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HR NEWS & VIEWSMAY | 2020
COVID-19 CAREERS
HR INTERNATIONAL
HR STRUCTURING
COMPANY UPDATES
Employee Engagement…
Employee EngagementMyth & Realities…
ARINDAM CHAKRABORTYSENIOR HR LEADER
Employee engagement has gathered a huge momentum since last few years across organizations.
This has become a kind of a buzzword for Human Resource professionals and is seen as a specialty
function in the HR space.
What exactly do we define / mean by this buzzword “employee engagement”?
A quick look into some the viewpoints that can be inferred and looking at some Myths and Reality of the
same…
Engagement…
Engagement often refers to a meaning of how well dopeople connect with each other and understand eachother to have a meaning full win-win relationship inwhatever sphere of life.
Organization's define employee engagement with ahigher stress on the quotient of creating a happy stateof employees and looks at various aspects of makingemployees happy.
WHAT IS TRUE ENGAGEMENT…
True engagement from an organizational standpoint can bedefined as when you can engage the employee from mindand heart. It is not only creation of a state of happiness,which is a myth across organizations. It is a state where theorganization is able to create an environment of bondirrespective of the situation being happy or sad.
Current Practices…
If we dissect and look at current practices thatorganizations follow for employee engagement the listwould seem to look around this :
Parties
Get together's
Annual events
Team Lunches
Gifts and goodies
Employee Benefits
Employee Rewards
If you really look at these list each one of them leads to afactor called “employee happiness” or “feel good factors”which may be different from employee satisfaction.
Will absence of any of these lead to people risk / attrition… probably …. NO
Decoding employee engagement…
If we want to decode this formulae, the understanding ofengagement then it would be somewhat like this in mymind:
Organization culture
• Is our culture aligned to positively impact an employee?
• Am I addressing the right values within the organization?
Employee Lifecycle
• Are my process an enabling or hindering factor for employees?
• Are they leading to meaningful contributions rather than only monitoring?
• Do we involve people in decisions impacting their work life?
• Am I providing the right job based on skill and assessing them in fair manner?
Individual Growth
• Are we as an organization sensitive towards growing employees?
• Growth does not always address promotion but also increasing employee competency and capability?
• Do we have a defined approach towards coaching?
Sense of achievement
• Do we have programs creating a sense of pride ?
• Do we focus on creating interventions that associate with people?
It is not that organizations do not practice these but thatquantum as per industry is much low as desired…
Will absence of any of these lead to people risk / attrition… probably …. YES
Enagaged v/s Disengaged workforce…
Let’s understand the engagement model a little deeper.Employees can be clearly categorized under these primebuckets :
Highly Engaged
Engaged
Almost Engaged
Not Engaged
Disengaged
Just try drawing a matrix and map your organizationpeople In this matrix and see what you get, probably letme define them more for you to get better clarity.
Enagaged v/s Disengaged workforce…
Source : Soapbox
Dealing with them…
• Highly empower
• Give complete freedom
Highly Engaged
• Minimal Direction
• Give ownershipEngaged
• Monitor
• Coach and Counsel
Almost Engaged
• Focus on results always
• Be Task oriented
• Provide controls
Not Engaged
• Adhere zero tolerance
• Weed them off systemDisengaged
Not Engaged
Almost Engaged
Engaged
Highly Engaged
Focus on creating a transition plan as shown. Do not waste energy on Disengaged workforce.
Create proactive mechanism to identify
and protect people moving to the
Disengaged bucket as there is very limited or
no chance of return from there…
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COVID Careers - Part 1Before Getting Back to Office
While I hardly got any responses from the fraternity on thesubject, I am of the view that it all starts with the study ofexisting workplace.....and over a series of posts, we shall getinto the new careers and new ways of working.
