COVID 19 crisis seen Through my HR eyes: #1 The lockdown.

For more than one month now, the COVID 19 became the most shared word and is impacting all our lives, organizations and companies. I often read a lot of very good articles on the role of HR in the crisis. Lots of tips to follow to support employees and even more information on how to deal with the situation and how to be strong and resilient.

Today, I wanted to take the time to share some thoughts, a testimony from the “inside” and the way I am living the situation having to manage teams in 11 European countries strongly impacted by the virus.

Everything went very fast (so fast!). I remember my first surprised reaction when we had to activate the lockdown in Italy, then Spain, then France... then in all European countries. It was a progressive wave but with massive impacts for all our employees who were first worried for their health.

Our emergency was clear: how to maintain the safety and health of all our employees. Homeworking for all, with immediate effect, was our decision! 

It was clearly a new experience for me as I had at the same time to manage the crisis but also to live it personally. The main strength of HR functions is, in general, the distance and the capability to step back in managing situations. How would it be possible to deal with a situation we are experiencing ourselves? 

Within a day I was in a lockdown with my family and at the same time I had to be available for the company. I had to manage the crisis but also to manage my family: be a teacher for my kids, answer to the recurrent and new question for me ?what’s for lunch? ? (!) but also be in charge of supporting the company organization and decisions.

The main challenge was probably that we were all learning by doing, having news and updates every day. I had to face the complexity of the situation like all employees around the world but in a different way because people expected me to give them guidance, listening and answers, and sometimes to give them insights that even doctors and specialists didn’t get. 

Within 2 weeks, everyone was working from home in all European countries and even though this measure was implemented in most of them, it was quite new to have 100% of the employees at home! I was impressed by the managers who were able to adapt their leadership style but also by the employees who were able to stay committed and to deliver whatever the circumstances.

Some days are harder than others of course but we can always see professionalism and a strong adaptation capability.

What strikes me most is the solidarity and how people care for each other. For example, between colleagues I saw people connecting on a daily basis with colleagues they know are isolated, alone at home. When someone is sick or has issue to manage with kids, a team member always offers help and support to get the job done. I saw also a lot of solidarity between functions (IT, Underwriting, HR, Operations)… we listened to each and every one to put in place the most efficient organization to maintain our delivery service to our clients with the support of all our employees.

We often say that it takes a long time to change or transform a company, but we can see here that everyone can be agile in a given situation when they understand why and need to. The emergency of the situation has allowed us all to learn quickly. I’m proud to see that in a crisis period, the best values and behaviors are highlighted in our company: collaboration, solidarity, kindness. 

With my team, we very quickly felt that the company was expecting specific support: even if people were adaptable, they needed methodology, structure or just space to share what they were living, to express their concerns and to explore way to fix them. We needed to maintain the social link that a company builds and reinforces.

The situation was new for all of us, including me, but we tried to keep the following approach:

• Listen to the needs,
• Systematically adapt our actions to the needs,
• Focus on the priority,
• Support everyone,
• Be pragmatic in our offer as we faced very different needs in the population. 

Our plan became clear; we had to launch dedicated actions by segment: 

• The HR team started by a resilience training: we are very exposed, and we need to be able to handle the emotional situation.
• Managers had many questions on how to manage and support teams: in a few days, we set up webinars on remote management and best practices sharing.
• Employees wanted advices on how to work from home: we shared practical advice and tips and above all a clear message: “you do your best and we already thank you for it as we are living exceptional circumstances!”
• Employees with kids faced the challenge to balance work and parenthood: we immediately offered them webinars and sharing groups.
• and EVERYBODY asked themselves the same question “How can we preserve our physical and mental health?”: we set up an offer of online sports and corporate yoga classes.

With those actions, we wanted to maintain the company dynamic but also to encourage our employees to become actors of the situation, to keep a certain control in this uncertain world, to contribute and to project oneself even in a midterm vision. 

I know all those actions may seem useless for some experts, but the articulation of all of them allow our people to feel supported and to have a toolbox they can use depending on their individual needs. We got a lot of feedback: people feel we are taking care of them. It seems to be what they were expecting in such a challenging and unprecedented time. 

Yes, HR daily faces the crisis: this mobilization to organize, plan and deliver in 3 weeks is a great proof! Our main challenge in the current circumstances was, is and will remain to support both the business for our clients and to take care of our employees.

The next phase for us is to prepare the return to the offices in the weeks to come, depending on the countries’ calendars; it will be a new chapter. We are of course waiting for guidelines from all national governments, but we already agreed on some principles: 

• Adaptation by country to follow local guidelines,
• Measures to apply the social distancing,
• Help our employees to balance their personal situation and their job request,
• Tool and support for managers to equip them to deal with the return, probably in a progressive way.

We know it is an unprecedented and new situation for everyone around the world; it is exactly the type of situation where you learn by doing every day and where you must balance different parameters at the same time.

At this stage of the experience, the 3 things I learned first are:

• To Do our best in all circumstances but to stay humble at the same time as we know how difficult the situation can be for others;
• To Adapt and “let go” both in professional and personal life!
• How much we can be surprised by the creativity of our employees, our HR team and the incredible sense of solidarity that I discover every day and makes me proud of my job.