People Professionals And Post- Covid 19: Problems And Prospects
By Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri
The satisfactory way of managing the first way of COVID19 in Sri Lanka echoed the execution excellence to the whole world. Second wave was far more challenging. Third wave, what we are currently experiencing is even deadlier and more disastrous. Why could not we sustain the success like in the case of New Zealand or South Korea?
Rather than doing a detailed post-mortem, what is required is obvious. Right people in the right places handling the right things pave way for right results. The key overarching factor is people. Managing them in getting the best out of them is the prime role of people professionals. In such a context, it is worthwhile to reflect on the challenges faced by the people professionals in the subtle balancing act of satisfying employee expectations and sustaining enterprise efforts.
Overview
In an increasingly competitive world, people have become a cutting-edge factor. Is it just any people or right people? As the typical HR mantra say, right person at the right job with right targets in a right environment will produce right results within the right time. This will be more critical in post-Covid19 era where vision, understanding, confidence and agility (VUCA 2.0) forming the foundation of the “new normal” for people professionals.
The “new normal” is interpreted in multiple ways in multiple perspectives. As Forbes magazine recently described, “The Covid-19 coronavirus is becoming the accelerator for one of the greatest workplace transformations of our lifetime”. “How we work, exercise, shop, learn, communicate, and of course, where we work, will be changed significantly”.
People Professionals in Focus
A people professional, also called as a Human Resource (HR) professional can be viewed as a senior person engaged in Human Resources activities as an occupation. In other words, a manager with experience and qualifications, handling the responsibilities associated with the HR function of an organization. We often here the rhetoric that every manager is an HR manager. There is a truth in it in the sense that every manager has a people management role to play. Yet, the reality is that a manager coming from a specific functional background might not have the required capability to handle all the specific people management aspects.
Moreover, there has to be a consistent approach with a clear policy framework. The point here is that, when every manager plays a “people role”, the people professional’s role is becoming increasingly strategic. He/she has to act like an internal coach, guide, policy setter and an architect of strategy. They increasingly come to the forefront in adding value to their respective organizations.
Transition from Survival to Success
People professionals are increasingly exposed to bear the brunt of Covid19 impacting on employees. Ensuring the continuity of their employment is key on one hand. Engaging them to the fullest to have the required productivity is key on the other hand. Exposing them to the challenging realities yet in a caring manner has become a huge challenge.
Covid19 have swiftly shifted us from mostly a” rowing” world to much of a “rafting” world. Why do I say so? Unlike in rowing, rafting is much riskier. It invites you to wear a life jacket and to be vigilant in passing through sharp stones with abundance of turbulences. Instead of following a uniform set of instructions, you need to take on-the-spot decisions based on the situational realties. In essence, one needs to be fast, focused and flexible in a “rafting” world.
One key aspect for people professionals is to demonstrate the essence of empathy. They should be regularly in touch with the employees in listening to them, guiding them and communicating with them in an understanding manner. That is crucial for survival. It reminds me of what Andrew Carnegie said sometime ago. “Take my key people and leave my factory and it will be full of dust and cobwebs; demolish my factory and leave my key people, and they will build a better factory”. It simply highlights the power of human spirit which needs to be preserved even in the midst of a severe pandemic. Such an endavour requires strategically oriented people professionals with prompt actions.
Prime Tips for People Professionals
We can meaningfully adapt what Seijts and Crim, two researchers of organizational behavior termed as “ten Cs for employee engagement”, in the context of the present pandemic disruption. The key focus in each C can further be expanded into possible initiatives in post-Covid19 era. Let’s discuss the details with local realities in mind.
1. Connect
Leaders must show that they value employees. Recent letters addressed to the employees by several corporate leaders in Sri Lanka is a case in point. This can be further enhanced by maintaining open channels so that employees can approach their superiors to discuss matters in a mutually beneficial manner. People professionals should be conscious of the fact that disconnect leads to disengagement, with dire consequences.
2. Career
Leaders should provide challenging and meaningful work with opportunities for career advancement. It may involve re-skilling, up-skilling or multi-skilling as people professionals often advocate. It will be very challenging in post-Covid19 where employee aspirations and employer reality might mismatch. New modes of learning with more technology involvement will be the order of the day.
