Top-of-mind concern for many employers is to change their operation during coronavirus quarantine. Remote work is now more important than ever.

Bank Home Credit, like other companies in the country, has taken care of employees and their families by transferring them to work from home regime, and provided security and protection where remote work is not possible. Employees provide the continuity of business processes and customers today use most of the services online.

Zharkyn Bekzhanov, HR Director of Bank Home Credit, told about the key changes in transferring some employees to remote work. According to him, the productivity of employees remains the same.

“We reacted quickly enough to reorganize our work at the very beginning of the state of emergency. We admit that this has speed up digital transformation in business processes, including in HR, which previously might have taken a little longer. Our Head office moved to remote work in just 3 days. Employees adapted to new routine, successfully use their working time and breaks. After a month, we noticed that productivity has grown. Of course, this is not easy, because it erases distinction between your job and personal life. According to current trends, some employees are likely to continue working remotely even after the quarantine. We are preparing appropriate development scenarios and a step-by-step plan for employees to return to the office. I would like to note that communication with employees is always important, especially in work from home regime. It is difficult to manage yourself in quarantine, and it is even more difficult to manage a team under such circumstances. Especially when we haven't used it before. We are focused on two things. The first is to keep employees up to date with business news, inform them about work aspects, interact in teams, and the second one is to attract them. If we use different tools from corporate mail to holding meetings for hundreds of participants simultaneously in Microsoft Teams and feedback sessions for the first part. Over the course of attracting, we use HYPE social media (Workplace platform), where we share useful information in functional groups, and colleagues share their news, photos, and life hacks every day, which allows us to unite all of us even more in this difficult time”, - Zharkyn Bekzhanov commented.

It is necessary now to build new skills and develop new functions such as teamwork and managing a team remotely, and we use opportunities for training team leaders on online courses for setting tasks, interaction of employees in remote mode, time and stress management. We also give special attention to the creation of a new type of motivation to work from home.

We have organized online training by giving expanded access to online courses and a library on Education portal, provided with enhanced opportunities for learning English both independently and with teachers via remote communication system, started online professional training and online coaching for team leaders to help them to achieve their personal goals.

Moreover, the entire process of primary education and retraining has moved to online, which guarantees the professional training of newcomers, despite their location across the country.

Zharkyn shared a basic checklist that will help you stay productive while working from home:

  1. Make your own checklist for every day, it is sometimes impossible to adhere to the work schedule from 9 to 6 p.m. Reduce your stress level by creating the right expectations from your manager and colleagues, for example, find the work hours that are best for you or do not suit you. It can be time when your child sleeps or you prepare dinner. Tell your colleagues that you will not be available at this time or that you will respond more slowly than usual.
  2. Prepare a comfortable working zone, it will help you stay concentrated. Try not to work where you usually have a rest, divide your home space into zones: work, rest, entertainment, etc.
  3. Tell your household members that you are working as usual and not to disturb you during the day.
  4. Stay always connected, respond to emails, calls, and messages in a timely manner. Be online in all messengers and keep your phone nearby.
  5. You will have many online meetings in work from home, so it is important to make sure that your colleagues understood you and agree with you.
  6. Have breakfast, lunch and dinner in the allotted time. Try to rest during the working day, go out “from work” and go to another zone.
  7. Sports. We recommend you to do warm-up and exercise at least twice a day.
  8. Communication. Don't forget to chat with colleagues, not only for work issues, discuss news, tell something interesting, share a new TV series or book. After all, we need constant emotional communication during isolation.

 

Department Director also shared his life hacks on how to be in tune with the team, for example, constantly report to the team about events that are happening so that colleagues feel connected to the company; regularly encourage employees, since we need recognition and good news in crisis; create a ritual to switch between working and non-working mode; and finally, give special attention to the emotional state of employees.

“Working from home was previously considered as an additional benefit, but now it is clear that our attitude to it is slightly transformed. I sincerely believe that we will go out stronger and smarter from this crisis. Take care!”, - he added.

Keep in mind that maintaining a work-life balance while working from home is very important for your productivity and health. Therefore, you should not sacrifice your rest time to complete more tasks.

SB “Bank Home Credit” JSC is a part of the holding company Home Credit N. V, which is represented in 10 countries of the world, including Central and Eastern Europe, CIS countries, China and South and South-East Asia. Over 15 years of operation in Kazakhstan, more than 3.7 million people have become clients of the Bank. The strategic aim of Bank Home Credit is responsible and safe lending.