This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 18, 2021 - October 24, 2021

Lockdowns and quarantines have forced millions around the world to work from home, raising a vast array of issues and challenges for employers and employees.

Human resources (HR) teams are still grappling with how best to deliver advice and information remotely and how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety. Meanwhile, employees are stressed out trying to find the best work-home balance and how to collaborate remotely.

But despite efforts to make remote work function as seamlessly as possible, the task has been a challenging feat for both big and small companies.

Well into the Covid-19 pandemic, it is clear that having such flexibility has made for more effective employees. But it has also shown that remote employees feel less engaged, causing a lot of people to switch careers or even resign.

“They [employees] are in an uncomfortable space of uncertainty and trying to find a balance between functioning well at work and home. This is the new norm,” says Ikhram Merican, regional director at Hexa Business, an HR and business outsourcing company.

“It also means there needs to be a complete paradigm shift on how businesses manage employees.”

Hexa Business, which started as a telecommunications engineering company in 2002, pivoted to human resources outsourcing in 2006. The homegrown company has since expanded to Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Taiwan and Sri Lanka.

The change starts with an employer’s ability to attract the best candidates for a job and understanding that businesses that manage their people best are the ones that end up succeeding, points out Ikhram.

“Covid-19 is not a short-term phenomenon. Governments are realising [rather slowly] that this could be something that plays out for years. Therefore, strategies need to be long term and consistency is the key,” he says.

Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index, released in July, showed that 41% of the workforce is considering leaving their employer this year. The 2021 Work Trend Index outlines findings from a study of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries and an analysis of trillions of productivity and labour signals across Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn.

Other research has demonstrated similar results. According to the US Labor Department, a record four million people quit their jobs in April. The phenomenon, which has been dubbed the “Great Resignation”, is happening as employees are quitting their jobs because they are feeling less commitment to their companies since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Which is why, moving forward, businesses will need to focus on remote working, health benefits and digitalisation, says Ikhram. Remote working is not simply about telling employees to work from home. It requires thought and structural changes in workflows, he asserts.

“For example, should everyone be working from home? Some organisations divide their workforce into teams that work from home on alternate weeks to meet Covid-19-related standard operating procedures.

“However, we think it should be on a needs basis. For example, poor performers may need to be in the office while top performers can continue to work from home, or those undergoing leadership grooming, for example, need to be in the office and so on. And companies operating across several countries need to rethink how they can set up fully functional cross-border teams.

“The pandemic has shown us that technology is a bridge to higher outputs and efficiencies. Organisations therefore need to be actively looking at technologies to enable these. Unfortunately, 48% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) don’t adopt new tech because they find it too daunting.”

According to the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives, 37,415 businesses, made up largely of SMEs, have closed since the pandemic struck at the beginning of last year. Of these, 26,007 were micro enterprises and 2,738 were SMEs.

This has resulted in a surplus of available talent. But Ikhram points out that there is a higher demand for seasoned employees, who have also become more discerning about the workplaces they choose.

“Top talents get absorbed quickly into multinational corporations and large companies, which usually have the resources and attractive benefits to draw them. This has left many existing SMEs at a significant disadvantage as they cannot compete with the large enterprises in terms of upping the ante on employee experience and providing the right packages,” he says.

Since SMEs don’t have the luxury of supporting a relatively large workforce, they need people who are highly productive, he stresses. “So, how do organisations attract top performers and retain them?”

This situation is worsened by the fact that small businesses that handle HR functions internally tend to neglect the important day-to-day tasks required to run a successful business, as one or two people tend to shoulder everything from human resources planning to recruitment, onboarding and performance management. And over time, the stress of wearing multiple hats may lead to compliance issues, missed deadlines or dissatisfied employees — some of the main reasons for employee turnover.

Ikhram points out that 31% of employees quit their jobs within the first six months primarily because they are not engaged at work, citing research conducted by US-based recruitment platform LegalJobs. He adds that the research found that a good onboarding experience, among other factors, can make a difference as 69% of employees are more likely to stay with the company.

Statistics on employee engagement and retention point to the first six months as the most important period for new employees. That is why good onboarding can make all the difference, says Ikhram.

These statistics were also partly corroborated by a study released by Adobe in August. The computer software company stated that the pandemic is fuelling a period of high turnover as employees are feeling overworked and disconnected from their companies. Business leaders, on the other hand, reported that they felt like they always had to be reachable (61%) and that they were always stretched for time at work.

The Future of Time report by Adobe Document Cloud found that three in five enterprise workers who work longer hours than they would like blame their company — its work culture, administrative processes or tasks, and growth strategy. Also, at least half the enterprise workers would switch jobs for more work-life balance, to be more in control of their schedules or to be able to work remotely — especially Gen Z and millennials.

“SMB [small and medium business] leaders are also feeling the impact — one out of three have struggled with employee burnout or attrition this past year, and two in three have made changes to better retain and recruit employees,” says Adobe.

It also found that employees felt that a third of the work week is currently being spent on unimportant tasks. Additionally, nine out of 10 employees and SMBs are interested in tools that can help them tackle the tasks that are getting in the way of doing their jobs more efficiently. These include managing files, forms, contracts, payments and invoices.

“Take the employee handbook. Most employees don’t even read it properly. Now, what if it is divided into sections and available online?” says Ikhram.

“When it comes to remote working, if this whole process is digitalised and automated, all the HR personnel have to do is add the input to the systems such as HR management software — Professional Employer Organisation and Employer of Record services — with the employees’ information and allow the software to handle the whole onboarding journey. This is important because 25% of employee turnover happens in the first 45 days. In those 45 days, you need to be able to engage the employees, know their expectations and retain them.

“And then there is payroll to manage. We have studies that show companies spend an average of two weeks annually just processing payroll. And most SMEs with whom we have spoken haven’t even automated this. They are still using an Excel sheet to calculate this every month.

“A mistake or two in a paycheque is enough to cause an employee to start considering a new job. When you automate payroll deductions, there is minimal room for error. And it makes the employees’ journeys so much better.”

Health and wellness need particular attention too, he adds.

“How well are employees emotionally and mentally? With remote teams and work-from-home situations, it is difficult to gauge this,” says Ikhram.

“What processes are organisations putting in place to capture this? Also, what are organisations offering in terms of access to wellness services?

“A company that has 50 employees rarely has the economies of scale to provide a world-class employee experience, compared with a company that has more than 1,000 or 10,000 employees, which can do much more.”

Another key HR duty is performance management, which is also crucial to employee engagement.

“With HR management services, this can be automated with the objectives and goals you want your employees to achieve. For example, what core competencies do you want them to have or develop at every cycle? You can determine whether it is every quarter, half-yearly or annually. But every cycle, these things are triggered automatically,” he says.

“That means before you come to the end of the cycle, the manager is in the loop and ready to provide feedback to an employee. There are also options to automate peer-to-peer feedback. Performance is something that is rarely tracked at SMEs.

“Contrary to what most people think, which is that performance management causes employees to feel like they are being overly scrutinised, research shows that the employees are actually more engaged because now it is clear to them what the objectives are and what competencies the company is expecting of them.”

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