The Human Resource Management or HRM practice summitted in the 1990’s and evolved to a concept of Human Capital Management or HCM in 2000’s. This 2020, the era of Human Experience Management or HXM was launched. Attending to a podcast held in Singapore, organized by the People Management Association of the Philippines and presented by SAP last March 27, 2020, it invoked in me the virtual program I had designed, presented, and implemented a few days prior to the podcast. It inspired me to expound the material.
Organizations spend hefty amount to build and maintain the culture that they desire to have. They craft their vision, purpose and core values. To keep employees’ morale, motivation, and sense of identification with the company strong and employee retention high, they try to inject dynamic employee engagement programs throughout the year. They give their employees fat monetary incentives, provide travel perks local and abroad, give exciting gifts and giveaway items, host lavish parties, fun-filled outings, glamorous awards nights, and roll out dynamic gimmicks to mold employees’ perception and influence their mindset towards adapting the norms, principles and ideals of the company. All in the belief that it will result to high employee satisfaction which is regarded as a great driver of employee’s work motivation and influencer to collectively achieve organizational peak performance.
Everything about people management was going great and getting as much support from management until a great disruption ignited at the turn of the year 2020. The novel corona virus disease 2019, better known as the COVID-19, disrupted the momentum of businesses, trade, commerce, education, medical care, tourism, transportation, government service, human lives, practically all in the entire globe. A different war from the wars that this generation had ever experienced because the war is not among nations or peoples but a war between man and an enemy unseen to man’s naked eyes—the COVID-19 virus. People from all over the world brace themselves for severe impact. To date, over a million people have been infected with hundred thousand of them have died of the disease.
In the Philippines, President Duterte declared on March 9, 2020 Proclamation 922 putting the nation under a State of Public Health Emergency. Following that, the National Capital Region (NCR) was put under one-month community quarantine starting March 15, 2020. It roused a continuum of human reactions from denial to defiance, from shock to panic, from opposition and cynicism to calm and reason. Human resource people prepared and released the employee’s pay-outs to ensure the employees have enough funds to tide them over during the lockdown. In March 17, 2020, the worsening condition of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the entire island of Luzon to an Enhanced Community Quarantine—a lockdown. Visayas and Mindanao followed suit while Congress held a special session that led to the proclamation on March 24, 2020 of the “Bayanihan To Heal as One Act”.
WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
How Virtual Employee Experience Can Be Managed in the New Normal – Part 2 of 3