HR in the New Normal

Everyone is talking about the "New Normal" but what is exactly the new normal?

What is the New Normal?

The concept of the new normal is not necessarily something new. Generally, when people speak of the "new normal", it simply meant going outside of our boundaries and comfort zone and doing something that is entirely new to us. You would know that you are already pushing towards the new normal when you are starting to feel uncomfortable and you are staring to be afraid and have doubts on what to do next. With the current situation, however, we did not have time to adjust or understand what’s going on. We were pushed beyond what we have been accustomed to without us being able to plan things ahead – working at the office for 8 hours, being with people, going through tons of paperwork, and basically having a clear distinction between home and the office.

Old Normal vs. New Normal - Pitfalls

Now, many have already given their two-cents about how to deal with the current situation but, if you would notice, very few have spoken about dealing with the actual new normal – the time when we are safe from COVID and can freely go out into the world. Why is it important to talk about that? Because when we are already in the “new normal” (yes, we aren’t there yet. We are still in the transitioning phase), there is a risk of us falling into a broken view of what should happen. We will be caught between wanting things to go back to the way it used to be as opposed to starting something new. The importance place by the current situation on things like mental health, time management and stress management might get lost along the way.

Employee engagement, and employee relations are generally built and arranged in such a way that it required personal, face-to-face interaction. Processes tend to be easier when you are face-to-face with the employee. It gives you the ability to see if the body language matches what is being said. This might lead to some HR forgetting again the value of tools and technology in helping them do their work.

The opposite can also happen. We might be too enamored with the current setup of working from home, or of getting everything done without having to leave your computer that we lose the value of human contact. We might be too caught up with the idea of working from home that we take for granted the fact that not all businesses are built for such way of doing business. We might insist on having the same setup for companies that we work with even if such is very impractical to sustain.

Compliance is another area where we might face risks when moving to the new normal. When we have settled with how we are doing things, we might keep looking for shortcuts even when the law does not allow it; or we might be too strict in implementing policies and procedures that we forget the value of seeing things from a different perspective.

So how do we ensure that we do not get too caught up in either “normal”? Creative and critical thinking is the answer.  We, in HR, need to understand that we are more than just pencil pushers and guardians of the paper galaxy. We need to have a good understanding of what our organization is into, what our corporate values are, and what we want to achieve in relation to this corporate values. We need to think fast but with purpose. We need to be decisive backed with a sound plan.

How do we do this?

First thing’s first. Change your mindset, do a paradigm shift. The new normal is uncertain. We do not know when the pandemic would end. There is no going back to the way things are in the same manner that the future is still very much uncertain.

If you still have not managed learning the basics of HR processes, do so. Now is the best time to do that. The other day when I hosted a webinar, one of our guest speakers mentioned about knowing the processes first before working strategies; and this is true. Because we do not know what the future is ahead of us and we only have the “now”, we need to make sure that our processes can sustain us for the days to come. Before you start working on revising your processes to adapt to your concept of “new normal”, you first have to understand what your organization has right now. You have to understand what works and what doesn’t. One of the learnings that I had when we shifted to working from home was that we have too many steps in our organization for some of the simplest requests.

So, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What have you learned about your organization during the transition phase? Were there things that were not given much importance before that now needed your attention? Things like mental health, the use of technology, the concept of time when working from home
2. If it is something good, is it something that you can adapt long-term?
3. If it is something bad, what is its impact?
4. Can you do something about it or do you need other departments to work with you to resolve it?
5. Is there a tool that you can use in order to support the changes?

 These are the things that you need to ask in order to get your organization ready for whatever happens after the pandemic.

Once you have the answers to these questions, you would already have an idea on how to move ahead. You would already have an understanding of what strategies would work best for your organization, whether it be new or old strategies, and you would know which processes you can already let go of.

Your challenge now would be compliance since, essentially, most laws were crafted with a different situation in mind. While legislations have been passed recently to amend certain practices, adapting to the new normal would require some overhauling of some of the labor laws and practices worldwide. In the meantime, there might be a need to be more liberal in the application of company policies and procedures to allow for the newer way of doing things. If you still have not done so, you might need to start working on policies concerning working from home. Consider how you would ensure that your assets are taken care if you would be providing one for your employees while they work from home. How are you going to ensure their connectivity and how would you handle the increase in their electricity consumption? You might have already developed some practices during the transition period, so you just need to make sure that these practices are properly documented and cascaded to your team members and colleagues.

Now  more than ever, we, as HR, need to prove our mettle. Our position is the guiding star of the organization. Make sure you shine the right way.