A little less than 20% of chief information officers in the United States are women. That roughly mirrors the percentage of women enrolled in engineering programs at universities in the U.S. Although progress has been made in the roughly 40 years since the inception of the CIO role, more needs to be done to create pathways for women to grow careers in technology.
One of the organizations that has done a remarkable job in mentoring women and working behind the scenes to help women land CIO, chief technology officer, and chief digital officer posts is T200. The group was founded by roughly ten women in 2017, and in less than four years, has grown to roughly 160 members. As founding member, Suja Chandrasekaran, currently the Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Digital Officer of CommonSpirit, noted, “We go past peripheral connections. Since our inception, we connect with depth, diversity and strength.”
Chandrasekaran spoke at a T200 event today to mark International Women’s Day and to announce a new program called the Lift Platform which sets bold goals to foster new opportunities for the next generation of women leaders in the technology and digital realm.
The Lift Platform is designed for women in technology and digital roles who report directly to CXOs. They will be vetted for fit with T200’s principles, and they will represent diversity of industry as well as race, creed, sexual orientation, geography, and more.
The Lift Platform drives networking, mentorship and sponsorship. Mamatha Chamarthi, the CIO of Stellantis, said, “We want to elevate the next generation [of women leaders]. We will identify leaders who have a willingness to contribute and give back; a willingness to volunteer to uplift other women.”
Pizza Hut CIO Helen Vaid went further in saying, “Half of the world is women. Therefore, half of the resumes we see should be from women.”
The group listed the following goals in the materials shared in the kick-off event this morning:
12 initial members of the Lift Mentorship program have been identified, though their names were not shared at the kick-off event. 16 mentors have been assigned, as well. They include the CIOs, CDOs and/or CTOs of American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Align Technology, Citrix, Zoetis and Clark Hill Law, along with Chandrasekaran, Chamarthi and Vaid, among others.
T200 leaders hope to drive outcomes to include supporting women to thrive in their existing roles, while driving explicit growth and professional learning goals for the mentees, creating visibility for the next generation of leaders for additional opportunities and to progressively improve outcomes each year.
T200 leaders have set the objective to have five mentees become CIOs in 2021. The longer-term objective is to be a driving force for women in technology to grow to parity globally across all industries. Ambitious women who strive to follow in the footsteps of the 160 extraordinary women who currently make up the T200 should take note that there is a clearer path for them to follow!
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, is out this month. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
Marta Zarraga is a seasoned chief information officer, having held the post at Aviva, Vodafone, and British Telecom. In February 2021, Zarraga joined Capital Group, a 90 year old financial services company that manages more than $2.3 trillion in equity and fixed income assets for millions of individual and institutional investors around the world. As others who have taken on new posts in the past year during the global pandemic, this has been an unusual experience for Zarraga, as she is operating in quarantine, unable to meet in person with her new colleagues. The situation is even more unusual in that she is, for the time being, based in London, whereas Capital Group’s headquarters is in Los Angeles.
This article is part of an ongoing series exploring the ways in which companies are can prepare for a post-pandemic world of work.
Tiffany Jenkins, Mac Connolly, and Yucca Reinecke co-authored this article
In the post-pandemic world of work, flexibility will be key. Our conversations with technology executives suggest that many companies expect to maintain a hybrid working model, in which some employees work remotely, others work primarily at the office, and many move back and forth between the two. More than 80% of executives polled during the January 2021 Metis Strategy Digital Symposium expect either a 50/50 split between remote work and the office or for most employees to work remotely beyond the end of the pandemic. And just this week, Salesforce.com said it would give employees three ways to work, even once it is safe to return to the office: flex, fully remote, and office-based.
In this article, we will explore four key dimensions leaders should consider as they evaluate the people, process, and technology changes needed to enable hybrid work for the long term, including:
A shift toward a long-term hybrid working model requires a major rethink of day-to-day operations. While many changes were made at the peak of the pandemic, including, in many cases, a massive shift to remote work, companies should now build upon the experiences and learnings to date while developing a sustainable operating model that supports these changes long into the future. That means rethinking existing ways of working, scheduling meetings, current employee practices, and the policies that govern daily operations.
An important first step is to assess which jobs will require a return to the office, which ones can be conducted fully remote, and which require a mix of both. In order to answer that question, companies may need to look at jobs from different points of view, including functional responsibilities, type of work performed, and the skills and preferences represented in certain jobs. For example, some companies are experimenting with having groups of employees return for a few days per week or bringing together certain teams on specific days when these teams are expected to engage in collaboration or discussions that benefit from co-location and in-person interactions.
