Remote office: Are we ready for the Digital Transition?
All organizations and companies have started to regulate their employees remotely or from home, and to reduce their working hours. This is the biggest home-based experiment not only in Mongolia but around the world.
We spoke online with L.Gantumur, CEO of MCS Holding LLC, about how to prepare for the global digital transition, what to look for when working remotely, and what the benefits are. He said, “Just as there is no such thing as a bad thing, we have the opportunity to test our readiness for the digital transition, to experiment with digital transition techniques, and to put it into our daily work if we put it off. It’s an opportunity to protect all our employees from the deadly plague, as well as to test how well you manage your business electronically or how ready you are for the digital transition. ”
Using multiple versions
MCS Group employs more than 9,000 people. About 60 percent of them are factory, service and sales staff. The rest are office workers. At present, all protective measures are taken to prevent factory, service and sales staff, while office workers have been working from home since the first half of February. In summary, the group has more than 2,000-2,500 employees working from home each day, and 1,500-2,000 employees working from home on certain days.
In general, office workers, such as finance, human resources, information technology, marketing, business development, and procurement, have the opportunity to work from home by taking turns working in the office. It was also considered suitable for research, document processing, or home-based work when there was less dependence on other staff.
People take time off from work to take care of their children and when they are sick. This experience shows that it is possible to work from home in the future for the above reasons. There are also experiences and examples of learning to work from home on certain days of the week.
Ability to adjust to the way you work
Due to the fact that the density of the office has been reduced by 2-3 times, some people are coming to work voluntarily. This allows you to focus. Parents with young children are more likely to stay home and work in the evenings because they have difficulty concentrating at home. So I’m coming to focus more on the office.
In addition, in recent years, our group has focused on the flexibility of working hours, allowing employees to choose their working hours according to their work style. Employees calculated their children’s school, kindergarten, homework, and traffic congestion and allowed them to come to work at any time between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning and leave between 17:00 and 19:00 in the evening. In other words, we aim to make the start and end times of work more flexible and to have a control system that is consistent with the results, not built into the working hours.
Job performance and productivity
Some MCS Group companies have already adopted and gained experience in managing their business remotely electronically. For example, Total Distribution, a local transportation and logistics company, has branches in 21 aimags, so it has learned to connect to its branches remotely and run its business successfully. But for some companies, this is their first time working from home, so I’ve found that there is a lot to learn. Of course, if 100 percent productivity is maintained, it will be the first time. In the case of MCS Coca-Cola LLC, three of the six remote offices reported some difficulty. Most monitor productivity in terms of task performance. However, in general, most of the group’s companies reported no discrepancies in performance. The company’s management emphasized that it is possible to measure the work by daily work report and weekly planned work performance.
Companies are making full use of their digital platforms for home-based testing. Some company executives say this has improved employee productivity. Although there were fears that staff productivity would decline before the decision was made to operate from home, it was found to be far better than expected at the time of implementation. I would also like to emphasize that employees are more responsible when working at home, responding to phone calls and emails very quickly and responsibly.
Responsibility
Performance varies depending on the individual organization of the staff, experience, and marital status (whether they have young children). However, there are currently no problems with the productivity and performance of those working from home. Constant communication and coordination.
Management responsibility, control and organization are important at this time. He also says that working from home for a period of time in consultation with management has the advantage of balancing the work and life of employees, reducing office workload, and improving productivity and employee satisfaction. For example, Sky Resort’s Human Resources Department issued a “Homework Recommendation” to employees. Employees work from home in a way that agrees with their immediate supervisors on the work schedule and timing of the homework, evaluates their performance on a case-by-case basis, and verifies working hours.
Work in a new environment
Each employee’s personal organization is improving and they are learning to work in a new environment. Human resources staff reported successful online interviews with job seekers and reported no significant differences. In this way, employees are responsible for doing their job in a timely manner. The company was responsible and did not change the salary.
Provide technical capabilities
Our group of companies have introduced Microsoft Office 365, so we hold our meetings on the Microsoft Teams internal communication platform, view our images, share and discuss our presentation materials. With this platform, up to 1,000 people can meet together at the same time. We also use Microsoft Planner to create work plans, monitor performance, and share information on a regular basis. In some offices, decision-making is slowed by telephone and e-mail, but this is being addressed quickly, taking advantage of the digital platform. In other words, it not only allows you to control where and with whom the work process is slowing down, but also allows the employee to work properly. Of course, the necessary team is working in the office, as it is difficult to meet online, compile materials, and develop work methods for urgent and time-consuming joint work. In addition, our information technology staff has developed an application that registers and manages who works from home and when they come to work in a short period of time, which allows you to easily see who is working from where and manage your work at the same time.
When working from home, the most important thing was to provide technical facilities. The most important thing is to provide all employees with laptops. This experience provided an opportunity to see and focus on the digital transition readiness of the group’s companies.
Satisfaction
Employee responsibility has improved when working from home. E-mail communication has become faster, and staff feedback has been positive. In addition to prevention, saving money on food and transportation is good for the youth economy. How long does it take to get to work? It also saves time. It is a pleasure to protect the health of our employees during the quarantine period and to prevent our children from being left unattended when kindergartens and schools are closed. For some companies, employees said they enjoyed being at work with their colleagues rather than at home. Therefore, working from home provides a balance between work and life on the one hand, but on the other hand, it seemed that taking too long can affect the intimacy of the community. At this time, internal organization and coordination are important.
