategies, there are business tools, but what motivates one person will be different than another. It isn’t a surprise in what I’ve seen in.
“Stereotypically or historically, the skills of the job is where everybody focuses. Now, the importance of this other piece has arisen, where women naturally do gravitate to. Some people call it empathy. Some people call it listening,” she says.
‘People who are using AI feel that they’re more productive’
– ANNELIESE OLSON
“There are people who want to be the CEO of the company. There are people who are like, ‘look, I’m at this stage of my life where I want to give back and help share knowledge’. There are other people who are like, ‘wow, I need to learn how to get this certification’ or, ‘hey, I want to work part time’. There’s just so many things and to be a leader means, how can you personalise and customise to others. So that wasn’t a surprise to me.
“I do think that’s a growing need, particularly since Covid, because it kind of threw everything up in the air, and now it’s settling back in, people are saying ‘there’s certain tradeoffs I’m not willing to make’ or asking if work could be easier.”
To that latter point, Olson flags the AI finding in the index. “What we see is that the people who are using AI feel that they’re more productive. They feel that they can even use it better for work-life balance. They say its freeing them up to get into deep, interesting work. It’s how we do value-add. And you want that for everybody, personally in your life, as well as the people you’re working with or leading. There’s a shift and an expectation that technology and humans need to come together to unlock the best out of people.”
It was one of the big findings in this year’s index – knowledge workers want more personalised work experiences. At least two-thirds of workers expressed a desire for them, including tailored workspaces, access to preferred technologies and flexible working environments.
According to the index, these experiences are crucial for improving relationships with work, and have positive implications for both employees and businesses. Some 64pc of knowledge workers say if work was tailored or customised to personal needs and preferences, they would be more invested in their company’s growth.
Almost 70pc of knowledge workers stated it would incentivise them to stay with their current employers longer. Indeed, more than 87pc said they would be willing to forgo part of their salary for it.
Healthier relationships with work
The other big finding was that AI usage among knowledge workers has surged to 66pc in 2024, up from 38pc last year. Workers who use AI are seeing the benefits, including a healthier relationship with work.
Almost three-quarters feel that AI makes their jobs easier, and nearly seven in 10 (69pc) are customising their use of AI to be more productive, indicating AI could be an ingredient to unlocking a more personalised work experience. Knowledge workers also said AI plays a key role in improving their work-life balance and opens up new opportunities for them to enjoy work.
“When people have the right tools and the right technology, they’re five times more likely to be engaged in the companies they’re working for, incentivised to stay with those companies and they say they’re more fulfilled with the kind of work that they’re doing,” says Olson.
It’s a sentiment that was echoed by HP president and CEO, Enrique Lores, at the event. “The old model of providing one size fits all tool s to employees is not valid anymore,” he said.
And indeed HP launched a suite of new AI powered products at the event that, according to Lores will “provide the tools that they need to succeed in this new world”.
“With our AI enhanced portfolio, we allow even greater levels of productivity and personalisation, because AI does more than just streamline tasks. It helps create more engaging work experiences, tailored to the individual, and will have such an impact on fulfilment.”
‘Now is the time to create better work experiences for everyone’
– ENRIQUE LORES
The new additions to the suite of AI-enhanced products it launched earlier this year, will appeal to those in highly regulated and compliance led industries, with their ability to apply AI to ringfenced libraries of local data, rather than having any need to upload to a cloud-based AI system.
It announced its next-gen AI PCs, AI-enabled video conferencing solutions and a scalable GPU performance sharing solution for AI developers. It also announced a series of significant advancements “designed to enable companies to achieve growth by delivering more personalised, fulfilling employee experiences”.
And of course, true to its printing roots, it announced and demoed HP Print AI, “the industry’s first intelligent print experience for home, office, and large format printing”.
“And indeed the work index showed that employees already using AI have found it makes their jobs easier, more enjoyable and believe it will even help advance their careers,” said Lores. “Now is the time to create better work experiences for everyone.”
He also had a message for the business analysts present too. “To deliver on this future, we are going to double down on our commercial business, which represents a large and growing market estimated at more than $400bn. And with a strong history of innovation and unparalleled depth of products and solutions and the trust we have built over eight decades, we are uniquely positioned to lead in this new era.”
And this at a time when the likes of Amazon and Dell are asking their teams to come into the office full-time. No personalisation there, what could possibly go wrong?
Experts differ, but I fall firmly on the side of those who say it is just not going to work. If you want to attract and retain the best, they will want to personalise their work to suit themselves and their own productivity flow – and yes, lifestyle. AI looks likely to aid significantly with this, but enforced hours and location of work may well lose you the best people.
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