Author: Sanjoy Syam

The Great Resignation: Should we really be concerned?

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

Last year, TikTokers were going viral with ‘Quit Tok’. Before you think this is another social media trend by millennials, let’s clear the air. A ‘Quit Tok’ is a video in which the creator speaks about quitting their job. While on the face of it, this comes across as a big ado about nothing, this spate of resignations is shaking up the economy. Let’s answer some basic questions about the Great Resignation and understand why you need to be concerned about it.

What is the Great Resignation?

The Great Resignation, as it is being touted, is the phenomenon in which huge numbers of workers quit their jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 3% of the US workforce resigned in October. After a long time, the number of jobs is more than the workers and the odds are in the favor of the workforce.

Who are the workers quitting jobs?

  1. Age demography: The rates of resignation are highest among employees who are mid-career i.e. in the age group of 30-45 years. Their resignation rates increased by 20% between 2020 and 2021. However, the rate of resignation has decreased for those in the age group of 20-25 years.
  2. Industry demography: The tech and healthcare industries saw the maximum number of resignations. As many as 3.6% more employees quit their jobs in the healthcare sector in comparison to 2020. Whereas the increase in the tech industry was 4.5%. Employees in fields that experienced extreme increase in demand due to the pandemic leading to increased workloads and burnout were more inclined to quit their jobs.

Why are people quitting their jobs?

Obviously, there is no single reason for the massive quitting. While some resignations are sabbaticals, early retirement, or dropping out of the workforce for caring responsibilities, some workers globally are just leaving the workforce to re-configure their careers.

Higher resignations in mid-career employees can be attributed to the increase in demand for their experienced services. With the shift to remote work, employees found it riskier to hire entry-level workers, and thus, the reduced demand for entry-level workers made them hang tight to the jobs that they are currently in. This created greater demand for mid-career employees, giving them greater leverage in securing better positions.

It is highly likely that many of these mid-level employees may have delayed transitioning out of their roles earlier due to the financial uncertainty caused by the pandemic. The boost in resignations that we’ve seen over the last several months could be the result of more than a year’s worth of pent-up resignations.

But why now? It is quite clear that workers have reached a breaking point after months of high workloads, higher freezes, and other pressures causing them to rethink their work and life goals.

The pandemic has created a shift in the mindset of workers, who are now seeing the benefits of being autonomous and wanting the flexibility of working from locations of their choice. There is a major hiring crisis due to workers moving away from major cities during the pandemic. There is more emphasis on mental health and wellbeing and workers are choosing autonomy over jobs. It was reported that self-employed workers in the US rose by 5,00,000 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Is the Great Resignation a real cause of concern?

This is one of the biggest realities and outcomes of the pandemic. As global businesses expand exponentially, demand for talent is skyrocketing and hence many can cherry-pick roles that align more with their values and desires.

Remote working possibilities now mean that millions of workers can now access thousands of new roles previously geographically off-limits. Many workers are moving to sectors that are more likely to offer hybrid work in the long run. According to LinkedIn UK figures, from August to October 2021, the net flow of workers moving to software and IT services more than doubled. Conversely, education experienced a net outflow over the same period, with retail being the hardest hit in terms of quits.

Traditionally, looking for a new opportunity has been a reactive process arising out of various levels of dissatisfaction. However, workers who are passively weighing options and selecting their ideal match, hold the cards now. They are even being offered four-figure relocation bonuses to urge them to make the move. Referral payments have come into play to lure prospective employees.

With high mobility where people can have several jobs offers to choose from, hiring processes have to be short and efficient, sometimes even a week.

People want to be paid their worth based on the value they create for an organization, not on the cost of living. Power is currently in the workforce’s hands, meaning they can make more demands—including higher wages, more perks and flexible work arrangements. They’re getting it more readily now.

Post the pandemic, people are opting for better work-life balance. Even at the cost of sizeable pay cuts people are settling for priceless rewards like healthy living and sleeping well. People are discovering the importance of crafting careers that fit their lives rather than living painstaking lives to fit their careers.

The Great Resignation is turning into the Great Reshuffle where people are transitioning to a better work-life balance. The pandemic has led to a permanent improvement in the world of work, offering people options closer to their ideal work setup.

What can employers do to retain employees?

Employees need to look at quantifiable metrics to figure out the root cause of the resignations before they can be prevented. Data can be collected to identify which employees have quit, who is at risk of turnover, which business metrics were affected, and what is the cost of the employee leaving on the company.

