Angat sa Lahat — Success Stories of Organizational Transformation in a Pandemic
By Tracy Piamonte
The 58th PMAP Annual Conference was held last July 28–30, 2021, with the theme “Angat — Bringing People to Higher Ground.”
One of the plenary roundtable discussions was a sharing of success stories of organizational transformation in a pandemic. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, organizations need to continuously shift gears.
Who could best share about this topic but GCash! They are at the forefront of the new normal. Martha Sazon, president and CEO of GCash (Mynt), started by briefly sharing about the current economic situation of the country. Here are some statistics: Filipino livelihood is continuously being threatened, with a 9.5% drop in GDP in 2020; 10% unemployment rate — about 5M Filipinos are jobless; 26% of MSMEs closed shop due to continuing lockdown; and 78% or 4.5 million businesses are experiencing full or partial closure.
Throughout all these, GCash has been there to keep the economy moving. Strict lockdown forced everyone to shift to online behavior — non-contact revolution, emerging virtual communities, and navigating through financial volatility. GCash made themselves very relevant with an exponential growth of about 40 million users, with services ranging from money transfer, bill payments, and goods payments, among others. GCash is also the government‘s financial aid tool, with Php 16B in cash aid being distributed to 2 million Filipinos. Likewise, the app empowered over 2.5 million entrepreneurs through online and social media selling. They were put on a spotlight as a trusted financial platform.
Some of the challenges the organization faced that tested their resiliency are over-stretched workforce and lack of social energy due to a prolonged WFH setup. To address these challenges, they came up with organizational initiatives such as headcount and benefits reviews, lots of employee engagement activities, and redefining their purpose as an organization. GCash Transformational Leadership is focused on Working for the Common Good, Emphasis on Cooperation and Open Communication, Encouraging Entrepreneurial Spirit, and Create a Vision and Guide through Inspiration. Their vision is Inclusive Financial Experience or Finance for All.
Straive (pronounced as “strive”) also shared their story of transformation in a pandemic. Straive is a leading global provider of technology-driven content and data operations, with over 100 customers in various sectors; 17,000 employees through their delivery center; offering multi-lingual services to the U.S., U.K., Philippines, Vietnam, India, China, Nicaragua, and Singapore.
COO Prabhakar Bisen talked about embracing disruption with their 4E Strategy: Enable — WFH and infrastructure solution; Execute — secure and reliable connectivity and hyper-care IT support; Enhance — ensured productivity improvement through process enhancement; and Engage — a connection with employees by focusing on their wellness and support. Some of their employee-focused initiatives are Talk on Parenting in the Pandemic; Bounce Back Better — a program for the children of the employees; and Re-ignite — a second career program to help women. All of these initiatives resulted to higher profitability and growth, deeper employee engagement, community impact, and long-term programs.
Last to share was Maynilad Water Services President and CEO Ramoncito Fernandez, who shared how the pandemic transformed their organization. First was their quick shift to the WFH setup, accelerated digital utilization and adoption, and implementation of stringent health and safety protocols. To sustain operations while ensuring employee safety, they provided PPEs and vitamins to those who continued to work onsite. They opened facilities for stay-in arrangements, provided food allowance and internet subsidy, as well as free transportation for employees taking public transportation.
What helped them adjust was the thrust of the organization to put “People First.” Since theirs is a utility company, they needed to have that “business as usual” mindset, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The “Higit sa Tubig na Serbisyo” brand was best exemplified by their employees during ECQ. The heroes among them organized a donation drive for third-party services and the Maynilad management matched the proceeds. Their existing culture of “Malasakit” was also shown as employees stayed motivated — some even volunteered to stay-in during the height of the lockdown.
Making quick decisions during the crisis is very important, with the corporate values serving as their guideposts. Likewise, investment in technology made managing the company less challenging. Maynilad gave the assurance, and I quote, “Our organization can handle challenges of uncertain times and we have heroes within our ranks — ready to go through personal sacrifice in service of others.”
Three different organizations showed that they can thrive and survive the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, or maybe any crisis for that matter, with these important drivers and enablers — People who are heroes of the organization; Technology as means for business continuity; and the Shared Values that serve as guideposts for every organization. As the COVID-19 saga continues with new strains as of this writing, we can always look at how these organizations successfully transformed and learn from them.
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About the author:
Tracy is the Director and Business Unit Head of Staffbuilders Asia, a division of John Clements Consultants, Inc.