The current wisdom suggests us to show employees the way forward in terms of career advancements and options, in motivating them to perform in exceeding expectations. As one leading multinational claim, “we do not offer jobs, but careers, the careers that brand them for life”. In transitioning to a post-Covid19 economy, this might be more of a project-based or contract-based path with results-based remuneration.
3. Clarity
There could be a great deal of confusion created among an insecure workforce. People professionals must communicate communicate and communicate, as conventional wisdom tells us. A clear vision, inclusive of employee wellbeing should be shared and supported. This includes building an awareness on strategic priorities among the employees, in ensuring that they are clear about why they are doing what they do. People professionals should ensure that employees are aware of the challenging side of the business that they are in, and also to avoid unrealistic expectations.
4. Convey
Leaders should clarify their expectations about employees and provide feedback on their functioning in the organization. Perform or perish should be the slogan in the post-Covid19 era. People professionals should develop productivity enhancement schemes which are transparent and equitable.
This also involves ensuring proper conduct of performance appraisals by training managers as to how to give constructive feedback objectively. It will be very challenging to tolerate under-performers and as such being proactive in setting high expectation at the outset is what is required.
5. Congratulate
Leaders give recognition to others. Exceptional leaders do so a lot. Appreciating good performance of employees by reward and recognition in a timely fashion is something essential.
Gone are the days of “employee of the year” or “employee of the quarter” or even “employee of the month”. What matters is giving due recognition to the “employee of the moment”. People professionals should develop cost-effective recognition schemes so that employees see they are being valued despite the economic challenges their organization is going through.
6. Contribute
Leaders should make sure that employees know how their contribution matters. This can be done by introducing a transparent mechanism of objective setting and then connecting individual objectives to broad organizational objectives. Tested and proven mechanisms such as “Balanced Scorecard” can be handy in this respect. People professionals need to reinvent the conventional systems so that irrespective of whether work at office or work from home, the contribution of an employee is traced, tracked and taken care of.
7. Control
Leaders need to set the boundaries with the buy-in of the employees. This involves setting the boundaries of activities with proper systems in place with the involvement of employees, so that they are a part of the decision-making process. Modern day control is more viewed as a way of ensuring consistency through conformance, as opposed to coercive courses of action. Stringent controls on wastage is essential in cash-trappeds conditions, where people professionals have to design and deliver learning initiatives to ensure proper controls are consciously being adhered to.
8. Collaborate
As it was often the case, great leaders are team builders. They create an environment that fosters trust and collaboration. By doing so, they ensure that teamwork is given due prominence with associated mechanisms such as team-based rewards to strengthen it. Such teams can be either physical or virtual in the post-Covid19 era. People professionals should promote collaboration with the message that economic challenges should not hamper team spirit.
9. Credibility
Leaders should strive to maintain organizational reputation and demonstrate high ethical standards. They should demonstrate being ethical in decision making, so that employees will strengthen their admiration of the organization. Credibility can be compared to a glass tumbler. Once it is cracked, it is irreparable. This will be truly tested in a post-Covid19 era where people professionals have to tread carefully. Even in the case of layoffs as a last resort, doing it in the most humane manner might become a huge challenge.
10. Confidence
Good leaders help create confidence in a company by being exemplars of high-performance standards. It involves practicing “walking the talk” at all levels so that employees have better trust and confidence on their superiors. That has far reaching consequences, including better relationships and higher results. This is a key aspect in the post-Covid19 era where employees have to be given the assurance of survival through performance. Possible increment suppressions for senior executives already seen in some large conglomerates is a case in point. Yet, it will be more challenging in the SMEs that contributes to 52 percent to the Sri Lankan economy.
Way Forward
The ten Cs discussed above should be appropriately blended with organizational priorities, with sound HR practices in place, especially in the post-Covid19 era. People professionals have an increasing strategic role to play in dealing with problems and prospects. The best way of summing up the above ten Cs is to link all of them to one “big C”. CARE. Employee-care is the surest way to ensure customer-care, in the past, present and the future as well. BMD
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Role Of Hr Evolves To Different Level With Covid-19
Abans Group Puts Business And
Stakeholders At The Centre, Not Covid-19
The sudden shift in work culture following the Covid 19 pandemic since early 2020 has brought new challenges for the human resource managers around the globe. Many organisations were not ready with a fall back plan as far as the HR practices are concerned at the time the pandemic hit the nations. Job cuts, and curtailing employee benefits were inevitable as the lockdowns were imposed.