After quantifying the problem, a detailed data analysis needs to be conducted to determine what’s really causing staff to leave your organization. Metrics such as compensation, the time between promotions, size of pay increases, performance, training opportunities, career bottlenecks, burnout, etc. can help to identify trends and blind spots within the organization. Such qualitative data analysis gives clear indications about which critical employees can be retained with targeted interventions.

Once the root causes of turnover have been identified, one can begin to create highly customized programs aimed at correcting specific issues that the workplace struggles with most. It is advisable to invest in an organized, user-friendly system for tracking and analyzing the metrics that will inform retention efforts.

A closing mark of caution for employees who are making hay while the sun shines! While traditionally, staying in a role for as long as possible was considered a virtue, and ‘job hopping’ was considered stigmatic. Now, with multiple options in hand, employees need to have clear goals in mind and strategically settle for the best role that ticks the most boxes. It is important to build social capital in an organization and not warp employees’ relationships with work. A mindless, purposeless, purely money-driven ‘job hopping’ is still not a healthy practice to adopt.

A new reality

In conclusion, what is being termed ‘The Great Resignation’ is really a new reality emerging out of market dynamics that needs to be recognized and addressed in a healthy way. It is a great deal like corrections that stock markets witness from time to time. It is time specific and industry specific and driven by market dynamics.

We, at Aligned Studios have had amazing success in recruiting, training, rewarding, inspiring and retaining the best available talent. We actively promote work-life balance and encourage individual thinking and autonomy. Even in remote working we have created a happy, interactive space where individuals are able to seamlessly weave their careers into their lifestyles. Our clients, collaborators and business partners, all benefit from the creative positive energy radiating from our team. We can provide you with the best talent in the market and make sure you retain them. Interested in working with us? Let’s get on a quick call.

What is the Great Resignation?

Who are the workers quitting jobs?

Why are people quitting their jobs?

Is the Great Resignation a real cause of concern?

What can employers do to retain employees?

A new reality

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Importance of cyber security in digital transformation

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

An accelerated digital transformation, a more dispersed workforce, increased use of cloud computing, the vanishing perimeter, and the need to assess the risks associated with a proliferation of connected smart devices require focusing on the role of cybersecurity in digital transformation. These ever-changing threat landscapes highlight the need for organizations to transform their security postures to protect against cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities. With the emergence of new technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning, internet of things (IoT), big data, social media, and now, the metaverse, the threat is continually increasing. Cybersecurity measures need to be updated and adjusted to deal with increasing complexities. Let’s look at the key stakeholders determining the importance of cybersecurity in digital transformation.

Defense-in-depth vs. Defense-in-concert

Traditionally, in cybersecurity, the way of Defense-in-Depth was adopted where multiple layers of security were set up.  Ancient Castles were safeguarded against invaders by tall unscalable walls, moats, bridges, and watchtowers. Similarly, the cybersecurity world has application defenses and controls, network defenses and controls, user and endpoint, and all kinds of layers and defenses. The cybercrime perpetrators, however, can work their way between the layers to cause huge monetary as well as reputational loss to organizations.

The challenge in the cybersecurity industry is to be able to reduce the risk per dollar spent instead of just adding security layers. Hence the more contemporary Defense-in- Concert approach has evolved. Emphasis is now on fewer layers that detect, defend, observe, and respond faster to be able to interdict the threat. The layers are no more individual and isolated but collective, interactive, and smart resulting in an exponentially faster and safer network effect.

What organizations should do for digital transformation and cybersecurity

It is becoming progressively important to craft in place an organization-wide cybersecurity strategy that aligns well with the company’s goals. Effective communication is a must to ensure that digital assets are secure while enhancing collaboration at both the senior and operational levels.

To cope with the rapid pace of digital transformation, organizations have engaged third parties to power initiatives such as cloud providers, robotics, and process automation, and IoT. While third-party collaboration provides increased speed, high efficiency, and greater agility, several risks surround this collaboration.

A survey by Aravo shows that 22% of respondents experienced a data breach caused in the past year. In-house IT Security teams need to create a clear policy for vetting all third-party services and analyzing the sensitivity of data handled by these services.

The major uptick in remote work setups and digital business is pushing organizations to apply for secure access no matter where their users, applications, or devices are located. To provide the level of security necessary to protect the variety of new systems implemented, many enterprises are shifting to more cloud-friendly and behavior-based security approaches. The security access service edge (SASE) framework enables businesses to upgrade their network edge and security simultaneously. Then the managed network and security services can provide expertise and support in a quickly evolving field.

