HPID: About 80 per cent of companies with over 1000 headcount have remote work strategies in place

(Human Performance Development International) estimates that the market for training, teambuilding and human resources consulting services has dropped alarmingly in March, with three quarters fewer projects.

Currently, the business environment has entered an adjustment period and about 80% of multinationals and large companies, with over 1,000 employees, developed functional strategies for work at home. They are now in the phase of accommodating staff and the entire operational flow to the new climate and need specialized support. HPDI, one of the market leaders in terms of customer retention, islaunching in this context a digital learning program, consisting of  webinars, dedicated to companies that want to adapt as quickly as possible to the new operating paradigms.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions that it has brought have meant the freezing of our industry for an indefinite period, but we want it as short as possible. Practically, almost all training and teambuilding projects have been discontinued. The learning and development programs were stopped, and the priorities of the companies moved almost exclusively to the area of ​​survival, safety and business continuity. Now, almost a month after the vast majority of companies that could send their employees to work from home have done so, we notice that, due to digital migration, interest in webinars has begun to increase. People feel the need for help in the transition from office to home work, and this happens by establishing working procedures, by adjusting the mentality and schedule, as well as through a powerful remote management system. Companies have gone from the stage of panic caused by the pandemic and the medical crisis, to the fear of their future. At this moment, they have mostly settled their remote work systems, and now comes the part of adapting and supporting employees, from managers to all team members. Therefore, there is an increased need for learning programs in terms of good remote work management, ” says Petru Păcuraru, founder of HPDI.

According to the founder of the company, the only service that did not show significant decreases during this period was coaching. However, companies will need to maintain their agility and rebuild cohesion within the teams, and for this the online training sessions will be very important in the next period. To help them, HPDI recently created and launched Becoming the Digital Manager, an integrated program that contains the ingredients needed for the remote management act. The program consists of five three-hour webinars, each focusing on a vital theme for the functioning of the teams in the home work system: efficiency, change management, useful technological tools, decision-making under pressure, resistance and motivation. The learning experience is complemented by the use of a mobile application that forms a virtual community during the webinars, as well as after their completion, and ensures an effective communication between the trainer and the participants.

“We have launched this new product out of the natural desire to meet the needs of our customers and to continue to be with them. The demand for trainings, in digital version of course, is beginning to take shape at the market level as well. We have tested this program in the last days, to see what the level of interest is. To date, our consultants and trainers have supported several webinars and we were glad to find that we had over 1,500 participants in total. Easy, easy stabilization begins: people feel the need for normalcy, even though it is obvious that shocks will follow. I anticipate that the second half of 2020 will be a reconstruction, a relocation, but this is the optimistic scenario,” Petru Păcuraru states.