The inevitable role of HR Leaders amidst the tough time of the pandemic!

Prudent Response:

Undeterred by the expected impact of the pandemic or the increasing uncertainty across the business world, more than half (56%) of the 1,1510 employers responded to a survey done by WorldatWork (1), have either already paid out salary increases for 2020 or are still planning to do so!

88% of organizations have either encouraged or required employees to Work-From-Home, whilst 97% have cancelled work-related travel according to Gartner HR Survey (2).

At the outset of my brief article, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to healthcare professionals, and everyone decided to stand at the forefront of fighting such deadly viruses and for protecting the lives of all of us.

In less than a month the world has become acclimated to remote work, whilst the pandemic has uprooted and transformed our way of work in a blink of an eye.

I believe that some change management veterans are now grateful for the covid-19 pandemic which saved a lot of effort and money to initiate or implement some digital or cultural transformation projects .. It’s just effortlessly happening with almost no resistance, conversely all organizations and leaders are racing to arrange and facilitate the use of technology either for business continuity or cost-cutting purposes.

The inevitable HR role:

As the covid-19 distress heavily disrupts organizations in every single corner in the world, increasing the importance of the HR role; HR Leaders are now expected to respond predominantly and expansively, considering immediate and long-term impact on both business continuity and talent management.

HR Leaders are faced with the challenge of balancing companies’ financial needs with employees’ needs and worries. HR leaders are adept in making difficult decisions such as firing and workforce optimization and so forth, but things are completely different now. As an HR professional, you aren’t going to get rid of a poor performer or dealing with an extreme violation, conversely, you might be facing a difficult moment of having your committed talents staying home while your business is struggling to meet the minimum operating cost.

Health and Safety come first:

At this moment of truth, we must be clear and straightforward; employee’s health and safety are the utmost priority of any successful organization, moreover, the concept shall be extended to their families especially the elderly ones or members who are at risk. This is an idealistic or utopian concept but it’s a rooted business value that immensely affects employee’s commitment, loyalty, well-being and performance.

HR leaders are required to act quickly to promote employees’ health and safety by taking on-site protective measures to keep employees safe as much as possible along with frequent and regular communication of protective rules and measures.

53% of the organizations responded as they are balancing the organization’s needs and employees’ ones, whilst 25% responded as they prioritized employees’ needs to generate revenues and profits and 0% prioritized revenues and profits according to WorldatWork (1).

Addressing the pandemic related absences:

Since the only way to protect yourself and your family from such a deadly virus is to stay home whenever possible as instructed by the governments in almost all countries across the globe, HR Leaders are expecting to address such unprecedented type of absences whilst stay vigilant to new legislations and legitimate practices announced by local authorities.

67% of organizations encouraged or required employees to work-from-home during the pandemic time, compared to only 13% of organizations that allowed employees to work-from-home before the pandemic time according to WorldatWork (1) survey.

Almost 14% of organizations have introduced new paid sick leave programs as a response of the pandemic, whilst 80% of the responders have adapted their sick leave programs to accommodate their employees’ needs during the pandemic according to a recent survey done by namely.com (3).

According to a recent article by SHRM “Mental health issues in the workplace have been an area of concern for some time, but with the COVID-19 crisis, the emotional challenges employees are confronting have spiked” (4)

Even though the Payroll cost usually represents a big chunk of the total OPEX, it should not be the first option for an organization to cut costs in order to mitigate the financial impact of the covid-19 pandemic. According to the above statistics and conversely, to the wide-spread rumours, companies didn’t rush to downsizing and layoffs.

HR Leaders are required to put new policies in place or to customize current ones to accommodate employees’ needs and expectations without affecting their pay at least on the short-term perspective (eg: sick leave, educational leave, annual leave, parental leave, childcare or family care leave, so forth)

Implementing several cost-cut measures:

The financial burden of the pandemic pushes the role of HR as efficiency drivers and risk managers to the forefront. Even though I advise all my colleagues and HR professionals to pay much more attention to the hidden cost of eliminating or decreasing employees’ pay before approaching this step.

The fatty list of the OPEX is full of elements and sources that can be either reduced or eliminated utterly, which demands the HR role as a business partner and efficiency driver to take over, challenging line managers and heads to skim their expenditures from unnecessary fats before approaching employees’ pay. There are lots of examples like halting future projects (such as operating systems, luxury communication tools, non-urgent transformation or restructure projects), eliminating business travel cost, employer branding, company days and social gatherings, postpone maintenance projects, so forth), replace promotional materials, giveaways, in-class training, company conferences and exhibitions with digital ones that will definitely face lower levels of resistance.

Moreover, gradually eliminate unnecessary non-cash payments such as annual leaves, daily workplace meals and perks before scrutinizing all expenses related to office or fieldwork such as fuel expenses, fleet operating costs, leasing expenses, mobile phone expenses, and so forth.

