Recently, I read an article in McKinsey and Company entitled What Matters Most: Six Priorities for CEOs in Turbulent Times.

The McKinsey Group spoke with hundreds of leaders recently and discovered six shared priorities that feature prominently on today’s leadership agenda – worldwide.

Resilience is the first priority – the notion of falling back then springing ahead or coming back from being down.

How is it some companies can do this with ease and others can't? In a word: Resilience – defining what it means within their own organisations and intentionally developing this trait within their leaders and teams – and throughout their organisations – to prosper more effectively.

The second priority is taking or mustering up courage. Life at the top calls for being ambidextrous – leadership that is both prudent and bold.

How do leaders go about achieving the best of both worlds? How do top decision makers play both offence and defence – and – in many different sectors.

The third priority is how to hatch new business or move into new realms of service and product offerings. Historically, many of the world's greatest companies were founded in the depths of a downturn.

Right now, one of the most promising “new” fields is in green technology. In North America, trillions of dollars will be invested in ‘green’ these coming years. What trends do we see specific within or from Bermuda?

Number four is finding and using technology – often the necessary basis for growth and competitive advantage.

Mastering technological trends is essential to create software enhancing capabilities that enable the building of new businesses and the transformation of existing ones.

Number five is net zero – stay the course. The war in Ukraine has left many countries with one foot in the boat and one foot on the dock.

It's clear that the dependence on fossil fuels is far from over. And it's equally clear that the transition to net zero will play off of how chief executive officers can balance resilience with net zero promises?

Number six right now is a big one: rebuild the employee experience – it's a brave new work from home world and that means for the office-of-old is still to be determined.

Can the office be rethought to effectively remind employees of what’s missing from a video call – and thus sending an enticing reminder of why it is important to “show up”.

What does the office of the new future look like or more, importantly, what is the actual future of the workplace?

I'd like to focus the rest of this article on addressing this priority of the employee experience – as it is essential to get this one right!

CEOs and executive managers need to focus on how to effectively re-engage their employees. Many individuals have found it productive to work remotely and say: “I can do as much and as well from home as I can in the office. In fact, sometimes, I'm more effective at home than in the office because I'm not distracted.”

In recent years, the contract with workers has become a little too transactional for anyone's liking. CEOs need to find a new plan of re-engagement – so, what is in the realm of altered or new possibility for the employee experience in 2023 and beyond? And how must it address the differences from pre-2020?

Several months ago, at Benedict Associates, we had a contract-specialist from a client-company presenting as a result of a fallout with his boss who wanted him back in the office five days a week.

His point was that working from home two days and in the office for three days a week was sufficient and the employee could not be persuaded otherwise seeing the boss as unreasonable.

The stand-off culminated with the boss providing the choice of staying employed and working on-site in the Bermuda office or returning to New York and working remotely from home!

Companies are facing an exodus of employees who seem exhausted and overwhelmed. New questions arise like: What does work mean?Are there creative options? Leaders who create tailored, authentic experiences, strengthen employee purpose and ignite collective energy can elevate organisation-wide performance.

In contrast, it's relatively easy in many sectors of the economy if the employee is Bermudian and can transfer from one work setting to another.

With compensation and benefits being on par, other features like partially working remotely are now a higher priority on the benefits list.

Organizations that offer an excellent employee experience by taking needs into consideration, can be highly effective in re- establishing engagement by way of teaming on a higher level. Providing a top-notch employee experience is not just lip service, it requires a profound reorientation away from traditional top down models to one based on fundamental design shifts.

Such a shift allows a company to put its workers first by exploring and responding to how they view their employee journey. Research shows that people who report having a positive employee experience have 16 times the engagement level of employees with negative environment. Additionally, those in a positive work environment are eight times more likely to want to stay at the company!

These data points provide a strong basis for asking this question: How can companies focus on the employee experience to retain and excite the best people, thus creating value and maintaining a competitive edge?

At both Benedict and BCI, we are committed to supporting individual employees as they adapt to new ways of working – and organisations, leaders and teams as they explore meaningful work experiences for employees that align with overall organisational culture and desired outcomes.

Vaughn Mosher is managing director of Benedict & Associates