The whole new challenge starts with the following exerciseof collecting information about the employees by the timewe plan a comeback to offices by May 2020. Thisinformation is important as it helps us plan a healthy comeback and also ensure a sanitized workplace:
1. Understand where your employees stay / located now.2. How they reached (mode of travel) the destination /
place they are now.3. How is their health from the time of lock down to date?4. Did they mentally plan their come back. If so, how do
they see their re-settlement in the city of theirworkplace.....(especially who were earlier staying inPGs/Hostels before the lock down)
5. What are their family members view on the individual'scomeback plan?
Dr. Shankar AnappindiAlliance Infrastructure Projects Pvt Ltd (aka) Alliance Group (aka) Urbanrise Builders LLP
AVP - HR (Head - HR)
HUMAN
RESOURCE
STRUCTURING
a study
Key Innovative
Product
EUROPE HR
Paul Strange
HR Consultant
THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS IN EUROPE
I am writing this in late April. There aresigns that some countries in Europe havepassed the peak of the crisis, and theyare beginning to plan an exit to thelockdown they self-imposed in March.Some shops and schools are opening inDenmark, Norway, and Austria. Thesocial distancing rules will still dominate,but the mood is that things are notgetting worse in these countries – amilestone in this crisis in Europe.
HRINTERNATIONAL
Unlike America, there has been nocivilian protests at the lockdown,but there are many worried aboutthe economy in Europe and thelasting effects of the health crisis.There are now different politicalfactions on a ‘Covexit’ strategy. Inthe UK they are called doves andhawks. Doves are politicians andtheir advisors wanting a longlockdown, and a civilian plan thatmaintains restrictions until a massvaccination programme can bedelivered. Hawks are politiciansand their advisors who want to endlockdown and to boost economicactivity.
They fear that there will be irreparable harm to the national economy, and topublic finances. This month, the doves are still dominant in most countries but,next month, this may change.For some employers, it has been a month of frantic activity to find staff to manageextra demand for products and services. An example is hospital services, wherenew temporary hospital units have been built in entertainment venues andindustrial warehouses. However, there are not enough skilled staff to work inthem. In other sectors, many staff are working from home or furloughed (paidleave), so the main HR activity has switched to remote working support andclaiming government grants to subsidise or replace the wages of furloughed staff.Here are some stories about employment in Europe in this crisis.
WORKING FROM HOME
The extraordinary story of 4 million Indian IT workers moving to working fromhome (WFH) overnight caught my eye. The chairman of Cognizant India statedthat “Nobody could have created a playbook for what we are witnessing today.”There have been similar moves and logistical issues reported in Europe, though Ihave not heard of employees taking the office desktops home, as in India. Thereare concerns about cyber security and of mental well-being, particularly asworkloads have increased for some WFH workers. These are the issues that HRshould address.
Of course, working from home is fine if you are not distracted by other familymembers. In this crisis, children are home and sometimes several familymembers are trying to work from home at the same time. However, manyworkers will now experience WFH for a long period of period, and they will adjustto working in that way. If it suits the employer, then more workers are likely towork remotely from their normal workplace when the crisis is over. Of course,this will favour professional workers who have the flexibility to work remotely. Butthis group is a large portion of the workforce.
It is difficult to measure the temporary change to WFH this month, but oneestimate from Germany is that the proportion of the workforce working fromhome has risen from 12% to 25%, or about 8 million people since the start of theCOVID 19 pandemic. The German government is proposing that workers have alegal right to request to work from home after the crisis is over.
GOVERNMENT COMPENSATION
All European governments are worried that the crisis will force employers tosack employees, lay-off temporary workers, and reduce pay of those stillworking if they can. Making a large portion of the workforce unemployed meansthat citizens turn to state social security schemes which are not designed torespond to the urgency and volume of claims generated by the crisis. Europe hasbeen admired by other regions for its special compensation schemes designed tomeet these circumstances. One US professor described in this way…"What it means is that people remain on the books. ... They keep receiving theirsalaries. When social distancing ends, they will just return to work, as if they hadbeen on a long, government-paid leave." The most successful scheme is inGermany, and this is how it works. Most German employers resort to short-timeworking (reduced hours or STW) to reduce their employment costs. Called‘Kurzarbeit’, this is an established way to manage the impact of an economiccrisis.
