Optimizing Remote Learning in a COVID Environment

As businesses worldwide postpone and cancel in-person training and meetings in response to COVID19, workplace learning is emerging as one of the earliest and hardest-hit casualties of business operations. Based on OVP Management Consulting’s engagement with a cross-section of clients in the months leading up to and during the pandemic, we are seeing for-profits and non-profits alike increasingly pushing the pause button on talent development and capability building.

Organizations, however, cannot afford to put critical workplace learning on hold indefinitely. Whether an entity’s focus is to re-tool business unit skills or engage in organization-wide transformation, businesses need the ability to develop employees while also prioritizing workforce safety.  Remote and digital learning platforms, already a channel for employee learning prior to COVID19, are even more vital now.  

Three areas, in particular, stand out as strategic opportunities for digitally engaging employees during the rapid pivot towards social-distancing: talent development, virtual-adaptive training and employee learning.

Talent Development :Performance management and talent development can be a powerful way to engage your workforce during the COVID19 crisis, signaling that you are investing in your people during this challenging period while also moving your operations forward. When moving to a virtual platform, however, it is vital that you work by design rather than default.  Team and one-on-one coaching over the phone or online, for instance, do not offer the same breadth of body language cues and intimacy that in-person meetings deliver.  As such, during OVP’s coaching sessions with clients, we leverage the constraints of physical distancing to listen even more closely to clients and use customized online materials both during and after sessions to increase engagement. 

Targeted virtual offerings: To create a comprehensive arrays of virtual learning offerings, build a cross-functional response team comprising members from relevant stakeholder groups. These include business partners, IT and training personnel, and customer and community counterparts.  Evaluate existing virtual offerings against critical business operations to prioritize scarce vendor and design resources.  For instance, must-have activities like employee onboarding will require a combination of live and on-demand programs to ensure both legacy requirements like performance expectations and new requirements like remote working skills, are communicated consistently.

Employee learning: A substantial increase in the use of digital delivery to enhance employee learning is under way across all segments of the workforce, from frontline employees to senior leaders. While digitally-enabled environments have been implemented by many organizations out of necessity rather than choice, virtual platforms also provide a strengthened collective focus and sense of community for employee, customer and community stakeholders.  Organizations that previously had very little interaction, due to functional or regional boundaries for instance, are increasing collaboration through videoconferencing, instant messaging and other forms of digital engagement. 

While it is far too soon to determine the ultimate impact that COVID19 will have on employee learning, it is clear that the adoption of digital venues has clearly accelerated, providing with it the opportunity to promote a culture of ongoing engagement both within and outside of organizational walls. 

Pam Hill is a a Senior Consultant with OVP Management Consulting Group, Inc. and can be contacted at pam.hill@ovpmanagementconsulting.com.

Hiring Leaders During a Global Pandemic

Hiring for executive positions during a global pandemic brings with it a mixed set of issues.

On one hand, the uncertainties of a stagnant economy combined with unpredictable manifestations of the viral spread of COVID-19 make finding new leadership for your organization a significant challenge.

At the same time, however, that same instability across the larger economy, along with significant job losses and furloughs, has widened a pool of uniquely positioned candidates for roles in organizations that need help. These obvious contrasts are buttressed by tracking data that helps tell the story of the current and near-term future of employment in the United States.

These obvious contrasts are buttressed by tracking data that helps tell the story of the current and near-term future of employment in the United States.

The Society for Human Resources Management recently conducted a survey of human resources professionals that found 40 percent of employers have had to shut down certain aspects of their businesses, while 83 percent have adjusted their business practices.

The study involving more than 2,200 respondents also found that 71 percent of employers said they are struggling to adjust to remote work, while 65 percent said that maintaining employee morale has been a challenge. These types of sobering trends presents unique challenges when confronted with needing to change leadership within organizations.

Consultants like us at OVP Management Consulting Group are leaning into the fluctuating employment market by helping our clients retool as well as expanding our stable of exceptionally talented professionals for a number of leadership positions our clients have. A constant across for-profit and nonprofit segments alike is that all organizations are eager to shore up their leadership teams, in order to confront the uncertain future in their respective areas.

To ensure we are providing clients with the best options, we are actively seeking talent in a number of consultancy best practices, to support client organizations. Specific disciplines that we seeking to augment our staffing include:

• Refocusing all of the leadership priorities and update job descriptions to reflect specific skills necessary for successful candidates to succeed during crisis periods

• Leveraging informal national networks to widen the pool of potential candidates, beyond a normal geographic footprint or the “usual suspects”

• Conducting rigorous pre-screening interviews by video conference to get an early start on evaluating the behavioral aspects of a candidate’s personality and situational awareness

• Guiding client expectations regarding the filling of leadership positions in a reasonable time period Insisting on successful candidates having the most advanced remote communications equipment they can get to ensure seamless communication during critical times

Each of these practices gives consultants working with OVP Group an opportunity to demonstrate their long-term value to a client, by demonstrating an understanding of the nuanced nature of hiring during uncertain economic times.