The Abans Group too had to go through these initial setbacks.
The company’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Dulani Nissanka says, they learned quickly and brought in the best HR practices to manage the situation.
“Today it is the business and its stakeholders which is at the center and not really COVID-19,”she adds.
Dulani Nissanka spearheads the Abans Group’s Human Resources function as the Group Chief Human Resources Officer. In this position she facilitates the organization’s human resources (HR) development strategy which equally benefits the employees, the management and thereby enhance lives of the Sri Lankan community.
The company’s HR strategy is based on globally acclaimed HR practices which supports in building talent, leadership, whilst enabling the organization to redefine its culture and be ready for the future while maintaining its core value system.
In this interview Ms Nissanka describes the HR challenges they had to face with the pandemic and how they found sound solutions to manage the company by befitting employees, customers and the stakeholders.
Initial challenges
“At the beginning it was a panic situation; it was chaotic and soon it became a learning process for everyone. As we matured, within a few months, we learned to continue with more or less business as usual amidst the pandemic.”
“Today we run most of our projects as planned, may be the scalability could differ, may be the mode we operate could differ, but what is important is that unlike the last year it is the business and its stakeholders which is at the centre now and not really the COVID-19. We choose the projects based on the business priorities and empowered our teams for implementation. This is very crucial, as we do not know how long this crisis will last, and we will have to peer through the fog of uncertainty for quite sometime.”
The Pandemic
Last year when the pandemic hit, there was no playbook that we could follow or to guide us on how to deal with this global crisis, but everyone was expecting HR to adapt fast and guide the teams to adjust to the new reality. Our focus was to ensure the safety of our employees & our customers and business continuity at that point. In the group we have about 15,000 employees working across multiple geographies around the island and most of them are front line staff, who are not privileged to work from home. HR’s priority was to ensure the safety of our staff. As initial measures we provided the required safety measures whilst implementing the Risk Control Policy which was our guidebook in managing the threat of COVID-19 at the workplace which incorporated all the health and safety measures. At the inception, creating awareness among this large workforce who are at varied level of comprehension was one of the biggest challenges HR business partners were faced with.
Safety of employees
Wherever possible our frontline services such as retail sales, collections were catered through digital platforms reducing the risk for both our staff and customers. The remote working model was adopted for the support staff who could work from home, backed by the required IT infrastructure. In our organization it was a fusion of work models that we adopted as certain people were working at site whilst some were remotely working, and some were working from the office on the work requirements and their personal situations.
Main challenges in HR sphere
As we move forward in the new normal employee wellbeing, engagement and learning sphere became the most challenging for HR.
Employee wellbeing, being part of our Employee Value Proposition has been one of the focused areas during the pandemic as employees have been affected in varied ways, could be mentally, emotionally, physically, or financially. To support our teams during the pandemic, wellness programs have been launched to help employees to augment their wellbeing and mental health, assisting them to maintain a stable and balanced life. We’ve being able to quickly move on to virtual learning platforms to facilitate our capability development interventions via online. We will continue to use technology for workforce learning and employee reskilling, particularly for a company with such a geographical spread, enabling us to reach employees across the country. It also provides us with data which can make the learning function more effective in future which will help us in aligning the learning strategy to our business better. We are driving the company more towards a self-driven talent development strategy where employees will be made responsible for their own development in time to come.
With the distractions in the normal work-life, where businesses started operating in hybrid model, at-site, at-home, in office, collaboration and engagement became a huge challenge. Further keeping up with the regulations we are not being able to bring teams together, nor being able to rollout our employee relations calendar, which previously helped our teams to collaborate, recharge and reconnect. Hence during the last year, we have shifted most of our employee relation activities to online initiatives and social media platforms, whilst we continued with the usual onsite engagement activities following the safety precautions wherever possible.