The SASE framework is the convergence of network and security services. This framework brings geographically disparate endpoints together with a common security policy, whether you’re in a coffee shop, at home, or in an office. The SASE framework is somewhat of an evolution of software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN)- taking the application awareness and traffic steering of wide-area network (WAN) and building upon that by extending to the cloud and providing security end-to-end. This approach allows the flexibility for deeper security protections as the extension of the network continues- further evolving businesses on their zero trust, multi-cloud, and edge computing journeys.

Conflicts and Solutions

Cybersecurity personnel often need to deal with conflicts with C-level executives. Security measures might act as roadblocks to the growth of the company. Growth and innovation take risks.  However, as we are seeing the bottleneck of technology adoption across the enterprise weaken, there has been a rise in shadow IT as business units no longer need to go through IT to procure and deploy new technologies.

It is essential to bring the IT personnel and C-level executives together to ensure an efficient and secure digital transformation process. Moreover, they need to realize the level of risk inflicted by an insecure third-party service provider or a cloud service that increases the chances of reputational damage to your organization.

The new challenge following digital transformation is ensuring that they can scale a risk-aware culture across the entire enterprise to combat the rise of shadow IT and increase in technology adoption across other business units. 

Great strides have been made in recent years for cybersecurity personnel to become business enablers. This means they are leveraging the advanced analytics and risk management capabilities at their disposal to create compelling narratives that help their executives understand the importance of cybersecurity in digital transformation for both consumers and the business.

By enhancing the communication between these two groups, the company can connect employee experience and communicate your goals when it comes to digital transformation.

Today’s business dynamics, particularly those undergoing an accelerated digital transformation need to craft in place an interactive, dynamic, business-friendly security system that can recognize, identify, and defend against internal and external threats and respond in exponentially quick time. Know how Aligned Studios can be your partner in digital transformation and cybersecurity.

Defense-in-depth vs. Defense-in-concert

What organizations should do for digital transformation and cybersecurity

Conflicts and Solutions

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Strategies for building a hybrid workplace

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

The world seems to have learned to live with the pandemic for quite some time now. This is the right time to blend the best features and experiences of a physical workspace and remote working to create what has come to be known as the hybrid workplace.

A hybrid workplace is a plan that incorporates a mixture of in-office and remote work in an employee’s schedule. While some may prefer a return to in-person socializing of the physical office, many have become accustomed to the flexibility that comes with virtual work. Practically no commute time, more time with family and a stronger work-life balance are the perks people have come to enjoy. If business leaders want people to return to the physical work environment, they will have to ensure a better experience and better perks in order to retain and attract talent.

TYPES OF HYBRID WORK SOLUTIONS

There is no one-size-fits all hybrid working model. Each company can develop one based on their needs.

There will be Remote-first models where the working model will be closely akin to fully remote-working with only a few employees working from office. This model favors employees who work across various time zones and need to collaborate online.

There is then the Occasional office model where a Company has not transitioned all the way to full remote-working and continues to have some of the employees come into the physical office a few times a week.

Lastly, there is the Office- preferred, remote-allowed workplace where the physical office is the primary workplace and remote working is permitted in specific need-based cases.

PROS AND CONS OF HYBRID WORKING

Understanding and appreciating the three primary drawbacks and benefits of hybrid workplace culture will help in successfully implementing successful models.

ADVANTAGES:

  1. Reduced operations cost from real estate capital expenditure, reducing office footprint and spend on business travel.
  2. Increased productivity is a bonus as 82% of leaders of companies across Europe indicated that their companies are at least equally productive as before.
  3. Increased job satisfaction was reported by 65% of the employees who could work from home and office at-will.

DISADVANTAGES:

  1. Remote training issues are a challenge and need to be addressed by developing right training solutions for both virtual and in-person needs.
  2. Potential employee burnout is a real issue as remote employees tend to overcompensate and hence corporates need to de-emphasize simply being logged on and measure and offer feedback on actual work output.
  3. Managing the hybrid workplace culture is relatively new to most leaders and 30% of leaders have expressed concern over this when physical- office and remote- working co-exist.

