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Milton Nyamadzawo Correspondent
It should be recognised that while moments of crisis can lead the business to take some unprecedented actions, the sustainability of those undertakings is where the true path towards recovery will begin.
Such actions should always take into consideration that without the people, no business strategy will endure and be successful. Businesses are people. Therefore, the ideas and intentions themselves are not enough.
We need rapid and profound change: moving away from the narrow perception of human capital challenges and understanding the true role of humans at work; redefining of traditional approaches to employee management, finding and consolidating new practices that take into account the needs of employees, their life circumstances, health, purpose, and capabilities.
Companies should consider the possibility of establishing a dedicated cross-functional team (a business response and continuity office). The appropriate cross-functional team could coordinate the activities of different business units, monitor and provide the necessary information to senior management team for further communication with employees, customers, and partners.
As businesses we need to determine how we will ensure the safety of employees who have to be at work and cannot work remotely (eg, shop assistants, cashiers, drivers, and frontline staff as well as other essential services staff.
Effective communication with employees is a critical matter and it determines how good companies have managed to pivot in times of crises.
The manner in which business leaders behave during critical moments leaves a lasting mark on their companies and people. Therefore, a consistent and effective communication and interaction with employees can strengthen the company and enhance its culture.
It is important that businesses are flexible for remote work options.
Business leaders, need to share the up-to-date and relevant information about Covid-19 symptoms and disease prevention recommendations among company employees. These include the non-pharmaceutical interventions like sanitising, physical distancing, hand washing and masking up.
Consider providing psychological and financial support to your employees, such as emergency assistance, additional insurance coverage and focus on the health and wellness of employees. The National Social Security Authority, for example, has implemented some employee clinics and this elevates the employee agenda for the company.
Information superhighway is ubiquitous and social media policies have to be clearly defined for times of crises. It should provide clear guidelines regarding how employees can talk about your business and the impact of novel virus on operations and employee health and safety.
Employees should be provided with an internal communication channel to report what they are seeing and feeling within the organisation to ensure direct communication as an alternative to social media.
At the same time, an effective social media monitoring programme may help you to identify emerging issues that are affecting your customers, markets, and production regions.
Misinformation in the media has created particular challenges for organisations responding to virus outbreak. Employers should become the source of accurate, timely, and appropriate information for their employees. It may be worthwhile to consider creating your own news channel in the workplace based on credible sources of information.
Despite all the risks and stress, it is important to remember that we have faced situations like this in the past. First of all, it is a challenge for the company’s culture and management practices. If you believe that people are the most valuable asset to your business, then you have to communicate, plan, and be consistent. Show up for your employees and support them.
At the end of the day, we are all human, and every one of us may be impacted by Covid-19. Now is the time for company leaders to step up to the plate for the safety and welfare of their people. Covid-19 has reinforced our conviction that human concerns are not separate from technological advances at all, but integral for organisations looking to capture the full value of the technologies they’ve put in place.
As organisations looked to adapt their ways of working in response to the crisis, they found that, in many — though not all — parts of the world, technology was not the greatest challenge. In those where it was, the crisis highlighted the digital divide within countries, across regions, and in rural communities and urban digital deserts.
In those where the technology has been available, one of the biggest barriers was the difficulty of building models to integrate humans with those technologies; to create new habits and management practices for how people adapt, behave, and work in partnership with the technology available to them. And also to fulfil distinctly human needs such as the desire for meaning, connection, and well-being at work to maximise worker potential.
We have now seen the emergence and proliferation of bionic structures.
Challenges like this, present a unique opportunity for organisations that can overcome the instinct of treating humans and machines on parallel paths to building connections that can pave a way forward, instead.
It also serves as a window into what can happen if the intersection of humanity and technology, and the opportunity to operate as a true social enterprise are not fully embraced.
Faced with a novel virus like Covid-19, businesses have to transform and at the most, do three things at once; stage the return to work, understand and leverage the advancements they enacted following the outbreak, and chart a new path forward.
Focusing on the return to work alone is not a viable option, as it will not allow organisations to capitalise on all that they have experienced and learnt over the past few months. Instead, businesses should embrace the view that humans, who want to adapt in an age of acceleration, must develop “dynamic stability” rather than trying to stop an inevitable storm of change.
The pandemic has put more hours into the working day, creating exhaustion and burnout and simultaneously exposing the stress that many workers face in balancing professional and personal demands, as personal commitments and roles (such as being a parent or caregiver) can no longer be separated from work.
Many workers are experiencing burnout exacerbated by Covid-19, which makes well-being a top priority in any organisation.
Covid-19 showed people that while technology can augment and supplement work, it does not replace what is needed from humans.
The health challenges induced by the coronavirus gave people a greater appreciation for the fact that humans and technology are more powerful together than either can be on their own.
Organisations should evolve their thinking about technology from taking a purely substitution view (replacing humans with technology) to using technology as an augmentation or collaboration strategy.
The latter view can allow organisations to not only streamline costs, but to also create value and ultimately, provide meaning to the workforce as a whole.
This is time for human capital and business leaders to repurpose roles rather than just lay off workers. A new human resources leader has to emerge and the time is now.
Going forward, organisations should ask themselves if their HR departments are positioned to make the impact they can and should be making across the enterprise.
The HR department should take a leading role in helping the organisation and the workforce to adapt to changing organisational and business requirements. Covid-19 reinforced that it is more important to understand what workers are capable of doing than understanding what they have done before.
Through this crisis, the world has had the opportunity to see the resilience and adaptability of the workforce as workers quickly assumed new roles as a result of the repurposing efforts. Now is not the time to pull back on workforce development efforts, but instead to double down on commitments to building a resilient workforce that can adapt in the face of constant change.
In this Covid-19 era, organisations have experienced a burst of acceleration, fast-forwarding into the future of work in ways that stress-tested their ability to blend people and technology in the most dynamic business environment many of us have ever seen.
Bionic structures have now been born.
Milton Nyamadzawo is an HR chief advisor for a world leading book publishing company, and can be contacted on [email protected]
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