About Our Speaker 

Connie Clark, a result-oriented Senior strategic Human Resources leader, is currently working at Worksoft, a global software company. She has over 30 years of experience in HR space and is passionate for developing and executing business goals for global businesses.  

By focusing on culture, she drives performance, accountability, and engagement throughout the team. She effectively creates work environments that focus on organizational growth, where work is meaningful, where one can collaborate creatively, and where one has opportunities to grow. 

By leveraging technology, she streamlines HR Department operations in startups or high growth environments while ensuring they are fully compliant. 

Podcast

A Peek into the Chat 

01:05 – 02:11 – What has happened in HR space? How is it different between pre COVID and post COVID? 

02:12 – 04:47 – How should company take care of employees’ well-being? 

04:48 – 07:19 – Will Companies stick to the same annual performance reviews or change it to quarterly or half-yearly? What effect does that have on employees? 

07:21 – 09:07 – Would you agree that the employee engagement is probably the number one priority for most companies at this point of time? 

How HR Space Has Changed? 

We are living in a very unique business environment. I think it’s probably like beating the dead horse every time I speak to someone, I keep saying, Hey, you know I won’t call it the new normal but it’s something unique where the whole HR space hasn’t turned over its head. They’ve become the forefront of organizations trying to keep the employees sane and make sure the performance is higher. What do you think has happened compared to how is it different between pre COVID and post COVID? what are your thoughts? 

I think right now because everyone is remote, it’s just about making sure that we’re as transparent as possible communicating, bringing the team together every week as much as we can we try to repeat things over and over in lots of different mediums, so that people can hear the messages, and they know what’s going on at any one point in time. So, I think communication and transparency are keys.  

And do you think with the whole, people have to worry about too many things like how can I go out, I have to be at home 24 hours, and how does it affect that work versus home, mental health has become a key factor in terms of well-being, so that they have to be mentally sane so that you get the best performance, at the same time, you need to take of their hey if they need a break, they need to do it. So, what kind of strategy do you think companies should take as part of this effort?  

I think it’s just making sure that everybody understands, “Here is the strategy for the company.” Do they know what the company is trying to achieve for this coming year, for this quarter, for this month, right? And making sure that the managers have weekly one-on-ones, so that they can keep abreast of how their team is performing. It’s always nice to know what kind of communication your employee is used to, so do they need you to chit chat for a while or do they just want you to get to the point, but we also have to be human beings and create a personal experience for our employees.  

So, if your employees have children and they need to take some time to get them settled in the morning and then they can hop on calls, just knowing those little nuances for your employees is so important and creating that kind of work environment for them, I know that some people like to get up and work out first where they start their day, so maybe not scheduling that first meeting in the morning and just being really conscious of what they’re going through and empathetic and having that care about them because everyone just wants to know that their manager cares about them. Then, once they have that, they can bring their very best.  

And then, on your point about we need to drive results that’s where that transparency on, here’s the strategy and here’s what we need to get done, and having those weekly conversations with your employees, one-on-one 30 minutes, it doesn’t have to be long and just making sure that we’re moving the needle and uncovering any help that they need or if they have some dependency that came in and they’re like I couldn’t do it because or remember this was now a priority, just being conscious of all those things makes huge difference to your employees.  

As part of your what you said about results and just taking that point alone, before you have this annual performance reviews, you’ll have the 360 degree feedback but then, do you think it changes a bit now? Do you think companies should say, “Hey, you know we’ll stick with the same annual performance review or because people are working remote, maybe we need to do six month, quarterly, does that have any effect or does it put more pressure on employees, “Hey, I’m getting scrutinized too often right now because I’m not there physically in the office.”  

Something that I like to do is say, “Here, what are the most important things that need to get done this month?” and have your employees come to you with, “Here are my five priorities, three to seven, here are my priorities this month and then, you can always say, “But remember we’ve got these other things that need to happen in order to move the needle on this goal,” and then maybe they can reprioritize and you’re giving them feedback.  

And then, next month, you come and you say, “How did we do towards your five priorities?” and you don’t have to say it like that, but it’s just ongoing dialogue of we know what the goals are, how did we do, we achieved them, we didn’t, things got bumped out, but every month, you’re able to talk about this provide any support, change them up if you feel like there’s something else that’s important and then you have this rolling year, these were the priorities and you have right this whole record of, yeah, we’ve accomplished all of this or remember, these new things came in.  

So, you can constantly be 80% forward looking, 20 looking behind, and you just stack all of this into a year and all along, you’re also coaching and removing obstacles and maybe there’s like one thing each month that you say, “Hey, there’s one thing this month, I think we could work on x, right?” whether it’s communication or anything but you’re not giving people 12 things at one time to work on each month. You might be layering in something new and you stack all of this up and at the end of the year, you’ve got basically your performance review already set.  

We have previously mentioned this is probably right time, where companies also focus on OKRs, I believe, which kind of aligns with what you been saying, the results what you’ve achieved this quarter. I guess there are probably times, where companies need to say because of the unique circumstances, I need to have much more handlings of what we are doing, how we are doing, probably something like OKR comes in, but at the same time, one of the result parts, putting that focus on employees engages them. Would you agree that the employee engagement is probably the number one priority for most companies at this point of time just to make sure that at least the employees should get the assurance that they are getting looked after?  

Definitely, I agree. And I think that the way you do that is you bring people in to decisions and we do surveying too. I’m always a big fan of making sure employees’ voices are heard and that I’m not creating all of the programs, so asking other people to get together in a small group, serving people on their thoughts, saying that we’re going to do this and then actually telling people that we did this, and asking for feedback only helps the organization understand the intent and then how we’re doing and what we can do better but engagement is all about what’s in it for me.  

So, anytime the organization needs to achieve anything, we always want to look at it and tie it back to what’s in it for me, what’s in it for each individual, so that they feel more engaged in the process and we can talk about anything that needs to be discussed.  

Stay tuned in to Synergita TalentCast to gain more insights on how things work in HR space.