Human Capital Team’s role in New Normal| People as capital|

In the knowledge economy, people are the capital of an organization. Even post-pandemic many organizations are struggling in context to keeping their workforces productive while some other organizations are leveraging the work from home mechanism to reduce costs and increase profit margins. In the new normal post-pandemic, 60% of the global workforce is working from home, especially in the ITES sectors. Communication and Productivity science endorses that the best form of productivity and performance since the Industrial revolution has been management by walking around your office and also face to face people interaction. However, in these times the safety of employees along with the welfare of business can be better managed by the team which has the ownership of people and also every leader -manager who is also responsible for the welfare of their people.
Post pandemic HR has been entrusted with the pivotal role of making an optimized work ecosystem.
6 Ways in which HR can play a quintessential role in keeping employees engaged and also leveraging the best in the environment:

1. Building Leadership trust. Enabling a trusting ecosystem is the first step to encourage the employees to give their best work. Best performances and profitability can be experienced through long-term trust-building with the team. After all the leadership is gaining results because of the team. Having a regular virtual town hall, leadership skips, and also invitations for proactive feedback can go a long way in creating a trusting environment. Not just HR, even the leadership at various levels and verticals need to be engaged in this. Keeping your promise is one of the essential elements in keeping up the trust quotient; as if its only lip service and the reality is something else, then the trust gets depleted.
2. Win-Win Vision. One of the fundamental ways to ensure employee retention and also constantly attracting the best talent is to think beyond perks and long-term career growth and win-win strategy. When the employer is able to facilitate long-term returns, then it has truly created machinery to churn out the best experts and leaders.
3. Staying Agile. For HR to stay agile while facilitating results for the employers and the employees is very critical to address current and long-term challenges. Working around business and employee needs is a way to realize the best accomplishments. Whether it’s business slowdown due to pandemics, recession, etc the hr team needs to stay tuned up to the issues and pre-empt the solutions. If a company doesn’t acknowledge these changes and adapt accordingly, it may risk losing its top talent… Research reveals that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs 7 to 10 months’ salary of the person on average. Also innovating ways to incentivize the employees. In this case, consider replacing travel or conveyance benefits with child care benefits – such as providing reimbursements for in-home babysitters or virtual tutors. As you adjust your benefits, use pulse surveys to gauge the impact of these new initiatives.
4. Prioritize Training. During the pandemics and also new normal, using new online technologies and also platforms are getting essential, thus one needs to keep the workforce up to speed on the same, through regular training and information workshops. Training also for health habits and mental welfare to be organized, to avoid any burnout while working prolonged hours. Also, leadership development during these times to give special emphasis on how to do work-life balance for their teams while working from home.
5. Work on Subtle Branding Strategies. Branding internally and externally about your people’s practice and principles can not only attract the best talents for you; but also encourage your earlier employees to reach out to make a come back. Especially during pandemic times, empathy is a great tool to demonstrate your brand values and orientations. Hiring strategies during new normal can also help branding, virtual interactions with candidates talking about your company culture and values, is also a great way to orient prospective employees. How you manage onboarding -welcome and team interactions can have a lasting impact on your hiring/branding investment.
6. Candid Conversations. Sometimes the delay tactics can backfire…thus it is always better to be upfront and have transparent conversations. While manipulation can get results it may haunt your conscience in the future. Right from hiring to retiring having a straight forward conversation can go a long way in establishing you as a true professional and for your organization as a people-friendly environment to work in. Recreating the organization’s values, mission, and vision to match the challenging times and also meet the needs in the industry.

Right now, your employees maybe stressed and challenged and they need your support to navigate the turf. That’s why we encourage companies to use this time to offer more virtual support, whether that’s in the form of introducing a mentoring, training, coaching or counselling to leverage the best results around them. Also organise various forums of discussion to address their challenges or issues.

As we all navigate this new normal as mentors-leaders -coaches or HR leaders let’s explore how to adapt to new practices, perspectives, and programs … To learn how our mentoring, training, counselling and coaching programs can support your remote workforce, do write to us – support@success-studios.com

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