HOW EMPLOYERS CAN MAKE IT WORK

In working towards achieving an optimally functional and productive hybrid workplace, employers need to focus on a few key parameters:

  1. The physical and digital experiences must be seamlessly intertwined to ensure equity, engagement and ease. Designing for employee engagement in digital -to-physical space means thinking like a movie director- lights, camera, audio, content must all be considered as functional contributors. Research tells that more people will connect to a meeting on their individual devices as well as the technology in the room.
  • Enclosed spaces must be open. Meetings will happen more often in open spaces with movable boundaries and individual focus work will happen in enclosed spaces like pods or small enclosures. Open collaboration spaces can be adapted and changed as new work patterns emerge.
  • Real estate must be optimized by drawing a balance between permanent and flexible space. e.g. an open area that supports hybrid meetings in the morning becomes the café at lunch, hosts a community meeting hall in the afternoon and can be rented out for an evening/night event.
  • Employees must be able to easily move between “we’’ and ‘’me’’ time without having to relocate physically. Gensler Research Institute shows a 37% drop in average collaboration time for full time remote working employees. Hence leaders have rightfully focused on workplace team building to achieve corporate goals. However, collaboration is not just about group work, it actually requires solitude too. Effective collaboration happens when people come together as a team and then move apart to focus individually, process their ideas and follow up on assigned tasks. Too much together time without individual focus time can result in group think. So it is important that workplaces are designed by not putting too much emphasis on the “we” spaces and balance it by factoring in the need for “me” spaces.
  • It is important for leaders in hybrid workplaces to be largely driven by data based decisions and have effective measurement tools for workplace satisfaction. 49% employees rated clarity and transparency in flexible remote working policies important when seeking a new job.
  • Employees need to be constantly supported by interacting, sharing, and conducting exercises to foster mutual trust, care and respect for one another. Leaders must motivate and connect employees to larger corporate goals in order to maintain engagement and productivity.
  • Training and development is always going to be a key and critical area. More so because traditional training methods are now passe and the solution to the hybrid workforce training challenges lie in self-paced learning which can be accessed by employees at their convenient time and speed. A Digital Adoption Platform enables self-paced learning.

At Aligned Studios, we have found amazing success with the remote working model. At the same time, we have been able to blend seamlessly into our client organizations who have adopted different working models to suit their cultures and business objectives. The strength of our team lies in understanding operating modes of our clients and integrating that with our team structures.

Let’s discuss how you can make the hybrid working model work for your company!

TYPES OF HYBRID WORK SOLUTIONS

PROS AND CONS OF HYBRID WORKING

HOW EMPLOYERS CAN MAKE IT WORK

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Ways to create a learning culture in organizations

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

Sooner than later, a lot of jobs will become redundant due to technological integration. Businesses that focus on bridging the skills gap by upgrading themselves can succeed in the long run. In the wake of these findings, “growth mindset” has become a buzzword in many major companies.

For companies trying to cultivate an organizational learning culture, the growth mindset must be incorporated from day one. What exactly is this “growth mindset”? In simple terms, individuals who believe their talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and inputs from others, have a growth mindset. These people tend to achieve more than those who have fixed mindset vs. those who believe their talents are innate gifts.

The ability to learn is a skill that can be acquired. When entire organizations embrace a growth mindset, their employees report feeling far more empowered and committed to learning and growing. As an organization that values learning and adaptability, we have narrowed down some of the key factors required to facilitate a learning culture in organizations:

Setting examples by becoming role-models:

Senior leaders of the organization need to set the standards for organizational learning by being open to learning themselves. The language they use and their attitude towards learning can set the stage for others. Being open to feedback is a major part of this. By involving team members at the beginning and end of meetings with questions like “what are we missing?” or “how do you think we can improve on this?” can encourage employees to be open to be more involved.

Encouraging passion projects

Pursuing a passion outside of work can help employees develop new skills, network with new people and destress. This allows for better productivity and creativity in their actual work. Google is the prime example of this. It encourages its employees to devote 20 percent of their time to side projects, which is one reason why it remains one of the most innovative companies. Gmail and Google Maps are a result of this. Other companies who invested in side-project initiatives have developed some of the most popular products: Twitter, Slack and Groupon.

Allowing time off to acquire new skills:

Investing in skills-development programs and allowing employees to take time from working hours for these courses or side-projects is also necessary. Your money should be where your mouth is. Impending deadlines, on-going projects, endless meetings etc. are the main stumbling blocks towards spending time on learning modules. Employees must feel reassured that learning is not only allowed but advocated and encouraged as organizational culture.

Incentivize learning:

Employees must be rewarded for their training-related efforts and performance. Practice of awarding points, badges and installing leaderboards help. Particularly in today’s remote working environment, training along with its associated systems of feedback and reward play a huge role in employee motivation.