The Kurzarbeit scheme covers around two-thirds of the salaries of workerswhose employers slash their hours after an agreement with the company'sworks council. In March, the threshold was reduced for the proportion ofworkers who must be affected for a company to qualify to only 10 percent, fromone-third previously. Payments also cover workers' social security contributions,with the whole package can apply for up to one year.The scheme has around €26 billion of reserves while the federal government willprovide extra funds if needed to cover payments. At end April, around one inthree companies in Germany is on short-time work and claiming from thescheme. Other European countries have not prepared as well as Germany, andschemes are funded by central governments.
RETURNING TO WORK
This is still a future state for many employers who have shut down or reducedworking in this crisis. In many ways it will be the most difficult phase for HR staff.Some small and medium sized businesses are opening again in late April, and thisshould increase in May. In particular, their workplaces are opening. This puts anew focus on organisations where workplaces are a key element of themanufacturing or service – factories, high street shops, hospitals, publictransport, fitness centres, etc. If the service is not dependent on a physicalworkplace, then they are more likely to be working near normally – accounting,web services, banking services, etc.
Governments are still in control of which organisations are permitted to operatenormally or partially in this crisis. This is an abnormal control, and governmentsare worried that once they give permission to return to work that they will losecontrol of the response to the crisis. They want to maintain social distancingrules. This means that organisations will need to make social distancing rules forworkplaces which have visiting customers, as well as employees and otherworkers. Sitting together in rows of desks will not be easy. The Government maydiscourage employers from opening communal areas within workplaces such asworkers clubs and canteens. They may insist on workers wearing facemasks andother protective equipment. It will make the workplaces less sociable, and a lessattractive place to actually do work. So encouraging workers back will be an HRissue as health policies dominate. Restriction on public transport will also makethe workday more difficult. In response, HR will have to relax rules for hours, pay,and vacation to respond to fast-changing conditions. In Asia, some employers askreturning workers to declare they are free of symptoms or undergo healthchecks.
Some workers returning to work will have financial and childcare problems, whichthey did not have before the crisis.
Above all, the difficulty for HR is that they will have the health of staff on theirminds, while the senior managers will want the organisation to return to aprofitable state or reach its normal service targets as soon as possible. Thesedifferent aims could cause clashes between HR and the business. Rather like thedoves and hawks in Government.
DUTCH TEENAGERS SAIL HOME
I liked the story from the Netherlands this month. A group of 25 Dutch teenagerswith no sailing experience were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean whenthe pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home inMarch. Their flight home cancelled, but with experienced sailors supervising thecruise, they decided to sail home on a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000kilometres (4,350 miles), on board a top sail schooner.
As they arrived home, the students hung up a self-made banner saying “BucketList” with ticks in boxes for Atlantic Ocean crossing, mid-ocean swim and survivingthe Bermuda triangle! Well done.
That is all for now.
UPDATES
HireSure launches re-employment assistance service to help laid-off professionals
Many organizations, including several large tech startups, recently announced lay-offs as a result ofthe coronavirus pandemic and slowing down of economic activity.HR-tech startup HireSure.ai has launched a re-employment assistance service for employers who
have laid off or are looking at shedding staff and want to help such people in finding alternativejobs.
The company also noted that the number of new job offers across sectors placed through itsplatform has reduced by 75 per cent in the past few weeks.Many organizations, including several large tech startups, recently announced lay-offs as a result ofthe coronavirus pandemic and slowing down of economic activity."Our conversations with a large number of employers in the last month revealed that while theyhave been forced to lay off highly valuable employees, they are equally remorseful and want to doeverything they can to help these employees find alternate jobs quickly," HireSure.ai co-founderand CEO Vineet Dwivedi said.He added that these conversations led to development of the 'reemployment assistance' servicethat matches high-quality talent with relevant job openings, and also helps speed up the hiringprocess. "By virtue of running an employment depository, we already have a view on vacanciesamong a large number of employers including our clients. Through extensive use of algorithms anddata, we want to help maintain a balance in demand and supply in the talent ecosystem," he said.The service, however, is only available through employers and individual employees cannotdirectly use this service. "It can be enabled for one or more affected employees by the erstwhileemployer on the HireSure platform. The service also requires a prior and explicit consent from allaffected employees for whom re-employment assistance is sought," he said.HireSure works with about 250 companies spread across industries like data sciences, fintech,gaming, education and travel, including firms like Tracxn, Edureka, ClassPlus, Springworks andGameskraft.