For jobs that will be largely remote, leaders should think about whether those workers will be required to be located within a certain proximity of the office or other work-related physical location, if compensation changes based on employee location are warranted, and other policies that will impact future decision-making.
An operating model fit for a hybrid work environment should also anticipate the new, often more complex, ways in which colleagues will collaborate, over virtual collaboration and communication tools or even across time zones, and how that impacts productivity, employee experience, and company culture. Determining how and where teams will be expected to work together can further influence decisions around technology and real estate investments, as we will explore below.
Companies are placing renewed focus on employee experience as teams adapt to major changes in their work habits. While a shift to largely remote work during the pandemic led to increased productivity at many companies, the new setups also showed remote work’s potentially adverse effects on well-being as employees balanced the demands of work and home. Indeed, many employees’ greatest challenges stem from the physical and emotionally blurred lines between the workplace and their personal or family lives. As one of our executive partners recently said, “we no longer work from home, but we live at work”. Left unaddressed, these challenges could lead to difficulties retaining talent long term.
To that end, it is increasingly critical to invest in an employee experience that balances productivity and employee well-being. Fortunately, most organizations have realized that well-being, productivity, employee satisfaction, and retention are more closely intertwined than they were pre-pandemic and should be addressed in unison. Doing so can lead to higher engagement, and ultimately better business outcomes. A Gallup Study found that engaged employees are 21% more productive, 22% more profitable and score 10% better on customer ratings than unengaged employees. Companies that consider all these factors are more likely to retain talent and, in some cases, may become a more attractive employer now and during the gradual return to the ‘next normal.’
A key driver of employee engagement efforts is providing employees with the tools and support they need to do their jobs successfully no matter where they work. These can range from technology such as laptops, collaboration tools and video-conferencing applications to perks that support health and wellness, from gym reimbursements to subsidized childcare and access to therapy and mental health support.
Several organizations have also begun to experiment with virtual and digital tools that attempt to replicate the social interactions that typically occur in a physical workplace, such as virtual “water coolers.” While not intended to produce concrete outcomes, these social interactions have shown to lead to greater team cohesion, trust among team members, and generally higher levels of employee motivation. However, it is also important for leaders to help employees know when to log off or when it may be best to disconnect from more rounds of video conferences. Leaders should continuously solicit feedback and measure outcomes of these efforts on productivity and perception of well-being.
Putting people first by ensuring that they have the support they need, communicating early and often, and creating new opportunities for learning stands to boost both engagement and productivity no matter what comes next. As Verizon CIO Shankar Arumugavelu said in a recent interview about the company’s pandemic response: “We all have business resilience plans. At the end of the day, what stood out [at Verizon] is the human resilience. That really made the difference here.” As the company develops its post-pandemic plans, the company is taking the opportunity to rethink how things are done for the betterment of customers, employees, shareholders and society.
Several of the organizations we work with have addressed the new realities of virtual work by making it easier – and in some cases even explicitly welcome – to have family members join certain meetings, for example, or by otherwise supporting employees who are exposed to the logistical challenges of co-managing professional and personal lives.
As noted above, enabling a successful hybrid workforce means ensuring employees have access to the technology and tools needed to carry out day-to-day operations. In our conversations with IT teams, we have found that reliable and secure video conferencing, instant messaging, whiteboarding and visualization tools that can be accessed in and out of the office have often been deemed essential.
Rather than attempting to fully replicate the workplace in the remote environment, companies should first assess the digital tools and capabilities that have best supported a remote-first workforce. Firms can then assess how those tools may enable collaboration in an in-office and hybrid working environment and think through the process changes that may be required to do so. Many IT teams we have spoken with have adopted new interactive whiteboarding tools, for example, and companies have invested in the training needed to ensure teams are well positioned to use them.
Of course, simply implementing the needed tools will not lead to greater collaboration. Leaders also must be intentional about driving adoption. Slack or similar communication tools will not improve effectiveness if only a few people use it. Conversely, with deliberate and widespread adoption, the use of real-time communication tools can address the fundamental need for accessibility.
At a recent Metis Strategy Digital Symposium, Comcast CIO Rick Rioboli noted that the pandemic has created an opportunity to completely rethink the physical office. The company now is approaching its offices “not as what we go back to, but rather as what [our offices] can do for us.” Similar conversations are happening across industries as leaders consider how best to use physical office space once it is safe for employees to return.
Often, those conversations include thinking about how to weave digital capabilities that currently serve remote employees across the physical office environment and how to reconfigure existing space to maximize the potential for productive collaboration in a post-pandemic, hybrid world. A workplace intelligence report by global technology leader NTT Ltd. found that 31% of companies are implementing additional creative thinking spaces, while 30% will provide more meeting places and 27% will reduce individual desk space.
