The role of the Chief People Officer in a changing reality

Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic on March 11, it’s been a busy time for Chief People Officers. Many businesses have had to completely change their working practices, moving employees to home working or making tough decisions about how to keep going through this challenging situation. Finastra’s People Team has worked closely with our colleagues across the business to ensure we are doing the best we possibly can for our people, whilst I also try to make sense of the new environment. At the height of COVID-19, our people were fearful for their health and well-being and, as an economic recession looms, it is understandable that they might potentially worry about what’s to come.

What’s my take on how to navigate whilst deep in this fog as a Chief People Officer?

1. Increase your external radar

Whilst the volume of work for a Chief People officer has never been greater, we still need to make time to read about what’s going on in the world right now, have a view on global economics, whether it's likely to be a second COVID-19 wave, and what are other companies doing to navigate - this may provide ideas and inspiration.

I’m sure we all agree that the round table sessions or articles published by of thought leaders such as Gartner, Forbes and executive recruiters are very beneficial. I’ve appreciated the sessions with Russell Reynolds, Korn Ferry and Spencer Stuart – it’s been insightful and reassuring to listen and share ideas with peers.

At the same time, I encourage other leaders to do the same. Now more than ever, business decisions need to be balanced taking into account a global view of what is happening now and likely scenarios we all need to navigate. 

2. Play your part in sustaining your business

Digital everything - the future is now - new financial year kick off ...

This is a moment in history to preserve jobs. Keeping as many people in employment is certainly the responsibility of governments but also of business. Mass unemployment will make the recession deeper and the human tragedy greater. If we can, we should take extra care of those most affected by the economic impact, particularly the younger generation, ethnic minorities and women who seem to be more significantly hit.

It’s heartbreaking to see household brands shed thousands of jobs at a time when securing alternative employment will be even more difficult. We cannot judge those organizations that are fighting to survive, but this is a moment to think more creatively about reducing the total cost of employment. At Finastra, we provide mission critical software to the financial services industry/banks and our business model means that we have high annual recurring revenue – but no business is immune, and we are in no way shielded from the impact of this global pandemic.

Over communicate: This is a time for OVER communication and to be transparent with our people - treating the team like grown ups. As we kick off our new financial year, we’ve also initiated a month-long program of two-way communications briefings – to support and enable our colleagues and mobilize the company for the year ahead. Fast start … everyday counts message has been understood and well received.

Creativity with resource management: Four-day week/part time working, mass redeployment across different parts of the organization, skills and talent redeployment - share lay off lists with competitors. If you are in mass redundancy situation – now more than ever be creative.

Re-inventing the employment proposition: Let’s accept the new reality of work – most of our workforce will be out of offices until at least next year unless in roles that require physical presence in a location; we hope not longer. With that in mind, we need to challenge ourselves about the need to get onsite in the short term – the complexities of managing this safely are significant. In the future, flexible working will be the norm – so challenge now your real estate strategy – number of offices, office utilization and how those offices will be used. Don’t wait reinvent now.

Make sure our company is embracing virtualization in employee and customer activity: Video conferencing and virtual meetings, large scale employee or indeed customer event have become industrialized, perhaps even delivered more effectively. As we move to online the importance of great employee journeys, better UX, more joined up cross functional experiences will be demanded ... all good news for accelerating the shift to every thing being digital, whilst saving the planet with less travel and reducing costs.

3. Now, more than ever, be the people’s champion

We all got our people home safely: Many good organizations did the right thing as COVID-19 led the world to lockdown. Within days, much of the world moved to working from home. Getting our people home safely was essential. Like most companies, we moved 95% of our ~10,000 people in 48 countries to home working. For the 5%, who needed to be on site for regulatory reasons, we introduced safe shift patterns with social distancing and sanitizing. It’s no mean feat. As we make some offices available for essential workers – the message is ‘you choose’ if you return – giving people power.

As businesses try to figure out how they navigate the impact of an unprecedented global pandemic, the heart and soul of companies could potentially be lost. At this moment, more than ever, the Chief People Officer is the voice of the people in the decisions being taken at executive level – all our organizations will be judged on the actions we take now.

