Worldcom Confidence Index February 2022 Global Results
GLOBAL BUSINESS LEADERS ARE PUTTING EMPLOYEE ISSUES FIRST TO RECOVER FROM THE PANDEMIC
*The Worldcom Confidence Index (WCI) is the first AI-driven ‘living’ global market research, tracking the topics that over 80,000 CEOs and CMOs are commenting on online. The AI-fuelled tracker is updated monthly and is drawn from an active sample of over 100,000 C-Suite executives. It tracks data for two roles, six regions, 42 countries and 11 industry sectors. It identifies the levels of engagement with business topics and how much the level of confidence for each topic has changed. It is the first global study of this type to use AI supported data capture.
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Employee issues have the lion’s share of attention
February’s results confirm the depth and breadth of the people-related challenges faced by today’s leaders. Four of the Top 10, and seven of the Top 13 topics, are employee related. These include the top two, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and retaining talent. The other five are: economic migration; hybrid and flexible working; upskilling and reskilling; attracting talent; employee experience. These seven topics point to the steps organizations need to take to protect against the ’Great Resignation’.
The age of ‘ultra-transparency’ keeps the media front of mind
Leaders seem to recognize that they now live in the age of ultra-transparency which demands that they stay focused on the role and impact of both traditional and social media. These topics appear at 6th and 9th place on the Worldcom Engagement Index respectively. The combination of the two is particularly important for how organizations communicate around complex issues such as DEI and sustainability (1st and 5th on the Index respectively).
Changes in the Top10 since 2021
Since February 2021, three business topics have moved up the Top 10, three have fallen and there have been four non-movers. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) remains the most talked about topic in the Index. The three other non-movers show leaders consider these topics to be consistent priorities: ESG, sustainability and reducing plastics remains in 5th place; the impact and role of social media in 9th and, customer satisfaction in 10th.
Three topics slipped down the Top 10: the economy fell one place from 2nd to 3rd; the impact and role of the media fell two places to 6th and, hybrid and flexible working dropped one place to 8th on the Index.
There are three risers in the Top 10: retaining talent moved up one place to 2nd; artificial intelligence (AI) rose two places to 4th and, economic migration moved up one place to 7th.
Relative stability of the Top 10 masks significant increases in attention for other topics
While the Top 10 topics in the Index remained the same, six business topics outside the Top 10 saw a surge in the number of business leaders engaging with them – all increasing by over 50% since February 2021. Unsurprisingly, with the various government responses to the pandemic, the topic of government and legislative change has the biggest increase in attention – up 82% from February 2021.
The other five topics reinforce the main areas of focus in the Top 10 identified above. The surge in interest in the use of technology to collaborate and innovate – up by 78%, is indicative of how leaders may be turning to technology to provide solutions to new challenges. The need to be trusted by both customers and employees sees the focus on corporate image and brand reputation rise by 57%. The next two topics relate to giving employees sustainable reasons to remain loyal – purpose-driven leadership (up by 52%) and upskilling and reskilling (up by 51%). To further demonstrate how employees have become center stage, the next two biggest increases in attention (both rising 46%) are for attracting talent and employee engagement and experience.
Artificial Intelligence provides unrivalled view of trending topics and leaders’ confidence levels in addressing them
The Worldcom Confidence Index is the world’s largest monthly study of what the C Suite is talking about. And it is the only global study that shows the change in confidence across a range of important business topics. It is able to operate at this scale, and in nine different languages, because the data is captured using a breakthrough approach powered by artificial intelligence (AI). This allows us to discover the issues that concern leaders – and their confidence levels in addressing them.
The chosen research firm, Advanced Symbolics Inc. (ASI), has developed a patented method of building representative samples and then capturing information with their AI tool. By using ASI’s AI tool, we have produced a truly global perspective on the business issues of the moment and where they rank in terms of leadership attention. We’ve also calculated the confidence index level for every topic and audience and identified how this changes for 42 countries around the world. This is incredibly valuable insight because it not only represents what leaders are talking about, rather than responses to questions, but also shows their confidence or concern in addressing each topic. It means you can compare your own thoughts with more than 100,000 of your global peers.