People, Processes and Technology: Crisis Preparedness and the 'New Normal' · en world

| Details

2020 brought one of the biggest global crises in recent memory and has ushered in a “New Normal”.

To kick off 2021, en world Japan and our partner, Anextere, have kicked-off a series of webinars for business leaders here in Japan around just that, managing through crisis and the applications in our navigation of the “New Normal”.

Please visit en world Japan YouTube Channel to watch the webinar.

| Facilitator

Kevin Riendeau Founder and CEO, Anextere

| Panelists

Vijay Deol, President, en world Japan

Misa Yamashita, Independent HR Consultant, former Head of HR, AXA Life Japan

Robert Noddin Chairperson, the American International Group in Japan

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en world and Anextere strongly believe that the key to thriving through the crisis is founded in a fundamental approach to getting 3 things right: "People, Processes & Technology"

Our panelists shared how they have applied their years of crisis, risk and change management experience to preparing for and navigating through the new challenges that have impacted our businesses since early 2020. 

People - Having sustainable business results is the ultimate goal in our business. Here, you can see some key points on how “people” should operate to achieve that. 

Empowering Employees 

Producing sustainable results is the ultimate goal in  business. Here are some  key points from the webinar on how “people”are central to that.

Empowering Employees

The  pandemic has reminded us of the importance of  empowering  line managers and employees to make things happen through making their own decisions. Even wihtout a crisis, constant oversight (or micro-management)is not advisable as it negatively impacts engagement and development. Now it is just not possible either under remote working conditions. 

Agility

In order for this to work, it is crucial for a company to respond to any situation swiftly and make adjustments if needed; whether it is to change current HR measures, or adopt new protocols. Agility is very important under Business As Usual conditions but becomes critical in a crisis.

Talent Acquisition

While many businesses are working to maintain the stauts quo, those that are prepared are thinking ahead about talent acquitision and retention. Both your current employees and job seekers will be considering how prepared their company is for the next disruption which will inevitably come along. Working now to createan environment that is attractive for the most talented people in the marketis key. 

Process - How do you adapt your process and how do they impact all parts of your business?

Risk management

How we deal with business continuity should be no different in the current pandemic. This isall about risk management and how people make decisions in pivotal moments. Our challenge in business is that we need to be agile and ready to be there for our customers.

Productivity

As you re-evaluate your processes, you mustreflect on how this impacts your customers. We should bear in mind how any process willimpede or enable us to support our customers better. 

Capability and Tools to make it happen

Productivity is fundamentally enabled by technological processes. These processes support our employees to be productive. This could be as simple as  making HR guidelines easily accessible online so that managerscan feel confident to make decisions in remote work situations. Further following up to ensure that such policies are properly rolled out and that  people are engaed with them is crucial. 

When we think about disaster recovery and business continuity, the same best practices apply whether we are in a crisis or not. Now wemust think about the longer-term implicationsin a more sustainable way.. 

Technology - Is it an enabler of productivity and staff satisfaction? 

In addition to the points mentioned already, there has also been an evolution in how companies are using technology to tackle the challenges thrust upon us from the shift of processes to a remote dominant paradigm.  

1st Phase – The first challenge that most companies had to tackle was how to get people to do their jobs from home at very basic level remotely. F fortunately were able to get there. 

2nd Phase – As the pandemic has drug on, the duration has presented a huge  challenge. It is not dificult to work remotely for  a couple of days or weeks. However, continuing it for  several months, presents new and unforeseen problems.

Companies are starting to considering how they can equip their people to work remotely in a sustained manner including whether or not to allocate new budgets for home offices, etc. New technological tools are replacing more traditional and analog processes but also come with new needs for information security. 

Conclusion

A strong partnership between the business, HR, and IT is key to getting the synergy right between people, process and technology You can not manage technology and processes without the right people. It is useless to invest in new technology without understanding how best to implement and then manage the processes afterward.  Deepconsidetation needs to be devoted to the integration of people with new processes and technology in the “New Normal”.

Lastly, we would like to thank everyone who participated in this webinar. We appreciate their keen observations along with the time invested to make this a valuable event for all. We hope to see you again for our next session hosted by Anextere and en world Japan.