Modern Age Human Resources

When the lockdown was announced in India in March' 20 due to the coronavirus I wasn't quite prepared for it, neither professionally nor personally. It wasn't easy as an HR professional or someone who wants to understand the business side of a corporate and wants to be a part of culture which doesn't blindly follow rules and regulations but is built on strong values like transparency, empathy, grit and a place where people don't get tired of trying something new everyday. To sum it up, a company where Monday morning blues don't exist. There were a lot of questions in mind about how things will change now. 

Highlighting a few important ones: 

• Will WFH affect our productivity?
• Will WFH become the new normal?
• Will there still be seamless collaboration?
• Will this affect our growth as an individual or from a financial aspect?
• How will things go once we are back in the office?

It's been more than a year now and things are still the same. When we were thinking life is coming back to normal, we got hit harder. But how is this all impacting a professional's life. A few organizations have already declared work from anywhere policy permanently, a few are still unsure and a few have started calling people to the office with or without their wishes, following safety protocols. But it is important to realize that in the coming years business will change and subsequently what role an HR would play in this changed scenario.

In this entire pandemic situation where none of us were prepared for it, a lot of things changed and it was said the way the 2007-08 financial crisis changed the world of financial professionals the same is happening with the HR professionals in the current scenario.

The 3 key aspects which any HR should focus on now are:

• Is WFH the new normal for them and if yes then how to ensure the company culture doesn't get affected?
• How to focus on well being of the employees during such turbulent times?
• What will be the impact of this pandemic on the business?

Personally, the last 1 year has been really challenging for me. I work with a design and development agency where people hold more importance than profits, a culture which was built with a lot of effort in the initial few years. It's a place where empathy is one of the most important value and where going to the office was way more fun than working from home. Honestly, overall I believe our productivity did increase during WFH but again we really weren't looking for that. Now life becomes monotonous at times where you practically end up working for the entire day. Like I used to say, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a dull girl. But we've always ensured that our Jacks and Jills are anything but dull.

There were a lot of things which came to our mind:

• Should we use a tracking software now as we are working remotely? But doesn't that mean we don't trust our people so why do we even need to track their hours now if we never did it in the office
• How would we ensure collaboration doesn't get affected? Team up is one of our core values so ensuring that we still stay connected became one of our topmost priorities
• How to ensure we stay stable financially and ensure nobody loses their jobs during such overwhelming times?
• How to ensure the happiness quotient of our employees still stays high and we don't lose on our craziness factor!
• How would we inculcate our values in the new hire & how will we bond virtually especially with a fresher. How challenging would their training become?

Listing some of the initiatives that we took during this time span:

• We used a tracking software for a month maybe but then realised it doesn't reflect Grappus's true values. Hence, we scrapped it. 
• Collaboration is one thing where we are still struggling. We did start ensuring scrums are regular where people connect or ensuring every team catches up once a week talking about whatever they are working on. But again this couldn't replace the kind of collaboration which happened while we were working from the office. Just to ensure we are staying in touch, saying hey, what's up on slack to each other didn't help much. But eventually this is something where we are still experimenting and it will be a continuous process. We did hackathon twice in this period which was definitely a great boost to our energies and where the team collaborated the best.
• To ensure we stay stable financially, we did cut down on a lot of costs which we thought were no longer needed. In the beginning, there were payments & projects which went on hold because eventually the entire ecosystem was affected. So, we wanted to be proactive in ensuring we should be able to face it if things get tougher. Being candid is one of our values, so we did have a certain percentage of salary cut only for employees with salaries above a particular limit. It stopped and at least unlike all the big giants we didn't ask anyone to leave us. We came out much stronger and I can't thank our people enough for standing with us through this tough phase. We wouldn't have crossed this hurdle without everyone's love and support.
• To ensure happiness quotient stays high, we did start with a lot of zoom rooms, random groups calls & quizzes. The thing which helped the most was working for a few days together from the hills. Planning to work more on this hybrid model.
• Hiring talent is always a challenge but yes with the pandemic on-boarding them too has become one of the greatest challenges. Imagine you join a new company and how lost or out of place you feel when you go to the office for the first day. Doing the same thing virtually is more challenging. It might take months to connect with people and break the ice. For a fresher it’s much more difficult, first job, should I keep pinging my mentor if I am stuck in an issue? It becomes overwhelming. Staying humane is the best approach we have followed here. Giving people a lot more time to settle in and being a ping away for them is the approach we have been following.

By now we all must have realised that in the current scenario, it has become more difficult to keep our culture entact, engross people remotely & retain talent ensuring we still keep earning profits & growth. To sum it up, we need to understand that times are tough and the only thing which we do to come over these adverse times is stick together. As an HR professional or someone who runs a company we need to understand that we should empathize with our people in these times rather than focusing on the growth numbers. We are social animals and with this situation where we can’t even roam freely or meet the ones we love, cases of anxiety, depression, stress and many other mental issues will be on the rise. Hence, we need to ensure that we create a workspace where people feel safe now. We need to stick to our core values and build a culture where people trust eachother. We need to prioritize mental and emotional well being of our employees first. Afterall, together we can do great things. 

Thanks for reading. Stay safe:)