The New Normal: Top companies go beyond coronavirus crisis

The 2020 COVID outbreak had an effect on all aspects of work life. We speak with top international companies who share their first-hand experience of how they are navigating through the global pandemic, and how they adapted their approach to work to ensure their employees' success and well-being. Read below to see what the recruiters from  Teleperformance (Greece), Majorel (Romania), Webhelp (Portugal) and BlueLink International (Czech Republic) can teach us about adapting to a new way of work.

[Q] What is your new normal looking like?

[MAJOREL Romania] Since we moved all our employees to a remote setup, we moved everything in an online environment. We increased internal communication initiatives, further developing tools that can provide us with the best engagement with our employees. For us, the new normal is the safest.
We have introduced new compliance procedures, securing data regarding our clients and employees, we have strongly invested in working devices, creating the right logistics for the working from home setup, we moved all our recruitment processes online, so at the moment all our interviews are been held remote, we managed to make all the necessary changes into our offices, in order for us to be fully prepared when we decide to come back.

[TELEPERFORMANCE Greece] Since the return of employees to the company's premises remains optional, most of them are still working from home. However, there are a limited number of projects that require the physical presence of our people. Considering this, Teleperformance Greece keeps implementing a comprehensive course of action that ensures our employees' safety in the physical workplace. This plan has been daily reviewed based on the official guidelines and encompasses -among others- these measures: 

• Temperature checks at the main entrances
• 100% increase in the medical staff presence on our sites
• Supply of personal protective equipment to employees (masks, hand sanitizers, sanitizing wipes, gloves, disinfectant spray bottles, and towel wipes)
• Installation of physical barriers (Plexiglass) at workspaces and service points
• Implementation of physical distancing recommendations between the workstations (covering up to 45% max capacity of the workplace) 
• Practising social distancing rules in common areas and elevators  
• Intensification of cleaning, disinfection, and ventilation protocol

Enabling those who a) belong to vulnerable groups, b) have been recently hospitalized or c) living in the same house with someone at higher risk for developing COVID-19 to stay at home.

[BLUELINK Czech Republic] We are trying to be as adaptable as possible and adjust fast to the many ongoing changes happening around us. Naturally, we pay great attention to various safety measures and we implemented several different policies to keep our employees healthy. As a company predominantly occupied by expats, one of our focuses is to continuously provide our employees with the latest status quo. Apart from the new measures, we are also trying to compensate for in-person interaction (due to part of the employees working from home) and maintain positive spirit and optimism.
The new set-up is based on a percentage indicating what is the highest number of employees being allowed in the office, with this number being updated with regard to the development of the situation. We respect every employee´s needs and preferences in this set-up (some employees prefer to stay at home whereas some others prefer to be in the office) and are balancing the situation accordingly. The whole company now focuses on changing our internal processes with the swift to the online environment.

[WEBHELP Portugal] Well, at Webhelp we continue to drive business as usual. When COVID hit hard in Portugal we quickly adapted and sent our employees home (nearly 100% of the workforce). From then on, we have been adapting our training to be virtual, as well as team meetings, coachings and all things work-related. In terms of how we continue to communicate with our teams, we took to TEAMs and Social Media to keep them engaged with our brand and the company.

[Q] Where did COVID19 impact your company the most?

[BLUELINK Czech Republic] BlueLink International is a company specializing in providing services in the airlines' industry, and naturally, all the ongoing changes impacted our core business in its very centre. But due to the diverse portfolio of services provided, the negative impact was very limited and we are now for instance in the phase of extensive hiring for some of our ongoing projects.

[WEBHELP Portugal] At Webhelp we weren’t used to having our projects in WFH and when COVID hit and a state of emergency was declared, we had to set up this new way of working in record time. So, it took an adjustment from all the support areas: HR, Training, Continuous Improvement, Communication, we all had to work hard to make sure our employees didn’t feel much different from being at the office and at home. 

