The COVID crisis has led to a lot of distress and anxiety, and the world is still trying to find ways of fighting the invisible enemy. The crisis has forced us to look at innovative new ways of operating and we need to be more accepting of this new way of working and learning. The lockdown scenarios and work from home seem to last longer. It may take at least a few months even to start feeling like we have returned to the old normal.
With Covid19 spreading across the globe, it will impact various business lines and the workforce. Remote working and telecommuting will become more pertinent and become the new normal. While every organization is responding to this crisis in their way, may be through regular communication, travel advisory, creation of a committee or medical support (screening, sanitizers, temperature check etc.).
The traditional way of managing the workforce has been a challenge and forced HR professionals to look at new ways of engagement and increase productivity. Here are some trends which we foresee or have noticed many organizations adopted already across the globe:[PS1]
Workforce Trends :
Employment universally is undergoing dramatic changes, and half of it will be in the gig economy by 2025 and around 73 percent of all teams will have remote workers. The current situation has expedited the world to move in that direction.
Top two priorities for organizations has led to transitioning of Work Models, Rise of remote work and Growth of contingent forms of work (such as on-call workers, temp workers, and contractors). Freelancing and labor-sharing platforms like Odesk, UP work & flexiwork are becoming more preferred.
Organizations are also looking at new avenues of tapping gig workforce to accelerate innovation and demand of niche skills through their inhouse platforms. Some examples are Wipro Topcode where Designers, developers, data scientists, and testers from around the globe come to solve real-world problems and acquire new skill.NESTLE !NGENIUS & Amazon Mechanical Turk also work on similar concepts.
How different processes are getting affected. [PS2]
Onboarding
The whole onboarding experience has completely moved to virtual world where the teams are connecting virtually to onboard and plan for a series of connects with leadership & their respective teams through collaborative tools like MS teams, zoom etc and also doing virtual orientations. Some organization have explored to use third party services to deliver laptops & new hire goodies to enhance overall onboarding experience.
Learning
Given the attention span of the user ,learning platforms are providing micro learning bytes through various app or online links. These micro learning modules are not only keeping the user engaged but create longer interest to continue learning through incentivizing model with badges and point mechanism. Simulation based learning, Virtual Tech talks, Knowledge sharing, Tech challenges, debates & quizzes online are new ways companies are engaging their workforce.
Physical Wellness
Remote working means long back to back calls, continuous sitting, more screen time hence organizations understand the need to create more awareness on Ergonomics suggesting tips and simple exercise to be done by members in between break time. Few organizations have installed workplace wellness or ergonomics dashboard which gives the user regular pop ups with meditation & exercise video which can be done even at their home desk  along with virtual classes for Workout Regimes, Yoga, Meditation, fun challenges to keep their teams focus on fitness ongoing. These dashboards have various metrices through which organizations can measure overall well being of all their members.
Mental Wellness: The panic associated with the pandemic is causing distress at work and personal lives of individuals. It is essential to have regular breathers and have someone to talk to and share their feelings. Meditation Breaks, Virtual sessions with a counsellor, Virtual 1-1 Employee Assistance/Counselling, Virtual Yoga Programs through digital platforms can also be explored.
Medical Assistance
Apart from updating the medical insurance with COVID 19 coverages, some companies are also using internal collaboration pages like yammer to create awareness about the disease, microsite with the details about pandemic, page where folks can post their doubts & questions is very helpful in the current scenario of confusion and excessive information. Some hospitals have also moved to Online App based medical consulting, where you can consult a doctor virtually. Apollo recently launched a service like this.Â
Policy Updates
Telecommuting & Remote working
While most of the workforce has moved remote, companies need to embrace the concept of remote working and set basic guidelines to make the program effective and manageable. It should cover outline requesting, obtaining, using, and terminating remote access to organization networks, systems, and data. Its spread over to scenarios where members connect remotely to in-house data centers as well as off-site facilities, such as cloud providers. [PS3]
Disaster & Business continuity plan
The current scenario has changed the way we function, so it’s critical to develop a plan to help ensure ongoing business processes in a crisis. Guideline explaining what needs to go into your BCP plan to help your organization prepare for—and recover from—a potential disaster. One need to address threats to the organization in the form of cybersecurity attacks and compromised or lost data. The process of establishing proper risk management guidelines is critical to ensure company procedures and reputation do not suffer the adverse impact. The use of VPN policy guidelines to help IT ensure that VPNs are correctly deployed, highlighting acceptable use of policies for end-users on company-issued and personal devices.
Automation:
With less physical connect, adoption of technology and digital infrastructure is the need of the hour. Conversational bots & Apps to track location of quarantined workforce will become an extended arm of HR function and will help them to stay connected with the virtual workforce and drive various level conversations across groups. Gamification & App based engagement will become more popular, given the current context.
Diversity & Inclusion
Specific Hiring Campaign like tapping women on break due to remote working model is a good option in the current scenario. Sharing Inclusion stories to bring in how family & team are also part of extended family. Communication Series, sharing stories around bringing in inclusivity in the whole culture.
New ways of engagement
Communication & engagement of folks across has become extremely crucial during this phase, Transparency & storytelling and showcasing various success stories will be good way to spread positive messaging in this hour of crisis.
Almost every connect, currently face to face must transition in the virtual world, may it be Connect session in different segments and levels (executives to teams) to townhalls to recognition.
Using Collaborative tools like Microsoft teams, Skype & WebEx. Teams are adopted new ways of engagement may it be Virtual hobby classes like Cooking, Dancing , Music etc or Online Games with point mechanism Virtual Antakshari ,Tambola , Quiz, where some of it can even extend to family members is also experimented.
These engagement forums are also extended to kids by Virtual Challenges, Story-telling, Art & Workshops & Virtual Session with Child Psychologist – on various ways of teaching & engaging kids.
While COVID has set a refresh button to some of the traditional ways of doing certain things; it has brought new challenges & hope. What is needed is appreciating your team, colleagues, enabling functions and support staff who are standing with you in this testing times and working hand in hand. Recognition and appreciation of your team is become essential to keep them united and motivated which can also done through various online platform & usage of social media.
Let’s be together with the hope that this too shall pass, and we will be in a healthier world soon. Accept, refresh and rewire – there are and will be enough opportunities in this crisis. It is up to us, which lens do we look at it from, and how do we adapt and respond to this.
is passionate HR professional and keen learner and loves being up to date about her domain.
She has been associated with Happiest Minds from 5yrs and is playing Senior Manager – People Practice for Digital Business Services Business Unit & Analytics, IOT Center of Excellence at Happiest Minds Technologies. She has 13+ years of experience across a spectrum of HR roles in IT, Financial, Consulting & Automotive domains.
She has exposure in various functions of HR domain: HR Business Partnership, Diversity & Inclusion, Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, HR Operations, Compensation & Benefits, Rewards & Recognition, Performance Management, HR Automation to Employee Relations.