Sustaining well-being will be a marathon: Buckle up for the long haul – we created Finastra Fun, a channel for our global champions to work with our regional teams to get creative offering everything from quizzes to yoga to hour of code for employees’ kids. More focus on training. More focus on what equipment will employees need whilst home working. Mass sustained virtual engagement is critical – think carefully about how you listen. We were listening monthly and shifted to weekly as COVID-19 hit. That really helped us take action, and know if our actions are having the right impact.

Left: Simon Paris, CEO of Finastra. Right: Robert Smith, founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners

Stay true to your purpose: It’s been comforting watching many brands figure out how they use their products and services to help our communities - for us the scaled contribution we can make is around financial inclusion. To date, Finastra has helped community-focused banks and credit unions process more than ~100,000 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, as they provide critical financial assistance for small businesses impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic under the CARES Act. The Act helps these organizations meet the urgent demand for PPP loans that are critical for small business owners who need to pay salaries, rent and other costs of doing business.

Keep standing up for what’s right: We were all angry and saddened by what happened to George Floyd in the US and it has been encouraging to see company and people power make our voices heard even during lockdown. For our colleagues in the US, we immediately arranged an employee listening group led by our CEO Simon Paris - who is always ready to listen and show support- to make sure people understood that we know what’s really important. We are in the middle of June - when most of us celebrate pride, sadly I think international women's week next March 21 will also be during lock down. Let's keep focusing on inclusion and double our efforts as this is a moment of stress when many of our biases may be less visible.

4. Build leadership resilience and commitment to GROWTH

1,000 leaders trained in two day fun packed workshops on virtual leadership!

This is a moment to invest in leadership training & senior team effectiveness or team health. The investment may seem counter-intuitive, but leaders are under a lot of pressure and we need to create space for them to decompress.

We were due to train many of our leaders face to face in April and then COVID – 19 hit and though there was a lot going on, we carried on and trained 1,000 leaders in a two-day fun packed virtual workshop. We organised 60 workshops globally, and we had greater attendance and feedback. Leaders really valued the quality time to discuss leading in the new reality.

As an executive team – we have quarterly health checks with the Table Group (who do a great job!) – it would have been so easy with COVID – 19 to stand those down – but we continued and it’s really helped us close the year well and get off to a fast start in our new year with a big focus on turning a crisis into an opportunity and having a GROWTH focus. Healthy senior teams set the right culture even more so in crunch moments. 

5. Refocus the work you get the People Team to do

This is a moment of stop, start and continue. Focus on the work that will have most impact to support people or to the sustainability of your business.

Right now, we need maximum flexibility in our People Teams – more cross functional mindset. The ways of working are likely to be even more agile: sprints, stand-ups, retrospectives – all ways that will drive even more efficiency and potential creativity. None of this is new – but the pace of adoption can be accelerated. There are probably a few teams that are even more important:

• Cross functional Workplace of the Future team – if you haven’t already mobilize a team across HR, Finance, Tech, Supply Chain, IT to reshape the future of work.
• The Engagement Team is even more important with strategies to maintain engagement and well-being – we are just about to get the whole company engaged in re-imaging the future of work.
• Organizational Effectiveness & Reward to sustain your business – think through how to navigate your people cost base creatively by using data to inform sustainable decisions on how to manage the cost base.
• Resourcing Team get creative – if you’re not on a total hiring freeze, the question is can you reduce headhunter / agency fees by increasing your in-house expertise? Put more focus on redeployment.

6. Make sure you prioritize yourself and your family

This is a moment to put on your own oxygen mask first. Although the responsibility keeping our people safe, sustaining thousands of jobs and our businesses hangs heavy with us all - we must make sure we have the right support network, healthy routines, space to think and prioritize our own families.

Personally, lockdown has allowed me to have great quality time with my adorable son - in between bike rides we are working on some great ants nest right now! Too many of us do seem to be only one click away from the impacts of COVID - 19, sickness, losing loved ones or finding our way through some of the injustices that feel very present right now.

Stay safe and well and be kind to yourself and others.