Moving forward with the Pandemic
When the Pandemic hit all the projects that we had launched at the beginning of the 2020/21 financial year, went on the backburner as the COVID-19 pandemic took centre stage and became everyone’s immediate priority. But we choose the projects based on the business priorities and empowered our teams for implementation. This is very crucial, as we do not know how long this crisis will last, and we will have to peer through the fog of uncertainty for quite sometime.
Whilst managing COVID-19 during the year group also focused on areas such as digitization, innovation, customer centricity, succession planning, and culture, as it was crucial for the organization to evolve to the next level. Leadership has been encouraging the teams to embrace technology in different verticals wherever we could bring efficiencies and we have multiple projects ongoing at present. In the HR technology and digitization was utilized in the verticals of learning, communication, and engagement.
We have started driving towards a culture of innovation, both disruptive and incremental by promoting new thinking, new ideas, new concepts which can be converted into processors and practices which were heavily promoted within the organization since last year. With our vision “To keep empowering people with a better way to life” our customers remain at the center. We have launched the ‘Service Culture’ concept as we leverage customer service as a vital corporate strategy with the intention of augmenting our service levels at each touch point. The succession planning program themed ‘Next Leader’ and the Talent Management Framework were launched in the year 2020 amidst the COVID challenges to strengthen the leadership pipeline. As we transform the organization to become Bigger Better and Bolder, we are consciously transforming our organization’s culture to make it more collaborative, futuristic, agile whilst preserving our core values. These areas have been our people related priorities based on the business needs, which helped the company to move forward, and the Group overall performed extremely well compared to the previous financial year.
Future
Though its currently unpredictable, HR leaders will have a key role in getting their organizations ready for the next normal, for post COVID, as its highly unlikely, the organizations will return to previous forms of behaviors or practices. Instead the organizations should be ready to embrace the next normal.
In the next normal, based on the industry, we will have to choose a work model that fits well.
We will be working on a hybrid model combining remote working and regular office presence so that our teams can get the best of both as pure remote work for all employees may not be sustainable for our business. As our team will gain digital maturity, we will continue to embrace technology in different spheres to enhance efficiencies and bring about convenience to our stakeholders.
Role of HR has evolved to a different level with COVID-19. Ever evolving talent requirements, managing employee experience, remote collaboration, ensuring wellbeing of a diverse workforce are some challenges organizations will have to rethink in the next normal. In future we need to bring in resilience and flexibility in the HR function, so that we could adapt faster to support the business in any challenging situation.
In a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations are focusing on “how your company will make it out alive?” but I think if the organizations should be responsible enough to take care of the stakeholders at this point, be it the customers, employees, the community, the rest will fall in place. As HR leaders our mandate is to help organizations to align in that spirit, so I see the future is going to be very challenging but very exciting for the whole HR community.BMD
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THE BIGGEST HR CHALLENGES FACED DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
By Natasha Fonseka
COVID-19 has become an unmistakable presence in the landscape of business in 2020 and 2021 in Sri Lanka. It’s a true example of something completely unexpected changing the way we work, live, and interact with each other. Now, businesses in most parts of the world are shutting their doors, losing clients, and sending employees to work from home.
The global pandemic has disrupted every industry, creating chaos in these unprecedented times. As such, companies have had to rethink their entire business model and adapt to the changes to keep the lights on. HR professionals, in particular, have faced challenges in advocating for employees, shifting hiring policies, managing internal communications and managing a work from home model.
Here are some of the biggest HR challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adapting to Shifting Hiring Priorities
The early days of the pandemic brought forth layoffsin some companies and industries around the globe, experiencing dramatically reduced or eliminated working hours. In addition to layoffs, many companies implemented hiring freezes and placed HR initiatives on hold as a cost saving drive, leaving many HR professionals at a loss for what comes next.
Meanwhile, some industries are experiencing hiring booms, particularly in healthcare. HR professionals in healthcare are burdened with battling trained nursing staff shortages and managing increased staffing needs for what’s currently considered one of the world’s most vulnerable professions in this time of Covid 19.
Needless to say, HR professionals in all industries are experiencing a paradigm shift in their roles and expectations, adding to the stress and pandemonium of the overall situation in many uncertain areas.
In many companies a freeze was imposed on hiring and in the event an employee left, in many positions no replacement was made but the existing employees were given that role either fully or distributed amongst a team. Hence in some cases managing employees who were stretched in their job roles was also a challenge encountered.