Make it social:

The learning process must be made more social. Involving entire teams or assigning accountability buddies makes learning more effective. Having a forum for employees, where they can post new learnings, ask questions, and interact makes the process more dynamic and fun.

Determining future goals and identifying the gap:

Plan what your long-term goals are and what skills will be required to reach there. Organic and informal learning may already exist in the organization, but this will need to be structured and formalized. If the skills acquired by the team is not being utilized, team members will lose interest in learning further. Product knowledge, codes of conduct, onboarding etc. needs to be meticulously planned for the knowledge to percolate down to all levels in a controlled and uniform manner.

The growth mindset is not a policy, but a cultural shift. Maintaining a learning culture in organizations need nurturing and constant effort. At Aligned Studios we have always found it mutually rewarding to encourage employees to interact to share knowledge and ideas. It helps build camaraderie and leads to enhanced performance, as well as loyalty.

Contact us to know how you can have employees who are up to date with industry developments and trends.

Setting examples by becoming role-models

Encouraging passion projects

Allowing time off to acquire new skills

Incentivize learning

Make it social

Determining future goals and identifying the gap

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Challenges of designing a city for a post pandemic world

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

After going through various research papers and articles on this subject, I had a strange realization. Ironically, the design of a city for a post pandemic world is akin to what an ideal city should have been in the first place!

While framing ideas and visualizing a city for post pandemic life, the designer should focus on:

  • Creating an inclusive, healthy, and equitable layout, reinforcing the need to put humans and nature before automobiles and infrastructure.
  • The concept of ‘physical distancing’ versus ‘social distancing’. People will always need to assemble but they need to be able to meet safely in the post pandemic era.
  • Supporting a return to thriving post pandemic businesses. Restaurants can be encouraged to reimagine outdoor seating with al fresco dining.
  • Creating more functional green spaces by repurposing derelict and underused land.
  • Embracing the best practices of road safety and public health to make pedestrian-oriented cities.
  • Amplifying the existing characteristics of the surrounding areas to build a unique city rather than concrete clones.
  • Using reusable yet durable and sustainable material with strategies in place for future disassembling and reconstruction.
  • Optimizing resources and time spent on executing the project.
  • Designing a warm, engaging, and safe environment.
  • Preserving biodiversity and wildlife.
  • Collaborating with artists to design clean, helpful messaging (in appropriate languages for the community) throughout the city.

Fifteen-Minute City

New Urbanization strategies and their offshoots like the idea of a Fifteen Minute City are more important than ever for the post pandemic world. People should be able to access most daily needs within fifteen minutes of their home. The design of the city must promote amenities in local neighborhoods to reduce commute distance and time. These possibilities are already being explored in cities like Paris and Milan.

One of the first and most notable projects in this direction is the Stapleton neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. It was rezoned to become one of the largest mixes of residential and commercial areas in Denver with an emphasis on public places. But the very unfortunate reality of how Stapleton has been used by its residents is an eye opener. Stapleton now has much higher vehicle speeds, fewer bicyclists, and fewer pedestrian transit users.

This outcome only highlights the importance of monitoring, post the design and execution stages. We, at Aligned Studios have always placed a premium on monitoring how our projects perform. Understanding how the user interprets the design is essential. This provides invaluable inputs to our design team for their future work as well as excellent feedback to our existing client base.

Urban or suburban?

There are a lot of people who have moved away from densely populated cities to suburbs and smaller towns as the pandemic has allowed the liberty of remote work. And having the leisure of space and closeness to nature is enticing enough not to return to dense neighborhoods. Unlike organically evolved town spaces, these spaces created by New Urbanists have been criticized by many for looking like movie sets. The architects and landscape designers who are planning cities for the post pandemic world need to rack their brains to reimagine cities for such people.

In a recent address to the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, Richard Florida, Professor at the University of Toronto and author of The New Urban Crisis, sums up what we really need to understand about the post-pandemic world:

“I think what we are going through is a great urban reset and it’s not just the pandemic. It’s a series of overlapping crises,” he said. “We have a once-in-a-lifetime, no, once-in-a-century opportunity, to build our communities, our cities, back better. We are beginning a fundamental reset in the way we work and the way we live and the way we shop and how we go about our everyday lives.”

Fifteen-Minute City

Urban or suburban?

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What is the future of design with automation in construction?

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

Does automation take away from the individuality of design? Do automatic vehicles take away your driving skills? Do predictive keyboards take away your writing skills? Of course, the answer is no, and in fact, automation in construction can be a tool that enhances design.