Dwivedi said no employer has withdrawn existing offers, and employers are still rolling out new joboffers for technology-focused roles.
"These hiring's are mostly happening at mid level, where work experience of candidates ranges inbetween four years to seven years," he said. Source : ET Bureau
India Inc. getting back to office very cautiously
Flipkart, Panasonic India, Whirlpool, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Capgemini, HindustanZinc, Power Finance Corporation, Dalmia Cement, Dabur, and RPG Group are among a host ofcompanies that have put in place plans to resume office for a section of staff over this week andnext.Slowly but surely, India Inc. is getting back to its offices. Some companies have already startedcalling back one third of their staff – the maximum strength allowed in red zones. Several othersare taking a more calibrated approach, five per cent or fewer employees in offices to begin with.Flipkart, Panasonic India, Whirlpool, Infosys's NSE 0.78 %, Tata Consultancy Services, Capgemini,Hindustan Zinc, Power Finance Corporation, Dalmia Cement, Dabur, and RPG Group are among ahost of companies that have put in place plans to resume office for a section of staff over thisweek and next.Everyone is being careful, aware that an incident of infection can prove costly.At Flipkart’s corporate office in Bengaluru, teams that require office IT infrastructure to performoptimally will return to work in a staggered manner from this week. “We are taking a calibratedapproach to resuming work at our office campus in Bengaluru, in phases,” said Krishna Raghavan,chief people officer at Flipkart. Source : ET Bureau
Work from home calls for change in culture, says Indian Oil’s head of HR
"We institutionalized WFH guidelines even before the commencement of the lockdown," saidRanjan Kumar Mohapatra, director (HR), Indian Oil.Work from home calls for change in culture, says Indian Oil’s head of HR"We institutionalized WFH guidelines even before the commencement of the lockdown," saidRanjan Kumar Mohapatra, director (HR), Indian Oil.Several PSUs have implemented WFH at a large-scale for the first time. How has been theexperience at Indian Oil?We institutionalized WFH guidelines even before the commencement of the lockdown.Centralized communication on the subject ensured that there were no ambiguities and the areasof work were clearly specified. We put in place a comprehensive strategy to apply WFH so thatduring the lockdown, business continuity is ensured while at the same time health and safety ofemployees and stakeholders is taken care of.
What were the challenges faced during this transition?
At macro level, our priorities were two-fold – ensure uninterrupted energy supplies, especiallyLPG, to the country and second, take care of health and well-being of our employees andstakeholders. At micro level, there were numerous aspects that needed to be addressed. Forinstance, accessing documents and files at office was the biggest challenge. However, our teamsworked out ways to resolve most issues by selectively providing VPN accesses for criticalresources. Another issue was with regard to policy approvals/dispensations – this was addressedthrough email approvals and wherever necessary, through verbal clearances/virtual meetings.Payment of wages to contract workers was another issue. It normally happens on the basis ofphysical submission of requisite documents and verification. However, in this scenario, ourdepartments quickly developed mechanism to process bills, seek approvals and release paymenton the basis of e-verifications so that people, already facing difficult situations, should not sufferfurther on account of non-disbursal of wages.
Do you think WFH is an efficient mechanism?
WFH is indeed a workable mechanism. However, this needs to be simultaneously facilitatedthrough a change in both skillset and mindset. While this is a mammoth organizationaldevelopment intervention and necessitates cultural change, it also comes with need to addressoperational aspects such as accessing files, managing official records etc. which need to bestreamlined. Also, Indian Oil has its offices in the remotest corners of the nation and, therefore,connecting and working as a team may be a challenge. But I am sure that these things can beworked out to make WFH more efficient. If processes are simple, enjoyable and a source of pride,a cultural shift can definitely be successful. ET Bureau
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