How Human Resources as a Function can respond to the new normal

Here goes the alarm. It is 3:30 am and a Monday morning and time for me to prepare and board my flight to Chennai. It had become a ritual and something that I had go so used to over the past one year. However since March it has been over five months that many of us are working from home. I have leveraged on working from home in my career in the past, though that was more by personal choice and convenience rather than a decision driven by safety. Of course working from home for a prolonged period is new for me as well. Over these past few months, we have journeyed from “trying to prevent and protect” to “coming to terms and live” with the situation.

The Covid 19 pandemic has totally transformed the way we live our lives. The myths about roles we historically debated as the ones that cannot be done from home, have been busted. Digital collaboration has become a need and not a choice anymore. Organisations need to find the right balance to ensure seamless customer delivery, productivity and ensure they extend enhanced level of support to colleagues in these times. The need to support mental and physical wellbeing of employees is now more important than ever before. Multi-tasking has become common-place in every household, with all of us doing jobs we had conveniently outsourced. After an initial avalanche, and a period of being overwhelmed, we have found our rhythm in managing household chores, ensuring we stay committed to work, taking time out for our physical and mental wellbeing along with supporting our children and parents as the boundaries between work life and personal life has become less distinct.

Future of work has become a trending topic of discussion for a while now. The ‘new normal’ and future of work is very different from what we had envisaged. For HR, it is the most exciting and yet the most challenging time and we need to ensure our response is felicitous. Here’s my perspective on how I see this shape:

1) Being agile to the ever-evolving situation: Ability to respond to the business and employee needs keeping the evolving external environment in mind will be key. Organisations that are continuing to support work from home should ensure that the infrastructure at home supports the same, so that colleagues feel equipped to ensure seamless customer delivery and high levels of productivity. This will therefore require that we provide on -going support and also keep safety of colleagues at the heart of every decision we take. The ‘return to office’ strategy will have to be carefully designed, ensuring we follow all requisite protocols and do not compromise on safety in any way.

2) Colleague experience should be at the heart of any HR strategy or delivery plan. The ability to ensure colleagues have access to various offerings and initiatives virtually will be imperative. For new joiners who have joined remotely, we need to take proactive steps that help them imbibe the culture and purpose of the organisation

3) A holistic Wellbeing proposition has become even more crucial during these times as remote working can have a significant impact on employee wellbeing. Also, social interactions have reduced drastically leading to more stress and anxiety. HR across organisations needs to look at wellbeing more holistically ensuring not just physical and mental being, but also the social and financial wellbeing aspects too. That being said, all of us need to play our part individually as well to set our own boundaries and take requisite steps to invest in our own wellbeing.

4) Embrace Digital- HR will need to continuously challenge norms, policies and processes to respond to the current environment. From virtual on-boarding, e-learning and paperless claims, processes will need to continuously evolve to respond to the circumstances and the new normal.

5) New channels and ways of communicating and engagement. Large staff gatherings for townhalls, leadership visits, staff events will continue to be a challenge to organise given the need to ensure physical distancing. Introducing more innovative and newer ways of communication and engagement by leveraging on digital tools will be vital.

People Leaders will have a critical role to play in the current scenario. They will need to strike the right balance by ensuring teams are well supported to work flexibly and yet continue to maintain required productivity levels. To ensure minimum impact on employees, we will need to provide opportunities and the right platform for people to learn the skills of future, re-skill and upskill themselves for future opportunities. Embracing the new office environment which will have an element of sustained virtual working, will surely need some getting used to. While Covid has put technology at the forefront, empathy and resilience are the key ingredients that will help us move forward.

As the new normal sets in, we must capture the learnings, positives and opportunities the current situation has provided and leverage on these as we prepare to embrace the new normal.

Let us not forget that all those who complained about travel, traffic as reasons to not focus on physical well being are now in search of new excuses. My Monday morning alarm has now moved to 7 am and I am not complaining.