The truth is that automation in the construction industry only enhances the toolbox and the genius of the human mind which has been and is the essential difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary. An enhanced toolbox unshackles the human mind beyond the mundane and sets it free to explore new horizons.

Experimentation, without having to pay a price in time and involvement becomes a real possibility. The mind is set free to explore fearlessly as failure doesn’t cost much either in terms of money or time.

The work of Gramazio Kohler Research is a testament to this, as displayed by their augmented bricklaying project at Kitrvs winery. They built a façade from 13596 individually rotated and tilted bricks, entirely assembled on-site with an augmented reality fabri¬cation interface. It wasn’t a fully automated process though, as using robotics in architecture has barriers like limited mobility and dexterity and relative difficulty in handling malleable building material. Thus, researchers from Gramazio Kohler Research collaborated with incon.ai, a spinoff recently launched by the Robotic Systems Lab of ETH Zürich, to devel¬op the custom made dynamic optical guidance system. They reintroduced craftsmen into a digital fabrication process. By optically instructing masons with tailored digital information through a custom augmented reality user interface, a direct connection to the digital design model was established.

Computational design was deployed in tandem with the skills of human craftsmen, showing how digital fabrication can be successfully used to create a unique design that is still distinct. The parametric façade – semi-transparent – would have been difficult to achieve using traditional construction techniques, but the automation in the design process provided new opportunities to create a unique design. Through this augmented reality interface, the masons no longer depended on physical templates but could work with enhanced spatial precision while maintaining their craft and expertise in mortar handling.


Other works of Gramazio Kohler Research also show that automation in construction does not necessarily impede the individuality of design. It is instead an asset that can be used in tandem with human craftsmanship. In fact, it can be an overall benefit – as designs and concepts previously limited by human ability can be realized by the aid of automation architecture.


Slowly, 3-D printing and automated-construction sites are becoming a reality. Pre-fabrication is taking modular design to a new level. And it is the brilliance of the human mind and its need to create that is doing this. So, what’s the catch?


The roadblock, in the truest sense, arises out of having a mental block against learning new skills. This manifests in putting forward the thought process that labels technology as responsible for thwarting or even killing individual creativity. We must clearly understand that creativity is an output of the mind and any tool, old or new, hi -tech or manual, is only a medium to bring it to fruition.

All creative fields like film making, photography, animation, art, and architecture have undergone a sea of change thanks to technology. There is cost reduction; speed; easy experimentation; and significant enhancement in quality. All because technology has come to the aid of the individual creative human mind.

At Aligned Studios, hiring is an exhaustive process geared to attract the best talent available globally. Having said that, great emphasis is placed on constant technology upgrades and in-house training modules to constantly upgrade human talent to work in tandem with state-of-the-art technology. A conscious effort goes into encouraging technology aided individual creative efforts in sync with team objectives to deliver end goals. Rather than inhibit individual creative skills, technology only goes to enhance creative expression.

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Capabilities that organizations require to sustain business digital transformation

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

Recent data indicates that we have vaulted five years forward in digital adoption in around eight weeks. But how many will be able to sustain this business digital transformation?

While organizations have incorporated technologies to keep pace with industry digital transformation as the need of the hour, systems and processes are still catching up to meet the demand. Organizations need to realign their systems and processes and have a clearly defined roadmap to meet this transformation. Time and results have shown that a systemic approach can make this transformation sustainable and enduring with excellent end results. Here are some sustainable strategies for digital transformation:

  • Hiring experts with diverse knowledge: Hiring and building a deep bench of diverse expertise and skill sets is first step when adopting new innovations. Retraining and reskilling existing employees to new positions created by technology might be time consuming. To fill gaps in a short time without compromising quality or work culture, companies will need to look at outsourcing to or hiring experts.  This not only results in lower lead time but also cuts hiring and training time and costs. Aligned Studios has been playing this role with great results for several clients in the US.

  • Adopting cloud-based and other technology: Invest in reliable cloud-based technology as the second step. Even post-pandemic, practices adopted due to social distancing, which includes cloud-based services can make it more efficient to connect with consumers, improve supply chain efficiency and monitor remote operations. This investment will yield greater agility, lower capital expenses, enhance collaboration and can increase security in the near and distant future. Read more about reinventing remote working.

  • Implementing structural changes: From vertically oriented, task-specialized ones to creating velocity through cross-functional teams. Organizations today are experimenting with cross-functional teams for both development and support. These can help the technologically lacking teams take to new technology with a specialized team member, aligned for that task.

