Every day in the media, we hear the perspectives of leaders about innovation. This year alone, we are seeing many organisations undertake strategic decisions that relate to the use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), to fundamentally transform or innovate processes over the next few years.
But what about the perspectives of employees? As a corollary to the innovation agenda, the employee upskilling and reskilling trend continues. More employees will be required to adapt to redesigned job roles or work in new teams. While we hear a lot from business leaders, we are not hearing enough from the very source that powers the business and may even be the spark behind the sought-after innovation. (Did you know that Frito-Lay’s top-selling Flamin’ Hot Cheetos started as an idea from a janitor who later became a top executive at the company?)
If middle managers and teams are implementing each of these strategic shifts, it makes sense to start with their perspective of what it takes to get them fully onboard and invested in driving the transformation. Here are three takeaways to consider, based on the Asia Pacific (APAC) findings of the Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 on trust and innovation and our Workplace Advisory team’s learnings with clients.
When communicating on innovation, engage employees on the pluses and minuses and seek their views on how they see innovation factoring into their work. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that people are more likely to trust businesses to be good managers of change if they communicate the pluses and minuses of innovations. They are more likely to embrace innovations such as green energy, AI and gene-based medicine when they feel they have control over how the innovations will affect their lives.*
Therefore, embedding new ways of working, driven by the potential of AI and sustainability standards, will be most effective when leaders actively engage middle managers and employees to provide inputs into the change plans. Employees are more open to innovations when leaders and transformation teams listen, ask and test ideas on how innovation can be incorporated into their everyday work.Develop change communication plans in anticipation of job loss anxiety. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer research indicates that for respondents across 9 APAC markets, job loss is a top concern (net 91% of APAC employees worried) compared to inflation (72% of the APAC general population worried), hackers (78% of the general population worried) and other societal concerns. Worry about job loss is highest for employees in Malaysia (97%), India (96%), Indonesia (93%), Singapore (93%), South Korea (93%) and Thailand (92%).
For organisations undertaking major strategic shifts in areas such as digital and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation, anticipate anxiety, particularly in your APAC workforce, as you plan the change. Anxiety, whether unfounded or not, detracts greatly from daily productivity because of the mental toll it takes. APAC Business, Communications and Human Resource Leaders can come together to develop confidence-instilling plans with phased communications on what is expected of different employee segments. For example, steps employees can actively take to reskill, upskill or be transferred into job roles aligned to your strategies and what resources are available to support them in the change. Doing so will help your employees understand that while it requires change on their part, they have a future in your organisation.Consider a nuanced approach when planning internal communications, based on the type of innovation and the general trust levels in that innovation across markets. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that across types of innovation in APAC, green energy has the highest acceptance, followed by AI then gene-based medicine. Green energy is embraced by 55% of APAC respondents with only 11% rejecting green energy, in comparison to AI (37% embrace AI, 26% reject) and gene-based medicine (31% embrace, 31% reject).
On AI in particular, APAC markets on average are more accepting of this type of innovation in comparison to the global average (37% embrace in APAC versus 30% globally). Fewer in APAC reject AI innovation (26% reject in APAC versus 35% globally). The APAC markets leading on acceptance of AI include China (51%), India (47%) and Thailand (46%), while Australia has the highest level of rejection (53%), significantly higher than the other 8 APAC markets studied (14% to 27% rejection range).
On gene-based medicine, acceptance is highest in China (41% embrace this innovation), India (40%) and Thailand (39%), with the highest rejection in Malaysia (45% reject this innovation versus 31% APAC average). This reflects the importance of examining cultural nuances for each innovation type.For green energy, while APAC markets (55%) are about on par with the global average (54%) when it comes to embracing green energy, people in Thailand (62%), Indonesia (62%) and India (60%) are the most accepting.
Therefore, for leaders communicating to a diverse APAC workforce, a data-driven approach that considers the range of sentiments across your employee segments as a starting basis to a data-driven communications plan would make the difference. Communication plans in terms of content and phasing can be adjusted based on the level of that population segment’s change readiness, localising the content not only in terms of language, but also the cultural nuances around the innovation.
Taking the above points into consideration, organisations have the potential to not only enhance the effectiveness of their change management and transformation programs, but potentially spark greater innovation across the workforce. Empowering employees to serve as innovation ambassadors serves as a win-win for both the organisation, and the very people who will drive the agenda forward.
* The other top trust-building actions for business are keeping innovation affordable and working with government to develop regulations (83% and 81% of respondents respectively)
As Senior Vice President and Asia Pacific Practice Lead on Workplace Advisory at Edelman, Yan Jiejun partners with leaders to drive trusted organisational transformation including advising on communicating with their APAC workforces. She is a certified change practitioner, executive coach & HR professional, and is currently undertaking the INSEAD Executive Masters in Change.
Edelman has a global team of Workplace Advisory specialists, including in APAC, advising clients on culture, change, employee communications and employer brand. More details are found here. Contact us directly here.