Victoria Dzyba “Going out or staying: TOP-5 quarantine lessons for HR”
We are on the verge of long-awaited exit from a quarantine, which might become a new challenge for business. Under what conditions should people return to the offices and what regime to follow? Or you should just leave everything as it is? For two months of remote work, we at TECHIIA have adapted to work from home, increased efficiency, and expanded the team. We plan to leave a lot of new things and to carry them on in the holding companies. Learn the practical experience from TOP of effective advice by Victoria Dzyba, Chief HR Officer at TECHIIA holding.
Form a full-fledged HR team
First of all, no man is an island, and even if he is, no large-scale projects can be managed on your own. Therefore, it is necessary to create a team of professionals who can clearly perform the tasks. One HR specialist can hardly be able to effectively manage all processes in a dynamic company with 50+ employees, especially in such turbulent times. TECHIIA holding unites more than 10 businesses, and as HR Director I functionally manage the team of specialists in each of these businesses. These are HR specialists, recruiters, and business partners. And all the credit that the workers have maintained a good mood and a productive work go to them.
Communicate explicitly and regularly
Changes are always a big test. To switch all the holding companies to remote work at the same time was a real challenge, which we coped with quite effectively, in my opinion. Key workflows were established in the first 2 weeks: from task setting to feedback and performance measurement. The only thing that took us a bit longer to handle was the adaptation of employees to work at home so that the efficiency of tasks performed “in pajamas” was as high as in the office. The values and culture of the company, as well as the maturity of the employees, played a significant role in this. The enhanced communication helped us a lot. The information from the founders of the holding, regular updates from the CEO of companies, Zoom and Hangouts-conferences with participants throughout the company, webinars on knowledge-sharing, and useful and motivating information from HR in general channels in Slack. In many aspects, the efficiency of remote work turned out to be even higher than it was in the office before the quarantine, because communication is more concentrated, with a clear agenda and the results of meetings. We now further emphasize the importance of following the company’s internal communication rules, which will ensure awareness of all the employees, even if they were not physically present at the offline meeting in the office.
Take care of your employees’ health
The physical, psychological, and emotional state of employees directly affects the efficiency of the entire holding. That’s why we constantly share tips on how to organize a comfortable workplace at home, how to maintain health in long-term self-isolation conditions, and not to turn your life into a “Groundhog Day”. Currently, sports challenges, online kitchens, internal online tournaments in favorite esports disciplines CS:GO and Dota2, themed online team building, and other joint activities are very welcome and give results. For individual teams, after 2 months of quarantine, the best practices are days of silence, when everyone can be more focused on solving certain tasks and not be distracted by discussions. Soon we will face a new challenge — the arrangement of work in the office. Of course, we focus will be on the protection of employees and enhanced hygiene, as well as measures to help them adapt more quickly to work in the open space.
Don’t be afraid to hire remote employees
During the 2 months of quarantine, 30 new specialists joined the holding companies. It turned out that onboarding (the first days in the company, when meeting new colleagues, learning internal procedures and policies online) requires more discipline in communication between the admin team, manager and HR manager to prepare everything necessary for welcoming of the ”rookie”: signing documents, preparation, and dispatch of equipment, welcome presentation, the introduction of a newcomer in all necessary communication channels, goal setting for the trial period, more frequent 1on1’s with the Head and HR. But, unfortunately, this format cannot completely replace live communication with the team in the office.
Help to learn and develop
According to our internal survey, the need for training and development has increased while working from home. We have expanded the range of knowledge exchange participants from individual companies to the entire holding, created an online English language school, and launched a new format of webinars on various topics, called How it works. Of course, reporting online and not feeling the energy and reaction of the listeners is a new challenge for our speakers, but in general, it is a very effective tool that we will continue to use after returning to offline.
