Transformation of People function during Pandemic - Part II

This is a continuation of the earlier article on the role played by Samunnati's People Function in introducing new ways to work and getting the team to work completely online. While we still face challenges of poor connectivity, calls dropping off, team members not being able to see each other on video etc, we have also learnt to adapt and come out with other ways to overcome these challenges. Every day brings us a new opportunity to learn and we incorporate these into our routine pretty fast.

In this article, we will share how Employee Communication as well as Employee Engagement was strengthened at Samunnati. In an offline environment, one of our major strengths have always been the stand-up meetings every Monday at Head Office and a similar meetings atleast once every month in our regional offices (which have predominantly people who are customer facing). We also used to have an online meeting across the whole company hosted at the head office. During this pandemic, we realised that strengthening this channel was very important and we ensured that the routine of our monthly meetings continue. After the lockdown, we realised that in addition to these online meetings, we also need small group discussions. Employees were flooded with mixed messages about the industry and practices adopted by several companies. It was quite natural for everyone to feel anxious and think several possible scenarios and wonder what is relevant. To address these and also to boost morale/ maintain enthusiasm and energy levels, in addition to the online townhalls, some of the initiatives around strengthening communication / engagement that we took are -

• Small Group Interactions with CEO: Our Founder & CEO connected with every region in smaller groups and gave them an assurance of how Samunnati's business model will continue to be relevant despite changing industry scenarios and also gave an open assurance on compensation as well as job security. The small group interactions were structured to ensure that the communication could flow freely in the language(s) that the team members are comfortable on.
• Leadership Team Catch-up: The leadership team made it their priority to start the day by connecting among the peer group tor review major developments and also to ensure that the entire team is united on communication. Until recently, this team was connecting on a daily basis over a Zoom Call which now has a reduced frequency of alternate days. Consistent messaging during critical times is very important and this trend continues even now (despite us having settled into a newer online routine). These calls cuts across functions and takes an organisational view and alignment on all aspects of employee communication among the leadership team is now a norm.
• Directors / Board Members engagement: In addition to the leadership team meeting, the engagement with our key stakeholders - Board of directors also strengthened and they gave valuable insights by sharing their experiences. These interactions were important in such uncertain times as it not just reinforced the belief they had on Samunnati's model, it also helped the team reconnect with the larger team and reiterate the strengths and drive positivity.
• Leadership Team’s engagement with the team at large improved substantially and the discussions while focused on business and day-day operations, it also paved way for the leadership team to think wholistically and beyond boundaries of their function. This opened up a lot of new projects and initiatives for the team members to be engaged on. Team members from several functions across hierarchies were given an opportunity to present their ideas and share their thoughts with the leadership team and this boosted the employee morale considerably and also helped the team members see how strong the internal networks are.
• Regional Coordinator Connect Meet: These were bi-weekly until recently and now a weekly meet to engage with all regional representatives together to exchange practical realities/ challenges as well as opportunities. These calls have strengthened employee communication across regions and also drives consistency. At Samunnati, there is no corporate-field divide and these regional coordinator meets are a great reinforcement.
• Employee Engagement: While working from office, due to adhoc breaks, small celebrations, random group interactions during lunch/ tea break, the team members always were connected outside their work. To ensure that there is an informal reason for team members to connect, we came out with several online interventions – Health & fitness, Lockdown recipes, Book club, Throwback Thursday, Fun Friday, Saturday Stars and so on.. While participation was always optional, we created several opportunities for interaction so that one can align their participation with their interests.
• Another opportunity that opened up for us was to create platforms for functions to interact with each other while developing the presentation skills. We created a series called “Lockdown Interactions” where every function takes turn to talk about their team and every team member gets to present/ interact with a larger group. About 50% of the organisation participate in such interactions actively.

Each of the member of the People Function is responsible for driving each of these initiatives and also have a set of employees mapped to them with whom they connect with at regular intervals. What started off as a lockdown initiative to offset offline communication is clearly emerging to be the new way of communication at Samunnati. Most of these are now beyond the initial launch phase and are still witnessing an interest and increased response rate. This way of communication is the new normal for the People Team as well as the team members at Samunnati.