PORTFOLIO COMMUNITY RESPONSE

Adapt & Overcome

30 Apr 2020

Mr. Chee Tung Leong, CEO, EngageRocket

We are all experiencing a significant shift, the workplace is no longer confined to the office, and even the nature of ‘work’ is being redefined. The pandemic is forcing digital transformation. In a virtual world, technology becomes critical to a company’s survival.

Companies are now embracing resilience as a core business strategy. Organizations and employees will have to evolve the ability to be truly agile to cope with this level of uncertainty, and still come out of it better than the competition.

This disruptive episode also represents a turning point for global economic institutions. Organizations are now accepting a productivity ramp time, and employers have no choice to relook at their approach to performance.

Finally, leadership is more important than ever. During difficult times, managers can minimize stress and maximize trust toward organizations through transparency and open feedback. By taking a proactive attitude, leaders will collect powerful insights to maintain the welfare of employees and reduce business operations impact.

In times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), HR should seize the opportunity to emerge as a strategic function and build practical workforce strategies that put people first. By applying agile working frameworks, continuous performance management and sustainable employee value proposition, organisations will then be able to tackle challenges from any other crises. To gain from this situation, it is vital to perfectly balance employee engagement, positive mental health, and productivity.

This can be a push for employees to assert the ability to work from home as an option, not a perk of their job, by demonstrating working from home is entirely viable. People analytics could benefit everyone, with more digital experiences meaning better predictive capabilities and diagnostics of the meta-data behind our work life – and stronger implications for AI to permeate our workplaces. The ability to use the power of data to drive decision-support at the managerial level is greater than it has ever been. 

Adopt the lean and agile startup approach and incorporate it into your business strategy. Businesses should be able to pivot in response to growing developments, just like how startups prototype and adjust to the business dynamics they operate in. The trend that this crisis has forced is set to continue, perhaps at an even more rapid pace, to become the norm.