Given the scenario of hiring, even an interview is not conducted in most cases as physical interviews but has changed to be virtual interviews which at times make it difficult to judge and there could be logistical issues as well which could come up which in itself is a challenge.
Engaging Remote Teams
Employee engagement is the heart of building a company culture and reducing employee turnover. It’s always been challenging for HR professionals to walk the line between advocating for employees and staying within the boundaries of the company’s mission. HR professionals need to fully understand the business challenges that companies are facing and need to support the business and walk that line dealing with both management and employees. They need to bring about the balance.
Now, many HR professionals must walk that line while dealing with a remote working team!
Not only are employees shifting to a remote workforce, but they’ve done so without any transition plan in place. Many employers have decided to stick with a remote work model going forward, regardless of how the pandemic unfolds. This means HR has further to reach to keep employees feeling actively included in their career.
HR is tasked with creating new policies for communications, check-ins, success measurement and goal setting. This overhaul comes with the added challenge of training from a remote setting.
As remote working was not envisaged or as there was no transition period, employees and management, both were put in the deep end to learn to swim in this new work model. Basic requirements like infrastructure were not in place at the beginning when the work from home model came in and companies had to have the logistics in order whether they may be laptops, systems, providing dongles, etc., on a high priority basis.
Managing Employee Communications
Internal communication is an ongoing challenge for many businesses. Combine this issue with an unpredictable situation that changes from one week to the next, you’ve got the recipe for an HR nightmare.
With so much uncertainty, communications arrangement for this week may not be applicable for the next. The best HR can do is to take a human approach, showcasing empathy and transparency.
It’s important to understand and convey that while everyone is in the same situation, individual experiences may vary dramatically. One employee trying to juggle remote learning while working from home with small kids, etc., will not have the same experience as a C-Suite executive with grown children and in all probability a more conducive working environment.
“Work from Home” policies, use of equipment and logistics policies had to be drafted and implemented with the remote working model coming into force overnight.
Answering Tough Questions
One of the downsides of managing human resources is making tough decisions. The financial stress and uncertainty of the pandemic have forced many companies to downsize and let employees go. For HR, this means determining the threshold, how many employees can run the company and which jobs is the highest priority for preservation? Also, dealing with the country’s labour laws and making sure the companies are doing the right thing in the right manner. Both the interest of the company and employee needs to be balanced in the best possible manner by HR professionals which are a challenge.
Maintaining the Office Culture
As the modern workforce evolves, one thing has become clear: a well-defined organizational culture is central to success. It’s a driving force behind the identity of an organization, giving employees something to rally behind.
But culture tends to take on new shapes in times of crisis. Decisions happen on the fly. New plans are put into place and, often, secondary things like your usual office culture fall by the wayside which is understandable given the circumstances we are operating in. Moreover, financial survival takes precedence over almost everything else. There aren’t many technological solutions out there for preserving employee engagement and standardized communication.
Finding new and innovative ways to keep office culture relevant and engaging employees will test most business’ operations.
In the last couple of months as an HR team, we have brought in employee engagement activities in a different form. We organized the Christmas Carols in December not as a physical team but as a competition where different companies’ teams put together videos and presented and was adjudged.
Online showcased
Employees put up some very creative videos showcasing their talents and also presenting in a different form. Similar competitions were organized for children of our employees where they were allowed to showcase their talents for Christmas from home.
Videos of kids teaming with their parents who are employees showcasing their talents, whether singing, dancing, etc., were presented. Videos were circulated amongst staff. Bringing in the kids of the employees as well into such employment engagement activities during these difficult times had a huge motivating factor and created a sense of pride amongst the employees. On Valentine’s Day, team picture competitions were organized to spread the message of love and circulated. For Women’s Day, a programme to “appreciate women in your life” was organized. For the Sinhala and Tamil New Year a “Jana gee” competition on video and an “Avurudu Kumara” and “Kumari” competition again via videos were presented. All of these competitions, even though from a far, got the employees engaged and teams engaged. It was not merely for the prizes they won but for the fun and engagement and team working showcased. It was very encouraging as so many of the employees participated.
Hence I would say the thinking and conceptualizing innovative ways of engagement and keeping the morale and spirits of employees up are also a challenging task for HR. Creative ways of doing things need to be brought into one’s HR staff engagement activities.
