Our Chairman Shaun McCarthy share's his key trends for 2018. Based on the growing interest in these topics amongst our clients during 2017, these trend predictions are best measured by the growth in demand for related tools and consulting services; along with the highlighted commentary in global media around culture and diversity.  

What will be the key trends and focus areas for 2018?

1. Organisational culture

With the Commission of Enquiry into financial services cultures in Australia and continuing reference to culture by the regulatory authorities, culture will be front page in the media throughout 2018. Google organisational culture and you get over 3 million hits – including 50,000 news items. It will only get bigger.

2. Teams

As firms chase the elusive holy grail of innovation and minimizing disruption, teams will feature hugely in 2018. Every organisation will strive to build structures involving networks of teams, but many will learn the hard way that teams don’t always work well. Just as individuals benefit from development, so do teams. This will be a key focus for 2018. 

3. Leaders’ and mangers’ personal impact on culture

As organisational culture grows in coverage by the media, so organisations will look to determine how individual leaders and managers personally impact the culture – from the CEO to front line team leaders.

4. Front-line leader development

For most people inside an organisation, their experience of culture is through their team leader. For some time now, leadership development has focused at the top end. Smart organisations are beginning to invest in the sharp end where all the action happens. Particularly if they are considering implementing agile teams or networked teams, leadership at that front-line level be one of the determining factors of success.  

5. Reconsidering the role of HR

Whilst HR has enthusiastically adopted the role of Strategic Advisor (based in Ulrich’s model), in 2018 HR will need to at the same time focus more on the role of Administrative Expert (to leverage the benefits available in new technology) and the Employee Advocate role (to cope with the declining level of employee engagement evidenced in global surveys). 

6. Diversity

Whilst not new in 2018, the impetus must continue. And the need for organisational capability for dealing with the increasing reality of diversity and leveraging the benefits of a diverse work force will only grow. The key for any organisation lies in it’s culture – which takes us back to number 1. 

In conclusion, there is a direct link between majority of these key trends to the growing topic of Organisational Culture. The highlighted leaders’ and manager’s development and personal impact on culture, shows that cultural change will only come about through a change in the way top management thinks about how their organisations should be managed. The reality is that given many of the strategies being implemented by our local organisations, will need to focus on these areas if their strategies are to achieve the desired results.