  • Orchestrating a cultural shift: From silo-based culture where information is not shared across departments and goals are aligned separately, organizations need to shift to an environment of collaborative relationships and shared goals. Changing the boundaries of what define “us” and “them” through systems establishes trust-based relationships that move relationships from transactional to co-operative and finally collaborative.

  • Realigning leadership strategy to reinforce a common purpose: Establishing processes and systems is not enough. Process governance, systems thinking, and lean leadership are required to keep an organization flourishing. The main role of the leader then, is to emphasize the constancy of purpose and a common approach across teams.
  • Assessing shared performance goals as against individual activity measures: While traditionally employees have always been assessed on individual performance thus leading employees to focus on their own singled-out outputs, organizations today need to create and redefine shared process goals.

Will your digital transformation be successful and sustainable?

Leaders and teams must first resolve the following five questions to access whether these strategies will work for them. Can they:

  1. Agree to share by engaging in systems versus silo-thinking?
  2. Agree on one way to do something and reduce complexity and variability?
  3. Agree to focus on simplifying how that should be done by focusing on value added activities and reducing waste?
  4. Agree to use one tool for collaboration and to reduce technical debt?
  5. Agree on an integrated solution over a niche solution to help automate delivery pipelines?

To be able to sustain business digital transformation, organizations must move from a reactive environment to an improved system that delivers value consistently and reliably. Ownership roles need to define, deploy, sustain, and improve processes to support the organization’s objectives. Ultimately, it comes back to leadership and culture.

Aligned Studios is empowering organizations with customized and sustainable strategies for digital transformation. Our services promise great results from this collaborative association. Contact us to learn more!

Hiring experts with diverse knowledge

Implementing

Orchestrating a cultural shift

Realigning leadership strategy to reinforce a common purpose

Assessing shared performance goals as against individual activity measures

Will your digital transformation be successful and sustainable?

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How employers can help in work from home motivation

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

Feeling lack of work from home motivation is a real problem. The pandemic has necessitated and almost pushed some organizations and its people to accept the remote work culture without having any kind of real readiness for it. Based on a recent survey by Indeed, those who work from home miss a lot of things about working in the office. However, these remote work challenges can be overcome if the company develops the work culture to suit remote needs.

At Aligned Studios we have identified shortcomings of the work from home culture and compensated well for it to arrive at tried-and-tested solutions. Here are some suggestions for an employee-friendly remote work culture that is stable and yet flexible enough to meet customer needs.

1. 50% of remote workers miss their commute time and its environmental triggers. 

Instead of utilizing that extra time available for work, employers can encourage people to dedicate this time to healthy sleep hours, physical exercise, and quality time with the family. At Aligned Studios, we organize wellness workshops, yoga sessions and encourage taking up a hobby. This keeps the employees creatively stimulated and motivated to work.

2. 45% of those who work from home miss in-person interaction with co-workers. 

This is the toughest challenge faced by many. Although virtual interactions cannot replace physical interactions completely. As leaders, we encourage extensive work-related as well as non-work-related interaction between our people. Virtual buddy lunches, coffee chats, informal interactions should be sponsored and encouraged by the company. We have found this to contribute to higher productivity. And once the situation allows, a monthly or quarterly company-wide meeting can be held to keep everyone connected.

3. 73% of employees who work from home miss socializing in-person.

Spontaneous conversations are difficult to have virtually. Online exchanges are more structured, premeditated, formal and impersonal. We experience “sitting with ourselves” for long hours without distractions. Cats and dogs and other pets are great company but do not make good conversation and do not provide for juicy gossip! We encourage interactive fun activities on a weekly call that are not only ice-breaking but also lead to strong bonds being formed.

4. 37 % of employees missed the daily routine of physically going to a designated place of work distinct from home.

Logistical constraints might affect the employee’s productivity. To tackle this, companies can encourage the “work from anywhere” mode as opposed to just “work from home”. Cafeterias, co-working facilities, a quiet beach, or hill resort are all real options we are exploring.

5. 64% feel that a real physical office is free of distractions of children, pets, neighbors, household chores etc. which add to the noise level. 

Here again, options like cafeterias and co-working spaces are encouraged. Employers can even tie up with a chain of co-working spaces to get the employees a deal where they can work peacefully or with a chain of cafes to give coupons that the remote employees can use.

