Enhancing Inclusive Employee Experiences: Scenario Planning for the Future of Work (Tool)

In a post-pandemic economy, the employee experience is more important than ever before for organizational success. This experience must be rooted in empathy and inclusion to attract and retain women across multiple intersecting identities and experiences.

During times of uncertainty, organizations that prepare for shifting paradigms can better plan and be prepared for potential business changes. Scenario planning means crafting stories about possible future situations to analyze strategic implications for the present and determine courses of action to create conditions for desirable future outcomes. This strategy is a helpful futurist methodology for leaders and organizations.

Catalyst analyzed four different scenarios of the future of work to better understand shifts related to Covid-19 and illustrate examples of policies and practices to move your organization toward a more inclusive and equitable post-pandemic workplace. These scenarios illustrate best-case and worst-case futures, demonstrating the need to respond, prepare, and adapt to the uncertainty inherent now and in the future of work—and the consequences of the refusal to do so.

How to Conduct Scenario Planning to Prepare for an Equitable Future of Work

• Determine your desired future workplace scenario.
• Analyze worst-case scenarios to avoid. (What’s at risk if the desired future doesn’t happen?)
• Backcast (reflect backward) from the future to understand the necessary steps, policies, and procedures to implement, and any roadblocks to avoid, in achieving your desired outcome.
• Create and commit to an action plan around these conditions to move toward the desired outcome while remaining responsive to future changes.

 

How to cite this product: Daley, L. P. (2020). Enhancing inclusive employee experiences: Scenario planning for the future of work. Catalyst.