In more boring times, human resources have the relatively straightforward job of keeping onsite employees engaged and productive. People come in, HR monitors them and the process can save your business thousands in wasted man-hours over a year. Committed, motivated teams produce better results more consistently.
So how do you maintain this sort of connection from a distance? Include mental health where counselling and mentoring need to be considered in the HR health plan more importantly now. HR needs to introduce online meditation programmes / yoga classes with access to employees which would stimulate and balance their mental health. Find out about options and communicate, like daily pay or subsidized loans, loans on lower interest rates negotiated from banking institutions for the employees to help offset any financial difficulties for them and, ultimately, to simplify the entire process for yourself.
One just has to pay attention to the news, right now, to see stories of companies “doing the right thing” during COVID-19 and focusing on their employees. There’s a logic to this, even beyond any moral HR challenges. This kind of loyalty to your workers pays off with returned dedication, especially during high-stress times such as these.
The above are few areas that could help sustain the office culture in these times of difficulties.
Taking care of employees who contract the COVID 19 virus
Another new challenge HR teams have been faced with is looking at ways in taking care of employees getting infected with the virus. Providing for / finding quarantine facilities for the employees, in some instances even providing meals etc. until such time a facility is available for the employees to be transferred to one, need to be looked at. Further, constantly checking on them and making sure they are all right and keeping them mentally and emotionally stable are important. Just call to check on them could make a big difference.
Also, constant checking of employees who have been close contacts of employees who get infected with the virus, arranging for PCR test is to be done and if positive once again arranging for care facilities have to be looked at.
Employees need to have that assurance and security to feel that they would be looked after and taken care of in the event they get infected with the virus.
HR teams liaising constantly with infected employees to keep their spirits and mental health in check are another new role and challenge HR is taking upon themselves in these critical times.
Be Flexible
One of the biggest HR challenges during the pandemic that companies are facing is the scope of the disruption to the normal way of doing things and moving to the “New Normal.”
With so many employees needing to work from home as opposed to being at the workplace, employees could be facing challenges of taking care of young kids or old parents apart from being engaged full time working from home. Hence HR needs to intervene and arrange for flexible working hours or times where employees during this pandemic period will be able to cope and balance both work and their personal lives.
Even when some employees require to work at the workplace and others from their homes, there could be exceptional cases where given the pandemic situation and health challenges that HR would need to introduce special leave to certain categories of employees, e.g. pregnant women would need to be taken extra care and if they require special leave, that needs to be looked at and implemented if the job role does not entail a working from home possibility. Hence flexibility needs to be factored in and discussed with operations managers as well. Even swopping job roles to make special arrangements would need to be looked at. Hence policies on pandemic leave, etc., would need to be drawn up and implemented.
Further, making employees embrace “change “is a huge challenge HR faces, which needs to be done diplomatically. Given the current scenario we all need to be able to embrace change fast, implement new ways of doing things, going that extra mile to make things work in the new way of doing things and training teams to do so, all add up to taking on even new jobs roles and responsibilities. Employees needs to hop on board fast to make it right for the business need. However, there still could be rigid employees who do not get on board fast enough and coaching, persuading and getting them on board are sometimes a challenge, HR professionals, do face.
Keep employees safe by maintaining a healthy work environment
For workers engaged in essential businesses, where work from home is not possible, it’s up to the HR departments to prioritize the health and safety of their workers. Business should make sure their practices are in line with the health guidelines recommended by the health authorities.
HR departments should have their COVID Prevention Team and also should set up COVID Combat teams in the different companies and locations and drive the safety measures through the combat teams under the guidance and monitoring of the HR team managing the office policy surrounding COVID-19. Keep employees safe and well by educating employees about transmission and risks associated.
• HR needs to offer training to establish hygiene regulations (washing hands with soap and water for 20 seconds or using a hand sanitizer when entering buildings or departments)
• Establish policies and practices for social distancing
• Prominently display posters illustrating respiratory etiquette (coughing and sneezing) and hand hygiene
• Perform routine environmental sanitization and disinfection
• Provide hand sanitizers at critical places, have foot sanitizing mats, etc.
