How to Talk to Employees About Reopening

Summary.   

According to Gartner data, 94% of midsize businesses will have some mix of in-office, remote, and hybrid employees when they reopen their offices. While the desire is to return to “normal” as quickly as possible, the reality is that the workplaces employees return to in 2021 will not look like the ones they left in 2020. Encouraging employees to get vaccinated is good, but it’s not enough. The companies that are thoughtful about safety, flexibility, and clear communication will have the most success as we enter another period of profound change. The authors present four ways for midsize business leaders to maximize employee safety and productivity when reopening their workplaces.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was rampant speculation that one of the long-term implications would be the end of the office. While the workplace will undoubtedly become a hybrid environment with more employees working remotely at least part of the time, the reality is that companies will still have offices. In fact, according to a poll of more than 200 respondents conducted during a recent Gartner webinar, only 1% of midsize companies are planning on becoming fully remote organizations. On the other end of the spectrum, only 5% of midsize companies are planning on having all employees come back to the physical workplace. The remaining 94% will have some mix of in-office, remote, and hybrid employees.

As more individuals are getting vaccinated, business leaders need to shift their thinking from the abstract question of where employees will work to the reality that there is a specific day on the calendar that some kind of return to the office will actually occur. That day appears to be approaching quickly, as the same Gartner poll found that 69% of midsize companies are planning on reopening their workplaces in the second half of 2021. The question of how to return to the office will be more challenging than the abrupt shift to remote work was in March of 2020, given the variability of rules, regulations, and people’s vaccination status.

Source: HBR

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Facebook’s new game plan for India

Facebook earned its chops by connecting people. Its next big bets are on content creators and small businesses. And aiding it are Whatsapp and Instagram.

Ajit Mohan started following Lily Collins after watching her on Netflix’s Emily in Paris. He found on Instagram that the actor had recently invested in Beekeeper’s Naturals, a Canadian natural health product company that makes bee by-products like raw honey and bee pollen. The brand has quite a star following, from Drew Barrymore to Kourtney Kardashian. After discovering the brand on Collins’ post, Mohan, 46, is all set to order its products.

Like many users, he has bought everything from shoes to alphonso mangoes off Instagram (he didn’t like the shoes), says Mohan, who is vice president and managing director, Facebook India. Globally, influencers are convincing people to buy products they recommend, and small businesses are using Facebook platforms to reach consumers everywhere while keeping their spending in check. The trend, says Mohan, has been accelerated by Covid-19 as more people went online and shopped as they were forced to stay indoors during the pandemic.

“While recognising the disruption to life, I think it was a bit of a second coming for social media because it reminded people of its core purpose,” Mohan tells Fortune India. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, businesses discovered that the only way to survive was to find customers and sell to them online. Besides Facebook, the ecosystem has two other platforms: WhatsApp, which in India has over 15 million businesses; and Instagram, on which 90% of consumers follow brands. Globally, the ecosystem has more than 200 million businesses on it.

With consumers moving to these platforms during the pandemic, so did advertising. That’s music to Facebook’s ears, as most of its revenue still comes from ads. In India, according to its filings with the Registrar of Companies, Facebook’s gross ad revenue for FY20 was ₹6,613 crore.

According to Sandeep Bhushan, director and head, global marketing solutions, Facebook India, by 2023, digital advertising will be bigger than TV advertising. In fact, according to media investment company GroupM’s latest TYNY (This Year, Next Year) report, digital advertising was one of the few categories which grew globally last year. (See graphic).

No wonder that Facebook, from being a platform for connections, is focussing on content creators and small businesses to make them its growth drivers for the future.

Source: Fortune India

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Recruitment- 8 out of 10 employers are actively hiring now: CareerNet Market Study

Hiring numbers in sectors like Banking, e-Commerce, IT/ITeS, Insurance, and Financial Services to be higher as compared to other sectors.

The corporate workforce has seen its fair share of chaos attributing to the COVID-19 crisis that has altered the traditional ways of doing business across different sectors. A recent study by CareerNet, titled Present Hiring Outlook in India and the Future of Work, cites that 8 out of 10 employers are actively hiring, while only 6% of the employers haven’t re-started hiring yet.

