Resilience during times of COVID

The Covid-19 has created a deep economic fracture into world economy in 2020 and recovery was not an easy transformation for organizations to face a new normal. Lock downs led to a serious reduction in manpower supply, supply chain disruptions and much higher commodity prices, and unemployment hit highest record throughout 2020. People management professionals had a major role in helping their businesses survive the crisis and even adapt to the new normal through agile solutions turning digitalization into advantageous solutions, cooperating with partners to generate collective gains, and activating seeking flexible business models at workplace.?

?????An economic fallout caused businesses a significant hardship during the pandemic crisis, tens of millions of employees lost their jobs and got stranded due to full lockdowns, and companies faced a sudden enormous shortage of Labor which impacted their business continuity. People management professionals had to find alternative solutions to get their business back on its toes, hereby, digitalization was the best solution to get remote people connected again to their daily tasks and assignments. Zoom meetings were launched largely, planned actions were discussed, and daily follow up virtual meetings were activated. For example, Jaimini Lakhani from Lumière Consulting, was supposed to fly out and serve two clients outside the UK, she had to cancel her flight due to pandemic, and charted new ways to get her workshops done using digital platforms as the new norm of communication with people on the other side of the world (CIPD, 2020). Kyla Solveig Carlsen emphasized the importance of emotional prerequisite to succeed in remote working while having our personal lives interrupted by work. He illustrated an interesting model of managing virtual teams. First, he explained the basic needs to work from home in terms of workspace, furniture, technology, and supplies. Second, Psychological needs are required in terms of belonging to a team, positive workplace relationships, trust, pride, self-esteem, sense of contribution, and psychological safety. Third, he moved on to emphasize the importance of having the self-fulfilment needs related to engagement and innovation, or the empowerment of embracing own role to reach desired potential (World Economic Forum, 2020). The HR role was crucial in helping work teams trained on the effective use of technology whilst maintaining the desired wellbeing of users involved. Virtual events were introduced to keep team members connected and happy through virtual coffee round tables, group sports, mind games, and periodic pulse check surveys to truly understand and define the emotional response of engaged teams working remotely from their homes.?

?????More to the above, supply chain disruptions led top management team including HR professionals to seek efficient and cost-effective solutions to close the gap and ensure the customer experience is maintained at highest possible levels of excellence during times of pandemic. Agility and flexibility come to enable businesses reduce costs to their clients while maintaining the opportunity of ringfencing profits to business providers. In our case, being a food manufacturing company, we started collaborating with local raw material suppliers to procure necessary raw materials required for production, fresh milk replaced powder milk and fruit nectars replaced juice concentrates which supported the local markets with adequate supply for the locked down population. Responding successfully to economic change requires agility, and as HR professionals, we must prioritize to survive these times of crisis and understand the business model encompassing strategy, products, services, and people. To pursue this mission, people practitioners had to scrutinize the socio-economic context that leads current changes into ultimate resilience and stability (CIPD,2020). ??

?????Actively seeking flexible business model comes into effect in response to COVID-19 which brought a long-lasting impact on our economy, businesses, and working lives. This has made us think of how react to change, and how to plan for new ways of working, especially while adapting to changing work habits in our personal lives (CIPD, 2020). Based on the CIPD Good Work Index's investigation of job quality and working lives in the UK, it has been noted that wellbeing and job security have been the main challenge during the pandemic. 70% of Employees were satisfied with how their employers were responding to COVID-19, the same proportion confirmed that their management has checked in on their health and wellbeing, 45% expressed anxiousness about returning to the workplace out of which 55% said they’ve been given adequate information about returning to work. This indicates that consultation and return to work onboarding processes can reduce anxiety of employees and foster their integration with their work environment once they return to their workplace (CIPD,2020). Case studies proved that designed flexible jobs and hybrid working practices created agile working force capable to drive organizational efficiency and support employees’ wellbeing. Lisa, from Blood Cancer UK, explained the necessity to “change work culture to one focused on outcomes rather than being present and where the value of work–life balance was fully recognized”. David from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme explained the importance of onsite physical presence of employees for what is called the five C's: connection, Collaboration, Celebration, Creativity and Compassion. He continued to explain the necessity of having employees present 40% of their time behind their workstations (CIPD, 2022).?

?????As a conclusion, change will never stop and we as people management professionals are required to allocate bigger attention to investing in technology, encourage trust and wellbeing among our workforce societies and work on leadership innovative models to facilitate communication and solutions across the organizational model.?

References:

CIPD (2020): Podcast 158, Business Survival in the age of Covid-19, available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/podcasts/business-survival-coronavirus (Accessed: 30 May 2022)

World Economic forum (2020): Kyla Solveig Carlsen. Global Shaper, Detroit Hub, Director, Co. act Detroit , available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-shakes-up-the-future-of-work-already-in-motion (Accessed: 30 May 2022)

CIPD (2020): Economic transformation remains the biggest driver of change in organisations, available at : Economic transformation remains the biggest driver of change in organisations | CIPD (Accessed: 30 May 2022)

CIPD (2020): Impact of COVID-19 on working lives, available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/work/trends/goodwork/covid-impact (Accessed: 30 May 2022)

CIPD (2020): Survey Report June 2021, CIPD Good Work Index 2021, UK Working Lives Survey

CIPD (2022): AN UPDATE ON FLEXIBLE AND HYBRID WORKING PRACTICES, Case Studies. Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/flexible-working/flexible-hybrid-working-practices (Accessed: 30 May 2022)