• Where required provide personal protection equipment (PPE)
There is a key challenge that HR managers face and must always take into consideration and how to cope in the event absenteeism spikes. It could be an employee or a group of employees getting infected with the virus or a family member being infected with the virus. How then does the work continue as scheduled?
Here it is very important that employees are brought into the workplace on a roster in teams and the teams do not overlap. In the event one team is under quarantine the other team could take over the work functions and the operation would continue. Hence HR needs to create a clear plan of action with the respective management teams. There could be challenges when there is a shortage of employee numbers. Hence a contingency plan also needs to be put in place (calling for volunteers from other teams or departments /bringing in manpower from outside resources, etc.).
Hence, the role of HR has changed significantly and there are many challenges to navigate. This is where I would say leading without a title would need to come in … HR teams need to adopt to any task that require their attention to overcome the constant challenges faced daily. The challenges of yesterday could be different to the challenges of today … but we could not only face same, but also find solutions. We need to keep all our employees safe physically and mentally on one hand and we need to balance business needs on the other and, ipso facto, business needs to go on as well. BMD
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Ensuring Connectivity During A Pandemic
By Ruvini Jayasinghe
The nerve centre of our country’s telecommunications, is Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) with a huge cross section of employees and millions of corporate and individual customers. Chief People Officer, SLT, Mr. Aruna Jayasekera spoke with BMD on the overload of challenges the company faced in providing their best service to their customers whilst ensuring safety of the employees during the pandemic and lockdown periods.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: Give us an overview of your HR structure?
We have over 10,000 employees at SLT group of companies. With an infrastructure that connects our multiple services countrywide. SLT has 29 teleshops, 42 maintenance centres, 47 regional offices, and 12 franchise teleshops. Mobitel has 75 online dealers, 18 branch/mini-branch units, 42 SLT branches and 19 Singer Mega stores.
This network maintains the entirety of our services which are: Principal lines of business – Fixed ICT operations, mobile ICT operations, secondary lines of business, IPTV services and content creation facilities, human resources solutions, ICT infrastructure and system integrator solutions, directory services, digital marketing solutions, tertiary educational services, healthcare channeling platform, submarine cable maintenance, and software solutions.
Q: Give us an overview of your HR structure?
We have over 10,000 employees at SLT group of companies. With an infrastructure that connects our multiple services countrywide. SLT has 29 teleshops, 42 maintenance centres, 47 regional offices, and 12 franchise teleshops. Mobitel has 75 online dealers, 18 branch/mini-branch units, 42 SLT branches and 19 Singer Mega stores.
This network maintains the entirety of our services which are: Principal lines of business – Fixed ICT operations, mobile ICT operations, secondary lines of business, IPTV services and content creation facilities, human resources solutions, ICT infrastructure and system integrator solutions, directory services, digital marketing solutions, tertiary educational services, healthcare channeling platform, submarine cable maintenance, and software solutions.
Q: As an essential service what component of your staff report to work daily?
All our field staff are required to report to work daily in isolated bio bubbles to provide an uninterrupted service to all our customers. Our headquarters support staff and regional staff report to work on roster basis.
Q: What are the biggest HR challenges the pandemic has imposed on SLT?
A rapid policy change was the most immediate and urgent challenge. Change of course has now become a universal challenge in conducting business in this global pandemic, where lockdowns were imperative, imposing an overall new normal business culture worldwide.
The pandemic has enforced new demands and restrictions on management and employees. One key lesson we had to accept and learn to work with, is an element of TRUST especially in working from home (WFH). This has been a major business culture change and challenge for us at SLT.
The new normal pandemic infused work culture compromised our routine work mode and pushed us to greater levels and limits of performance and team work. Sometimes there was unequal distribution of work among staff, which was accepted and executed with a new and healthy team spirit, giving an optimum level of service to our customers during these difficult times, especially during the curfew and lockdown periods.
Communication took on a new dimension with a dire need for double quick communication during lockdowns. Our employees have realized and responded to the management’s requirement to communicate with employees at a new level of efficiency.
We experienced many unforeseen challenges in adapting to this new normal business culture, with the diversity of our human resources and the speed of their adaptability to a new digital culture.
