Commerce

Best productivity practices during the pandemic


Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been chatting with people at four multi-national companies I work with who’ve seen productivity and revenue increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been surprisingly consistent about why they’ve benefited from this New Normal. I’ve also been following some of the schools that have done as well and interestingly, for once, education seems to be ahead of the curve with its more-aggressive technology use. 

Let’s talk about that this week.

Digital transformation

The enterprises and schools that have managed to do ok during and after the spring coronavirus lockdown, were those farther down the digital transformation path than others. As you would expect, it has been easier for them to shift admin rolls off-premises and support massive numbers of employees off-site. If you’ve primarily removed the need for people to do things in the office, in person, then where people reside has less impact on operations. The more companies had adopted  updated administration, security, and maintenance tools, the better and faster the shift to work-from-home became.

And those same companies were able to see benefits of the move more quickly. And important part of this is that these more advanced tools provide more granular feedback, so the company could make the adjustments needed to adapt to the New Normal efficiently. 

Empowered HR

In all cases, HR for these firms had already stepped out of its compliance role into a role that’s far more strategic. One of the significant issues was the care of these remote employees and management’s ability to deal with those that needed more oversight or more motivation. Where firms had already been aggressive at instrumenting employees and managers, the move to remote work immediately showcased shortfalls in oversight, training, and management. HR, already engaged as a support organization, could step in strategically to help move management processes to the new normal. 

The result: these firms had less downtime, fewer unplanned absences, and far greater collaboration and productivity than firms where HR remained stuck in compliance mode.

Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc.



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