6. Skill upgradation in solitary confinement and in the absence of the physical office environment is a challenge. 

Employees find it difficult to motivate themselves towards skill upgradation. Having regular trainings and providing skill upgradation modules, along with access to online libraries and global publications will encourage the remote worker to stay up to date. If an employee wants to do a course while working, the company should allow them to take leaves for the same. Employees who are constantly upgrading their work to meet global standards, will take your company to great heights.

7. Work from home has had adverse effects on mental health of remote staff. 

Primary fallouts of mental health arise out of loneliness, anxiety, and stress. These, in turn lead to the onset of depression. Companies can address this very critical issue by:

  • Conducting mental health training sessions.
  • Conducting team building activities regularly.
  • Checking-in with teams regularly, keeping them in the loop and providing feedback.
  • Encouraging physical fitness. Fifteen minutes of daily walking reduces risk of major depression by 26%.
  • Appreciating and rewarding good performance.

At the core of any organization, irrespective of the work model adopted, lies the fact that ‘’people matter; they always will”. Employers need to invest in work from home motivation for the employees. The challenge, particularly in remote work culture is letting people know that they matter because without them the organization is an empty shell. Employers who want to retain the right talent, need to deeply understand the subtle difference between being ‘in charge of people” and looking after “people in their charge”.

50% of remote workers miss their commute time and its environmental triggers.

45% of those who work from home miss in-person interaction with co-workers

73% of employees who work from home miss socializing in-person

37 % of employees missed the daily routine of physically going to a designated place of work distinct from home

64% feel that a real physical office is free of distractions of children, pets, neighbors, household chores etc. which add to the noise level

Skill upgradation in solitary confinement and in the absence of the physical office environment is a challenge

Work from home has had adverse effects on mental health of remote staff

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Reinventing the remote working module for design studios and AEC firms

Posted on by Sanjoy Syam

Remote working has been a big challenge for design studios as design, which sprouts in its ‘studio culture’, is a collaborative practice involving face-to-face interactions nurtured by skilled and experienced mentoring. Remote working deprives the design process of these essentials. However, strategic planning and technological integration can make remote working for design studios a strength more than an obstacle.

Now that the “remote working” module has travelled through a good part of its life cycle, we are far better equipped to understand its strengths and weaknesses, to make it workable for design and AEC firms as well. While some firms are moving back to a completely physical office, some are staying with a completely virtual one. But we, at Aligned Studios know that the post-pandemic workplace is hybrid.


Remote working benefits for design studios and AEC firms

Knowing that a good 73% of all teams will have remote workers by 2028, employers can no longer remain indifferent to this very sensitive and vital consideration. It is vital that these essentials are consciously reinfused into the remote working process now to gradually move to a hybrid set-up post-pandemic.

Experienced design professionals are often not familiar with technological advances and thus need to be specially trained to communicate better using latest technology where face-to-face is no longer an option. A ‘virtual studio’ environment needs to be created where liberal exchange of ideas and thoughts can happen. It is again the onus of the employer to create such a platform.

Remote working opens up possibilities of ‘virtual studios’ to be across the board of departments, companies and even countries, thus encouraging more productive brainstorming.

Working remotely for the design process makes it possible to access global talent from across the world and from different time zones resulting in enhanced quality work in shorter timespans at optimal costs.

Working remotely for the design process makes it possible to access global talent from across the world and from different time zones resulting in enhanced quality work in shorter timespans at optimal costs.

How Aligned Studios aids remote working and future-proofing businesses

Communicating online has never been easier but it takes special skills and high commitment levels to communicate well. We consciously keep dedicated, empathetic communication lines open with each one of our employees to build trust and belonging.

The onus today is on all employers to reclaim employees who have been rendered ‘virtual’ by the pandemic and make them again believe and feel “real”. At Aligned Studios, we engage with individual employees at a personal level, speak their language, celebrate their birthdays, anniversaries and festivals and work on building a large, enduring, happy and motivated “Aligned” family.

We invest in a talent pool which we work on and develop for global employment within Aligned Studios as well as outside. This talent pool is recruited from amongst the best in the industry, trained to meet global standards and brought up to “ready for service” status of employment. This aids in Aligned Studios meeting client requirements promptly with a minimum lead time.

Aligned Studios is a current-age, people-centric global consultancy firm working with AEC firms in the US and offering customized, quality solutions in the field of architecture, interior design, construction, and engineering on an ongoing basis.

We can help you with global employment solutions. Contact us!

Remote working benefits for design studios and AEC firms

How Aligned Studios aids remote working and future-proofing businesses

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