Employees who work from home are provided laptops and are connected to our systems. Transition to a remote work culture has created complications, as some employees struggle to deal with the unfamiliar WFH routine and balance it with their daily chores at home. The lack of agility displayed by some of our staff working from home (WFH) has posed a challenge to our HR team. Keeping employees constantly engaged when working remotely in a crisis situation is an additional challenge and one of our priorities is to train our staff to adapt to the new digital WFH culture and work at optimum efficiency.
Besides staff mobilization and their safety in maintaining our best level of service to our customers in these difficult times, we also had in-house HR challenges with our annual routine HR procedures. There were obvious practical difficulties in implementation of some HR procedures like performance appraisal interviews for all categories of staff.
Q: How do the regional divisions operate during pandemic?
We have established provincial vigilant Committees (PVC) during the pandemic to ensure continuous and uninterrupted services to all regions. Our Regional Management is empowered to take decisions as per the prevailing situation and to decide on appropriate work arrangements whilst ensuring the isolated bio-bubbles concept. Transport is facilitated by the regional management for all regional staff depending on their individual requirements.
Q: What protective measures, procedures and facilities have been adopted by SLT during the pandemic for its staff?
Our employees’ safety is paramount during this pandemic, however our commitment to provide the best service to our millions of customers, even during the pandemic or indeed any other disruptive period of time, is our mission. This poses an extreme predicament for the management of SLT and its HR team in particular.
We ensure a continuous supply of PPE, face shields, IR thermometers, disinfectant liquids, hand sanitizers, disposable masks, reusable gloves and KN95 masks to all sales and operational staff of SLT PLC through our main stores.
Company funded transportation arrangements are in place for all staff to report to work. Approximately 2000 employees are vaccinated through the government vaccination programs to date. We facilitate PCR and rapid antigen tests on our staff regularly in a systematic method.
We have also established an automated face and temperature recognition and recording system for employees at the entrance to our offices. Safety measures, particularly regular disinfecting of office environment, provision of company transport to minimize or avoid use of public transport are also in effect. The isolated bio bubble concept that we have adopted works efficiently for our large network.
Work From Home (WFH), Work From POD (WFP) and Home to Field (H2F) arrangements are implemented to facilitate uninterrupted services. All pregnant officers are given the option of WFH or WFP. In addition, all employees are regularly provided with the health and safety guidelines to minimize the spreading of COVID 19.
Arrangements have been made to provide treatment to all employees and their immediate family members who have been identified positive for COVID 19, at Private COVID treatment centers managed by reputed private hospitals.
In house self-quarantine facilities have also been set up at our holiday bungalows in Poththodai and Anuradhapura which have been converted as self-quarantine centers for SLT staff.
We have enabled virtual learning processes (VLP) in order to facilitate the transition of staff to the new digital work culture. We have also established a security operating center (SOC) to minimize threats of possible cyber-attacks on the systems due to VPN facilities provided to employees to work from home and to ensure the safety of the information security system of the company.
While we have imposed a new work culture on a 10,000 strong staff to face the challenges during this pandemic, we have ensured that their performance and perks are not affected by this ongoing situation. We have facilitated online intern interviews, placements, online promotion interviews and other interviews via online discussions with relevant parties. Most importantly, we have provided them with a risk allowance and dry rations during this pandemic.
Q: How has the pandemic impacted your services and revenue?
We have actually been successful in our growth as planned and also generated new revenue streams, particularly due to high increase in the usage of data from online learning and accelerated usage of social media. We had to be on alert for possible cyber threats on the systems due to VPN facilities provided to employees. The lockdowns had a negative impact on the revenue collection of the company.
Q: How about recruitments and transfers etc. during these lockdown periods?
As mentioned before, we continued our HR processes even during the lockdown as planned. We have recruited 1800, employees of Human Capital Solutions (Pvt) Ltd who have been deployed in SLT. We have also implemented external recruitment of engineers, accountants, marketing officers, TTOs, IT & NW Officers / software developers. We are continuing with our ongoing process of offering the opportunity to recruit our current and retired employees’ children depending on their eligibility for vacant positions. We have also continued with our internal recruitments, mutual transfers based on employee request to nearest location to their residencies, work place rearrangement (nearest SLT place their home town) and temporary transfer arrangements to their home towns or current residences.BMD
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