Another tough task is to initiate negotiation with key providers to either reduce or postpone pay for group benefits such as medical insurance, outsourcing contracts, training contracts.

Follow the advice of experts, as per a recent article of Harvard Business Review “The Coronavirus Crisis Doesn’t Have to Lead to Layoffs” (5)

HR as a compassionate advisor:

Many HR Leaders mistakenly think that communicating openly with employees and managers about the financial situation of the company is wrong and might have a negative impact on the employees or lead to counterproductive acts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone knows that we are going through a tough time of a world pandemic and may be many of your employees are following the news coming out from financial experts outlining massive recession or affected by the wide-spread rumours across social media.

Instead of leaving your employees to second-guess what might happen to them in the near future, be clear with them about the company’s situation and its foreseeable future amid this pandemic, moreover, you need to teem-up with your managers and key leaders to consider crowd-sourcing ideas with employees.

Employee engagement was always a key issue and untamed goal for corporate leaders, now is the time to explicitly use employee engagement as a powerful tool to employ collaborative intelligence to wittingly overcome the crisis and lead your people towards becoming more attached, loyal and committed to your organization.

Crowd-sourcing ideas with employees might be the wisest act and decision HR and corporate leaders can undertake during such a challenging time of the covid-19 distress. It won’t lead only to possibly generate lots of fresh ideas to transform the way of doing our business but also it holds them accountable for taking the appropriate action.

Communicate openly, ask them to share their ideas, let them own the decision and be ready to share the pain.

A layoff is not an option, whilst many alternatives can be considered:

Before layoffs, you need to consider other non-obvious and less conventional alternatives such as:

1-     Reducing payroll costs by 20%, when considering a 4-day workweek.

2-     Eliminating transportation allowances for outdoor or filed employees (Sales agents, Representatives, etc.) who are now barely able to work from home, whilst saving a sensible chunk of their daily expenses.

3-     Replace bonuses and incentives with a better manager-employee relation in 2020 while intrinsic motivation might be on auto-piloting mode.

4-     Consider small monthly unpaid leaves (1 or two weeks). It can be also postponed until the end of the year to ensure they are prepared to hedge around the expected financial loss

5-     Freeze expected hiring until the end of the year, except for critical positions.

Scenario Planning:

Despite recent optimistic expectations that the distress will be over soon (within less than two months) there are also other suppositions that assume all year crisis. These paradoxical assumptions demand HR leaders to collaboratively work with other leaders and functions to prepare well-thought proposals to mitigate the effect of the pandemic. At least two scenarios, an optimistic one that comprises most likely forecast and a worst-case scenario. This might be also a clearer picture to communicate openly to your employees for crowd-sourcing ideas and more importantly, it gives leaders and managers a breath-taking opportunity to focus on performance rather than reacting to daily surprises.

Conclusion:

Being an HR or Corporate leader in such a challenging yet turbulent time can be nerve-wracking but it’s also time for authentic leaders and real professionals to thrive and hold the rudder towards more cohesive productive teams and engaged workforce for the future. Now is the time to put the organization’s values to the test, realizing the value of their people, the immense need for being more agile and responsive and to think once again of making investment in manager's training a top priority.

In a following article, I will share with you some ideas on HR and corporate leaders can benefit from the pandemic in the future.

The distress will pass too, and we will be stronger together…. Stay safe, stay positive

PROTECTING FAMILIES WHILE PERFECTLY DOING THEIR ROLES! .. HR PROFESSIONALS AS COMPASSIONATE LEADERS AND EFFICIENCY DRIVERS!

References:

1-       Worldatwork.org. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.worldatwork.org/The%20WorldatWork%20COVID 19%20Employer%20Response%20Survey.pdf> [Accessed 11 April 2020].

2-       Gartner. 2020. Gartner HR Survey Reveals 88% Of Organizations Have Encouraged Or Required Employees To Work From Home Due To Coronavirus. [online] Available at: <https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-03-19-gartner-hr-survey-reveals-88--of-organizations-have-e> [Accessed 11 April 2020].

3-       Test, L., 2020. Survey Results: How HR Is Addressing COVID-19 In The Workplace. [online] Blog.namely.com. Available at: <https://blog.namely.com/survey-how-hr-is-addressing-covid-19> [Accessed 11 April 2020].

4-       Grensing-Pophal, L., 2020. Pandemic Takes A Toll On Employees’ Emotional Well-Being. [online] SHRM. Available at: <https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/pandemic-takes-a-toll-on-employees-emotional-well-being.aspx> [Accessed 11 April 2020].

5-       Harvard Business Review. 2020. The Coronavirus Crisis Doesn’T Have To Lead To Layoffs. [online] Available at: <https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-coronavirus-crisis-doesnt-have-to-lead-to-layoffs> [Accessed 11 April 2020].