When combining these advisory services with rigorous tracking and evaluation scorecards, we enhance the kinds of leaders our clients attract and retain, thus improving their organizations’ fortunes - even in the midst of a pandemic.

Alejandro Bodipo-Memba is the Founder & CEO of OVP and can be reached at Alejandro@ovpmanagementconsulting.com.

Leadership in Crisis

Leadership in the midst of the global pandemic of COVID-19 is essential for survival of the societies and systems we have assumed would always be here. With uncertainty comes fear and anxiety. It is the role of a leader - any leader - to address these tensions by seeking credible information from primary sources, synthesizing that information and sharing with people they are responsible for, in one way or another.

It has become all too clear that there is a dearth of transformational leadership in the public arena, at the moment. But, you can change that in your own way and in your own organizations.

Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

I was recently asked to provide some tips on how best to confront the reality that people will lose their jobs as a result of the rapidly growing novel coronavirus outbreak. How do you tell people that they may lose their jobs because of sheltering-in-place orders, for example?While no one solution fits every situation, my advice was to focus on four things - Trust, Compassion, Stability & Hope - in order to effectively communicate difficult news about people's future with an organization.

• Lean into the concept of establishing trust with your employees and colleagues. Now is not the time to harbor hidden agendas. Speak the truth about the situation you are facing. It may not be nice to hear, but it will be appreciated.

• Remember that we are ALL human. We all have feelings, fears and insecurities that could be particularly frayed at this moment. Extend a bit of grace, and show the basic human compassion that we all need when facing difficult circumstances that threaten our livelihood.

• Share your intentions about the future and how you propose to move forward with the business, department or organization. Maybe that means creating some kind of 90-day re-entry plan that outlines your intentions for the business after things begin to settle. Show that you are trying to create a level of stability, even in the midst of crisis.

• Speak about your hopes for the future with your people, and include them in that vision. Offering a sense of hope that things will get better is what transformational leaders do. You can't promise people what you don't have. But, you can promise to work hard to achieve your goals. Giving people hope is what can motivate people to accomplish extraordinary things.

Leadership is not easy. Particularly when it requires you to make difficult decisions about the future of people that you work with. I believe that if you do your best to create a human connection with folks and you tell them the truth as you know it, you are modeling the best of our transformational leaders. You are the kind of leader we need now.

Supporting Causes that Matter to Your Company's Mission

One of the key traits of a visionary leader is how she marries the bottom-line realities of a business with deeply-rooted cultural practices that help define the kind of organization one is building. Often times, prudent leaders will align their business objectives with larger issues - the environment, criminal justice, civil society - to highlight a set of beliefs that guide a general approach understanding the priorities of a company. This is a simple, yet effective way to signal to prospective collaborators and clients about the culture they are preparing to engage with.

The notion of ethical behavior in the business world has drawn a lot of controversial coverage over the last decade. There are a series of notable examples - Martin Shkreli (Turing Pharmaceuticals), Travis Kalanick (Uber), Jeff Skilling (Enron) - of apparently talented and skilled leaders who crossed several ethical lines to try to line their pockets, at the expense of stated company policies. In each of these examples, the leaders appeared not to have held themselves, or their C-Suite colleagues to generally accepted standards of ethical conduct.

While merely stating a company’s intention to align itself with a well-meaning cause doesn’t guarantee a company and its leadership will behavior ethically, public statements of affiliation with certain causes can shine a light on how people are expected to behave within a company culture. Making public statements about company intentions in this way, can serve as internal guardrails for workplace conduct.

We encourage clients to revisit their Mission and Vision statement periodically to inquire how they are doing against the backdrop of stated goals and objectives, vis a vis employee behavior. It is up to visionary leaders to insist that their behavior, along with that of their leadership teams exemplify the highest aspirations of a stated mission.

We also recommend that the periodic inquiry take place in a formalized way; perhaps an annual survey that is supported by regularly scheduled small-group discussions (or one-on-ones) that reinforce the cultural foundations of workplace behavior. It’s also a great opportunity to retest the original intent of the visionary language, to make sure that the team and leadership are upholding the tradition and spirit of ethical behavior linked to higher ideals that dictate operational culture.