[MAJOREL Romania] In these difficult times, the customer support industry is having an extremely important role. Our clients are counting on us to support and to bring the right solutions, especially now, when everybody is seeking for stability, balance, good services and great human interactions. Obviously, in this period we had our struggles, one of our clients from the automotive industry had to cease the activity for a period of time, which led us to creative solutions to avoid layoffs. Our main concern has been to secure our people’s jobs, to continue doing what we know best and why not, to thrive even now. Also, this year we are celebrating 10 years on Romanian’s market, and in normal situations, we would have had the best celebration with our employees. We tried to come up with ingenious solutions that can deliver the festive feeling, without putting us a risk. We want to seize the moment, to share this celebration with our employees, but we decided to do it differently.

[Q] What new policies have been adopted by your company?

[BLUELINK Czech Republic] The new policies cover various areas from setting up new guidelines on how to behave in the office to the home office set up and many others. From the practical point of view, we increased cleaning and disinfection of exposed places on a daily basis and purchased extra supplies of hand gel and disinfectant to be available at workplaces. We set up specific rules for employees returning from abroad and we encourage the employees to use one of our permanent benefits called Ulekare that is focused on providing consultancy related to various health-related questions.

[TELEPERFORMANCE Greece] At a time of such great human vulnerability, nothing has been more important than our people's health, safety, and well-being. In this direction, as the Coronavirus outbreak has taken hold, Teleperformance Greece has stepped forward to support its employees. Since the commencement of the COVID-19 crisis, we have adopted these people-first policies:

• At every stage of this pandemic, we have implemented all the necessary protective measures and followed the strict guidelines of health policies and procedures in the physical workplace, conforming to the Hellenic National Public Health Organization's updates.
• We have ensured the rapid and effective development of the work from home arrangement for 95% of our employees.
• We have managed to digitize the recruitment process without losing the human touch.
• We have granted a health insurance plan for all our employees.
• We have launched the "TP Wellness Project", a virtual meeting point on Facebook and Intranet for our employees, at which renowned experts have been providing premium content through online sessions (Yoga, Pilates, and Life Coaching).
• We have provided a Free Counseling Support Line for employees and their close relatives.
• We have offered free antibody COVID-19 testing to all employees who wish to return to our premises.
• We have hosted webinars on returning to the workplace safely.

[WEBHELP Portugal] We have adopted all the government rules for offices, so anything from checking the temperature at the entry to giving our Webhelpians an H&S kit with disposable masks, gloves, gel, etc. to have all workstations with 2m distance between each other and reducing the capacity of our common areas (Cafeteria, meeting rooms, training rooms) to make sure social distancing is possible to create new circulation rules and increasing the cleaning services in all our sites. It was these measures that allowed us to be certified as a Clean Site by an external audit. 

[Q] Are you now open to offer Work From Home as a permanent option to your employees?

[BLUELINK Czech Republic] We have a long-term experience with offering working from home as one of the possibilities for our employees (the specific possibility to be dependent on the department and independence of the person). During spring 2020, the whole company went home office as the situation required so and the health of our employees is and will always be our number one priority. Currently, we are working in a combined mode of some employees working from home and some at the office and if needed, we are ready to go 100% working from home again.

[WEBHELP Portugal] Right now, we have a mix of projects still 100% in WFH model and some projects that already have a part of the team working on-site and a part still at home. The support functions have been working on-site in rotating shifts, safer for all.

[Q] What do you anticipate to be the recruitment strategy for your company moving forward?

[MAJOREL Romania] We have intensively been preparing for that since we believe that from now on, nothing will be the same, and recruitment processes need to adjust accordingly. In this difficult period, we developed a new recruitment website, designed to meet today’s expectations. We didn’t ignore the context, it is very important to provide real information in the right direction. We also understood we need to be very flexible, adopting a new employer strategy, now being more creative than ever. We plan to further invest in online, boosting our brand awareness, creating more Majorel campaigns and developing new programs that can be accessed from anywhere. We have also launched the Majorel Magazine, we elaborate out of the box programs and training dedicated to enhancing employee’s engagement.

