Following the financial crisis, business leaders and HR realised that they needed to adapt to be more agile in order to cope with the demands of surviving during increasingly precarious times. Unfortunately, organisations are having to once again move with this level of pace and agility in order to navigate the global crisis caused by the spread of COVID-19. The current crisis was not predicted and, to a certain extent, left many unprepared. However, astonishingly, many companies were actually more prepared than they realised and have been able to adapt with complete agility to either change their business strategy for a temporary period, or even carry out a wholesale change to their complete proposition and strategic direction, to make them less susceptible to future volatility. I believe that this is reflective of the dynamic nature and resilience of leadership, HR, technology and, let us not forget, employees.  

In terms of resilience, on a personal level, the changes that have come about in response to the crisis has directly impacted individuals. It is not to be underestimated the emotional impact on line managers and HR that planning and identifying individuals to furlough has, as well as the impact of those furloughed. Also let us not forget the impact on the individuals that remain in the business that are responding to the new demands the crisis has presented. Looking back over the decade, we have seen a shift in HR policy, now acknowledging and supporting the wellbeing of employees, and leadership communications that are more transparent, honest and inspiring. Together, these have put organisations in a stronger position to ensure that employees understand the challenges and can adapt at the same pace.  

Virtual and Pivoting organisations are just some of the terms we have been hearing more often recently, and it is just the start. It shouts loud and clear the requirement for HR to be proactive in understanding what the leadership are planning and what impact that will have on the organisational structure, recruitment and retention, and the people strategy. Making the wrong decisions or being slow to respond will make it harder to hire and retain the talent the business needs more than ever.  

We have been speaking to our clients, helping them navigate this difficult time, whether their approach is more reactive and dealing with the here and now, or much more proactive and looking to the future. 

With our clients still in the reactive stage, we have been working to help them navigate the complexities around how to make appropriate assessments to come to fair conclusion around which roles are needed and can be carried out, and which roles are at risk of being furloughed and the cost savings impact of this.   

As we have recently published our free Furlough Calculator Tool, which helps organisations to work out the financial impact aligned to the Government furloughing guidelines, we felt it was a natural next step to provide an extension of this in the form of our new tool, Transform (Furlough Edition), which will be made available to our reward community shortly.

The purpose of the Transform (Furlough Edition) tool is to enable HR identify critical roles that are needed to meet the current business demands, as well as roles that will need to be furloughed either because they are not critical right now, or they are not in a position to fulfill the requirement. This tool will also help HR identify whether there is a surplus or lack of capacity for key roles depending upon the need of the organisation or by function. In addition, it will empower HR to prepare roles for return as part of their ‘getting back to business’ strategy, alongside consideration around social distancing protocols adjustments that they can make. The tool has been created to be translatable in any sector and any organisational situation.

With HR already moving at rapid pace, planning for recovery and lifting their gaze to look at the long-term effects, we are working with clients to identify the level of change the business is going through, looking at it with a financial impact lens and reviewing employee return value and revenue opportunities. The important element to get right is understanding the scale of the impact on the people strategy and supporting reward structure. This level of manpower planning is more sophisticated and more time-sensitive, as HR will need to model an aspirational organisational structure and people strategy around a reframing of business strategy and direction. How this is done differs by organisation, but essentially the fundamentals are reframing job architecture and creating a new organisational structure, challenging roles as they currently stand, and identifying if there are any skill gaps. The next phase will be to overlay current capabilities and competence to understand if individuals can be re-deployed, upskilled or if their role is to be re-framed.

It is important not to forget the importance of how you reward individuals as it can provide reassurance to employees that they are being paid fairly. With the right market data, we encourage our clients to put themselves in a strong position to deal with difficult pay challenges around internal pay differentials, the lack of or different stances on pay progression, and opportunity. Understanding what is coming down the line, in terms of recruiting for new or re-framed roles, is invaluable to understanding market premiums on what could be hard to source and expensive skills, and understanding global market rates and cost of living differentials for your mobile or adapted workforce is essential. If decisions are going to be made around roles, then a full and complete picture is important as the potential costs to the business and the loss of productivity from losing and re-hiring key and expensive skills will be significant.

Alongside our free Transform (Furlough Edition) tool, our Innecto Digital suite of products have proven invaluable to our clients whilst navigating this difficult time, whether that is from the creation of aspirational organisational structures and mapping of future roles in Evaluate, or the building of high-quality pay insights to aid the ramp up to recovery within PayLab. If you would like a demonstration of the Innecto Digital Platform, or would like to discuss how you could reframe your business strategy, organisational structure and people strategy to become a more agile organisation, please email sarah.lardner@innecto.com, or call 020 3457 0894.

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For further insights into how your business can adapt to the new economic climate, join us for our upcoming webinar: Transact, Transition, Transform: The Journey to Organisation Change on 3rd June 2020. In this webinar, Sarah Lardner is joined by independent consultant and experienced CPO Lorna Bains, to discuss the journey ahead and the support available to HR leaders who are reframing their people strategy and organisational design in response to the new economic climate. Sarah and Lorna will be sharing their experience of not only what can be done, but also how to execute it, ensuring that leaders and line managers are approaching it correctly and employees are treated fairly during the process. Register now!

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