Turning the office into a digitally enabled, collaboration-first environment will be critical to enabling a hybrid workforce. As companies seek to create a safe, collaborative, and efficient space for their employees, we have observed a few common practices:
In addition to layering digital tools onto the digital space, there are some design changes that can benefit hybrid employees as well. Among them:
As companies begin to formulate and test hybrid operating models, continued investment and careful strategic planning are necessary to maintain effectiveness and resilience. While reports of increased productivity are reassuring, the next question to ask is how to make that productivity is sustainable over the long term. By adapting your operating model, investing in employee experience, empowering employees with needed tools and technologies, and rethinking the purpose of physical spaces, companies will set themselves up to tackle the changes brought on by a new world of work.
When asked how her priorities changed during the pandemic, Cathy Bessant, the Chief Operations and Technology Officer of Bank of America said, “It’s hard to remember where we were prior to the pandemic!” Much has changed for everyone, but for a technologist who leads a team that numbers nearly 100,000, there are silver linings to the crisis. “We were used to trite sayings, like, ‘We are living in a digital world,’ but it has played out,” she noted. “Now we are.”
Technology has been a savior of sorts. Companies have leaned on their digital revenue streams as physical revenue streams have dried up and leveraged technology to collaborate and remain productive. But it has not been a panacea. “Technology is the path forward, but we have a keener understanding of its limitations, as well,” Bessant said.
In a recent poll of multiple hundred CIOs to understand how many of them anticipated spending levels on “digital transformation” on a par with, higher, or lower than 2019, nearly 80% of responses indicated that they would have a higher spending level in 2020 on digital transformation initiatives. This is remarkable given the need for cost containment in light of the pandemic and the economic crisis that it has created, but it is driven by the fact that those companies that transformed their operations and their ability to derive digital revenue streams earlier are the companies that have done best during this time of crisis. Executive teams of most companies now realize that this needs to be a priority. Cut costs elsewhere but use some portion of that savings to invest back into further digital transformation.
Michael Smith, the Chief Information Officer of Estee Lauder, brought together a group of technology executives for a conference the day following George Floyd’s death. Given the terrible circumstances of his demise and the subsequent protests in the wake of the tragedy, the technology topics that the group planned to discuss did not seem so meaningful. Ralph Lauren’s CIO Janet Sherlock decided this was a good time to talk about how the gathered executives could be agents for change. Inspired by Sherlock’s comments, Smith decided to activate the ideas, reaching out to his network, fleshing out the ideas further. Earl Newsome, the CIO for the Americas at Linde Inc. was a member of the original group and a primary architect defining the approach.
While there is no textbook for leading through a crisis like the current pandemic, one of the things one can do is learn from the wisdom and insight of leaders who have been around longer than us and have a perspective that is broader than ours. While no leader has faced circumstances quite like these, Charlie Feld’s experience leading technology organizations—for some of the most recognizable names in business—over the last 55 years, is a voice worth listening to.
Feld is one of America’s most recognized and successful Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and information-technology consultants. His leadership insights, operational experience, and strategic framework for enterprise success have been developed over the course of his career. Feld is the author of two books on Leadership, including The Blind Spot: A Leader’s Guide to IT-Enabled Business Transformation. To continue his commitment to helping organizations and executives achieve technology-enabled business transformation, Feld founded The Feld Group Institute in 2009.
Last week, IDC presented its top 10 predictions for IT industry for 2021. The report highlights how enterprise IT teams are navigating the challenges posed by the pandemic and seeking to gain competitive advantage in the new normal.
The pandemic has not just spared but has accelerated digital growth. Despite the disruptions caused globally, enterprise IT teams are marching towards what the report refers to as “digital destiny” as most of the products and services today are either based on digital delivery models or require digital capabilities to stay in the competitive playground. The IDC report states, “65% of global GDP is digitalized by 2022, driving $6.8 trillion of IT spending from 2020 to 2023.”
We are within days of Halloween, but the Covid-19 pandemic has dimmed the prospects for many children regarding the holiday. Enter Mars. Halloween is one of the biggest days of the year for the candy behemoth. Necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case, the company’s chief digital officer Sandeep Dadlani and his team have developed a method to save Halloween called Treat Town. This is part of his broader strategy to make the company 100 times faster with its digital engine.
Last week, Gartner, Inc. announced its top nine strategic technology trends for 2021. Analysts presented their findings during Gartner IT Symposium, which was virtual this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Just as the pandemic reshaped the conference, it has also reshaped the trends, as many of them are brought about or will be emphasized to a greater extent due to the health crisis that the world continues to face.