[TELEPERFORMANCE Greece] Since March 2020, Teleperformance Greece has welcomed 1.800 new employees from all over the world. Actually, due to the imposing of coronavirus related lockdown restrictions and travel bans, certain stages of the recruitment procedure have been digitized along with many other aspects of our business. More specifically, as the pandemic continues to accelerate novel recruiting strategies, we have moved quickly to adopt virtual platforms to conduct video screening and interviewing. Additionally, the onboarding process has been mostly completed via video conference, and we have started to move the learning and development programs online. At this point, it is worth mentioning that although our recruitment approach has changed, our open invitation to job candidates with passion, skills, and enthusiasm remains unaffected. We are still looking for the best people for available positions, and we encourage everybody to develop their talents. Together, we seek to deliver exceptional experiences during every single interaction.

[BLUELINK Czech Republic] Traditionally within BlueLink, we were focused mostly on hiring candidates from abroad and approaching potential applicants rather on foreign markets than the local one. Nowadays, we expect that there might be a shift more towards the local market due to decreased interest to move to a foreign country from the candidates´ side. At the same time, we still welcome candidates from abroad and are offering them to undergo a PCR test with the company reimbursing the expense of the test. To assure everyone´s safety, we went online and are conducting only skype interviews until further notice.

[Q] Based on your experiences during this period; what have you learned, and would consider for the future?

[WEBHELP Portugal] We will continue with our recruitment strategy as it was until now with a mix of local and foreign recruitment, all done virtually now. We will bet on our digital campaigns and online presence to make sure that our candidates find us easily, even if they are not looking for us. :)

[MAJOREL Romania] Most definitely, this period has taught us many lessons about people’s behavior, fears and needs. We learned how to listen and how to provide stability. We better understood our role as an employer, demonstrating our motto: driven to go further. 
Our aim is to provide a flexible set-up, the perfect mix between working from home and working at the office that can be chosen as desired.

[TELEPERFORMANCE Greece] Staying together, even from a distance
This crisis has managed to remind us that the notion of the workplace does not only refer to a physical place but, primarily, it is a community that gets a deep-felt meaning thanks to our team members who comprise it and embody the core values ​​of our company. Hence, we are grateful to our people for the unique and diverse experiences they bring to work every day -even from a distance- that strengthen our culture and truly make Teleperformance Greece a Great Place to Work for all.
 
[BLUELINK Czech Republic] We were able to move the company to be working from home office in an extremely short period of time and proved to be very flexible to adopt all the necessary measures as we believe where there is a will there's a way. We also want to be prepared for the future so we created various scenarios on how to proceed in case the situation will require so.

[Q] Final Thoughts

[TELEPERFORMANCE Greece]  Adapt now, and they will thank you later!
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has been uncharted waters for the entire global community. From governments and companies to individuals, everyone has had to cope with a new reality that has caused an inevitable negative impact on our daily lives. Teleperformance Greece has promptly adapted to change to ensure its employees' safety and guarantee business continuity to provide critical services to its clients. The good news is that 90% of our employees claimed they felt confident in the company's leadership team to manage through the crisis, according to a recent survey. The good news gets even better if we think of the strong correlation between employee happiness and customer satisfaction.    

To sum up, this article has shed a light on the current challenges big multinational companies have been experiencing in the recent period. Even though it can be difficult to adapt quickly to unexpected circumstances, these four companies have succeeded in reimagining their way of working and creating the “new normal” way of operating. 
As the companies go beyond the current COVID-19, don’t hesitate to check exciting job opportunities across Europe at Teleperformance (Greece), Majorel (Romania), Webhelp (Portugal) and BlueLink International (Czech Republic).