{"id":2824,"date":"2020-08-31T08:17:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T08:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/?p=2824"},"modified":"2020-09-02T08:14:09","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T08:14:09","slug":"laura-stefan-managing-director-accace-romania-people-will-need-to-develop-new-skills-in-order-to-adjust-t-the-new-workspace-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/?p=2824","title":{"rendered":"Laura Stefan, Managing Director Accace Romania: People will need to develop new skills in order to adjust to the new workspace realities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The accelerated pace of implementing tools and accommodating to the new features of daily work made companies and employees as well to speed their capacity of adjusting to the new workspace reality. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Laura Stefan, Managing Director Accace Romania shared her opinions and company insights in a recent interview with Outsourcing Today. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Reshaping the current workplace in the overall context of the work environment<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The importance of business continuity through the pandemic\u00a0has determined all companies\u00a0to reshape the workplace, in order to make\u00a0the employees\u00a0feel supported,\u00a0safe\u00a0and able to do their jobs effectively.\u00a0The easiest option has always been\u00a0the remote work, but this\u00a0is not\u00a0an alternative for\u00a0people working in various industries.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0main challenge in the following months is finding ways to\u00a0design the workplace\u00a0to\u00a0respond not just to fear and anxiety (caused by the threat of germs), but\u00a0to\u00a0the full range of new\u00a0behaviors\u00a0and attitudes\u00a0that people developed through the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n

Possible office transformation alternatives <\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u00a0are exploring some alternatives, such as implementing flex desk or transforming our office into a\u00a0\u201cconference center\u201d, a place where we gather to host meetings, conferences and other offline events or where we can go whenever we need to change the home scenario.<\/p>\n

Enabling effective channels of communications <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our organizational culture has always been oriented towards\u00a0flexibility, autonomy, transparency. We do not encourage micromanagement\u00a0and\u00a0we have adapted our tools\u00a0to keep people close to each other and maintain fluid communication.<\/p>\n

Thus, we have been organizing weekly meetings within the teams,\u00a0bi-monthly meetings with the whole company, and trainings, we created\u00a0channels\u00a0for a quick and informal communication, and we encouraged managers to approach their teams in a friendly and supportive way outside the working schedule.<\/p>\n

Before the pandemic,\u00a0we used to organize many offline activities,\u00a0therefore we wanted to keep a fun and optimistic atmosphere during the lockdown. In this respect, we\u00a0initiated some contests, games, virtual parties, lounge discussions, cooking and gym groups,\u00a0in order to\u00a0keep people entertained and involved in mutual activities.<\/p>\n

Regarding the newcomers, we had to rethink the recruiting and onboarding processes, so that we could find the right people and integrate them into the team remotely, with\u00a0limited\u00a0physical contact. \u00a0The interviews and tests took place online.<\/p>\n

The WFH system was quite familiar to us even before the pandemic, as we are promoting a flexible policy and we already had one day a week when we could work from anywhere we wanted. During the emergency period, all our colleagues worked from home, having at their disposal the necessary equipment, and the cloud infrastructure allowed us to deliver the same quality to customers, without delays.<\/p>\n

In mid-June, we reopened the office, of course implementing all the necessary security measures, but we advised our colleagues to go only\u00a0if\u00a0the situation implied\u00a0their presence exclusively. Thus, we\u00a0developed a strong\u00a0internal procedure, and the presence of\u00a0the\u00a0employees\u00a0at the same time in the office\u00a0was limited.<\/p>\n

The main challenge was to synchronize the\u00a0schedules, as we have many mothers who\u00a0tried to\u00a0juggle\u00a0between children and tasks. However, a positive\u00a0aspect\u00a0that emerged\u00a0from this experience\u00a0was that the level of trust has increased, both\u00a0internally \u2013 between colleagues and externally \u2013 from clients, proving that we\u00a0are able to\u00a0deliver quality even in times of crisis,\u00a0driven by\u00a0autonomy and proactivity.<\/p>\n

Adjusting to a new style of communication<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no need to be a tech-savvy to adapt to a new style of communication, but the daily\u00a0virtual\u00a0interaction\u00a0somehow forced\u00a0our\u00a0colleagues\u00a0to\u00a0get more familiar\u00a0with\u00a0the\u00a0online\u00a0communication\u00a0tools.\u00a0Also,\u00a0they\u00a0practiced\u00a0a lot\u00a0on\u00a0time\u00a0management, creative\u00a0thinking,\u00a0teamwork\u00a0and\u00a0critical\u00a0thinking.<\/p>\n

What will be the differentiating factor, if most companies will transform the workplace into a virtual space?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

As long as\u00a0the employees will be able to work online from anywhere, with minimal interaction between them and receive the same benefits, will there still be a sense of belonging, loyalty, organizational culture and company-specific values? This can be a major challenge for employee retention and will reshape the workforce dynamics.<\/p>\n

If until now efforts were made in the direction of digitization and automation, nowadays these concepts are becoming a reality.\u00a0Globally in\u00a0Accace, we have been aiming for a paperless office for some time, but only the current context has pushed us closer to finalizing this project.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0pandemic has caused an acceleration of some labor trends, and people will need to develop new skills in order to keep their jobs or to find new ones. With their digital transformation and different tools & systems, companies will need less administrative support.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The accelerated pace of implementing tools and accommodating to the new features of daily work made companies and employees as well to speed their capacity of adjusting to the new workspace reality. Laura Stefan, Managing Director Accace Romania shared her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,6,8],"tags":[381],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2828,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions\/2828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsourcing-today.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}