HR Community: Best Practice – 13th May 2020

Some of the companies represented:

• CRH
• Kantar
• KraftHeinz
• PPG
• Curium

Some of the topics discussed:

We asked the participants to highlight 1-2 initiatives that have proved useful & innovative in the current climate.

Also we asked about their opinion on the next steps to anticipate from the current development.

Here’s the list of topics that resonated during the conversation to tackle new normal:

• Return to work, Safety, Uncertainty, Office re-design (how to handle it best, how to reintegrate office: cost might be too high to bring back all the people. What if people don’t want to come back to the office, they are full of anxiety), (in some companies it was historically not allowed to work from home, now it changed immediately and everything is possible)
• Habits, new skillset build up vs present mindset (how to make sure we don’t fall into old habits, fast measures are suddenly taken, communication across all locations, heavy involved in, adjusted processes, nobody from factory left plant, office people work from home. Internal discussion on: Why do office staff can be based at home? Resentment among warehouse and production people, things got settled down, people coming back to office will create anxiety, management by objectives.
• Communication. Looking after people. Get senior leaders in front of people. Visible &– management by objectives, KPIs – regardless of office/home office, Lots of reassurance, different rules & regulations.
• (New/changed) Role of HR (go beyond fire-fighting vs being pro-active (Gallup), talent development is missing & is hard to replace by online, coach & psychological support).