How human resources empower employees

If the human resources department’s response to the pandemic is a book, the focus of Chapter 1 will be on transferring employees from the office to the home: taking them there safely, equipping them with the right tools, Figure out how to manage remote workforce.

Now, we enter Chapter 2, and this work must be paid more long-term attention.

“We must change [employees’] ServiceNow’s Chief Talent Officer Pat Wadors said at the Tuesday meeting at the Virtual HR Technology Conference: “We must treat this as a marathon rather than a sprint.” Employees need to learn how to turn off the “zoom” feature and make work calls while walking outdoors. Even take a break during the working day without feeling inside. In the final analysis, the integration of work and life is the next urgent challenge that the human resources department has to deal with. “The real existence at the moment is that I want to teach our employees how to do better. This will not disappear anytime soon, so we need to figure out this balance.”

To this end, the human resources department should view all its responsibilities from the perspective of holistic care, including welfare planning, performance management, employee planning, and employee communication. The shift to work at home has broken the traditional barriers between work and family life.

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“We are invited to [employees’] home. The intimacy of meeting another person is a special gift,” Wadors said.

Related: Read all of our HR technical conference reports here.

This is the basic task that enables human resource leaders to better accept their work: the reason for caring for others.

Josh Bersin, a key spokesperson for human resources technology, said: “It shows the core of human resources that has always existed,” and his meeting with Wadors discussed how culture and care can shape future employees. Team. “HR professionals tend to cover up personnel issues, depending on the company’s needs at the time. Therefore, this reflects many of the core strengths and values ​​that human resources have from the beginning.”

At ServiceNow, this approach involves collecting employee emotions every few weeks to measure how employees feel and check for any patterns in various demographic data. The executive team meets for an hour almost every day. All employees and managers are calling more and more frequently, and the company has launched a series of training webinars, social events and health programs.

ServiceNow also launched a revitalization program that provides employees and their families with a series of choices: counseling, mental health applications, yoga classes and other family health programs.

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Vados said that while employers are taking steps to incorporate compassion into their plans and policies, managers also need to be better prepared for holistic care. Managing newly assigned workers is faced with huge challenges, such as flexible schedules, family challenges, and a growing mental health crisis, and most of the work falls on the shoulders of managers.

She said: “We need to rely on our managers and provide them with more tools to make them more friendly to employees.”

While managers are learning the value of flexibility, senior managers may be more difficult to convince.

Vados said: “The biggest resistance will be the leadership.” “They are used to a certain mode of work-you have to get rid of this way of thinking and think about performance management, productivity in a different way, more deliberately than ever To adapt to the needs of employees. One size is not suitable for all sizes.”

“We need to rely on our managers and provide them with more tools to make their employees more friendly.” Pat Vados

This is also true for the future of the workplace. Both Bersin and Wadors envision a team that is largely composed of a mixed workforce, where white-collar workers will be able to work heavily at home and rely on the office to participate in meetings and other team activities.

She added that the agility and adaptability that those models will flourish should now take root.

Wadors said: “If we are wise, we will seize the silver lining of all this and put it in our DNA.” “We should put our employees at the center of our experience and adjust as needed. If We continue to have this framework and will provide better services to everyone.”

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Jen Colletta is the executive editor of HRE.She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from La Salle University in Philadelphia, and worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 10 years before joining the newspaper HRE. You can contact her at [email protected].