The report suggests that 61% of large enterprises anticipate filling more than 500 positions, 45% of mid-sized companies expect to fill between 100 and 500 positions, and 61% of small businesses forecast to fill less than 50 positions in the year 2021.

Employers in the Banking, eCommerce, Insurance & Financial Services, and IT/ITeS sectors expect their hiring numbers to be higher as compared with those in other sectors. Among cities, Hyderabad tops the list of employment, with 100% of respondents saying that they are actively hiring. 80% of employers in Bangalore are considering hiring, whereas 5% have not started hiring yet.  

The culture of remote working has instigated the significance of functional skills over soft skills while evaluating candidates. 3 out of 4 employers consider functional skills to be extremely important, less than a half of them consider soft skills to be extremely important. Additionally, across industry verticals, there’s a significant demand for technology-based talent. The rapid adoption of digitization by companies and growing consumption of technology amid the pandemic has led to a growth in the demand for coders, programmers, and software developers, with 69% of recruiters looking for technology-based talent.

2 out of 3 employers are seeking candidates with good communication skills and 50% of them rate interpersonal skills on top while assessing candidates. Other in-demand soft skills are self-discipline, multi-tasking, time management, and work-life balance.

“A few months into 2021 got us thinking about the present hiring outlook of employers in India. We did this study to gather market insights about the present hiring trends and the evolving work model,” said Anshuman Das, CEO and Co-Founder, CareerNet. “The study witnessed participation from over 80 leaders in the Human Resources and Talent Acquisition space and over 1,600 employees from various organizations. The report reveals some interesting insights. The hiring momentum has accelerated and companies are actively hiring. For colleges and universities, virtual hiring is going to be the norm. There is a positive outlook towards gig/contractual/freelance hiring” he added. 

Campus hiring:

While 43% of small companies (up to 500 employees) are not planning to hire from campuses this year, 59% of mid-sized companies (501-5,000 employees) and 64% of the large enterprises (5,001+ employees) are planning to recruit campus talent. 16% of small companies, 18% of mid-sized ones and 36% of the large enterprises are not sure about campus hiring this year. IT/ITES, Banking, and Pharmaceuticals are some of the sectors that are going to move ahead with virtual campus hiring this year. Among the organisations that are planning to lead with campus hiring, 47% expect hiring for less than 50 positions while 12% predict between 51 and 100 positions.

Source: People matters

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To Retain Women, U.S. Companies Need Better Childcare Policies

Summary.   

Research has shown that the pandemic set women in the workforce back half a decade. Caregiving responsibilities at home threaten women’s ability to remain and progress in the workplace, with women of color feeling the brunt of this challenge. While the U.S. government lags behind on policies to help working families, companies can and should be acting sooner. Employees value flexible work arrangements, and companies need to get serious about offering them. Create an environment that acknowledges the role of parents to reduce the need for parents to have to hide their childcare challenges from work. In order to be successful at keeping more women in the workforce, companies need to make women a central part of the team — from the C-suite on down. Include women in strategic management conversations, and make changes together. The success of women, families, future generations, and our global economy depend upon our corporate executives choosing to take on this kind of bold leadership.

Buckling under the burden of childcare during the pandemic, more than 800,000 women left the work force between August and September 2020, according to The New York Times. According to McKinsey, the pandemic has set women back half a decade. At its peak, women’s unemployment had risen by 2.9 percentage points more than men’s unemployment. Not only does this matter for gender equality, it will also reduce families’ abilities to offset income losses, resulting in a deeper and more persistent economic recession as a whole. Leaders of all genders need to not only empathize, but also step up and actively find ways to keep women in the workforce.

Caregiving responsibilities at home and work could threaten women’s ability to remain and progress in the workplace: Up to 2 million women are considering leaving the workforce, according to the 2020 Women in the Workplace study from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org. Women of color are particularly challenged and are also trying to maintain career progression. Women could suffer the most in the 2021 recovery, too, according to McKinsey and Oxford Economics. The return to pre-pandemic employment levels for women will take 18 months longer than it will for men. This is why investing in caregiving is investing in women, and in the future of our global economy.

Source: HBR 

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