- Online learning, training are now assuming much significance in the context of Covid-19
- Work from home policy should be seen as part of a broader HR policy response to virus
- Digital technology can help building abilities of organizations, improve employee experience
Interview with Mr Aamir Ijaz Khan — Executive Director, ICMA Pakistan
PAGE: Kindly tell me something about yourself and your career, please?
Aamir Ijaz Khan: By profession, I am a Fellow Cost and Management Accountant and have to my credit around 20 years of diversified experience in the areas of Client Servicing, Project Implementation, Business Repositioning, Financial Management, and Compliance. I am also a SAP, FICO Certified Consultant. Before joining ICMA Pakistan as Executive Director, I was serving as Head of Quality Assurance at M/s. Innovative Pvt. Ltd. I had also worked as an Audit MIS Expert (Punjab) in a World Bank-funded project named “Project to Improve Financial Reporting & Auditing” (PIFRA) and as Executive Financial Accountant at Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).
At ICMA Pakistan, I held several positions including Chairman of Lahore Branch Council (LBC) during the period from 2011 to 2013. Being a pioneer member of the Quality Assurance Board of ICMA Pakistan, I remained a vocal participant for the first four years of its inception. I also served ICMA Lahore Toastmasters Club as its Founder President. Currently, I am a member of the Management Committee of MENSA International-Pakistan Chapter. As a professional trainer and motivational speaker, I have conducted many training sessions and workshops. I have contributed various papers on national and international forums on themes of Growth Dynamics of Pakistani Services Sector, Pakistan economy, economic sectors’ strategic dynamics, budgetary measures, etc.
PAGE: Could you give your views about the transformation in human resources in the wake of digitization during the pandemic in particular?
Aamir Ijaz Khan: We have witnessed exceptional digital transformation since the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, which has impacted every individual, business, and organization across the globe. COVID-19 has not only changed the workplace and nature of working but also the complexion of the workforce. Many organizations across the globe are now investing massively in digital infrastructure and using digital tools to sustain and remain competitive in the markets. There is increased use of video-conferencing, virtual events, distance management, and online job interviews. As we are shifting from the physical world to a virtual world, technology has become crucial to our work lives. The pandemic made us adopt digitization and technology in a way that now it has become the center of our operations. Companies around the world are now realizing that recruitment and virtual interviews are now the necessity of today’s life, hence, several of the world’s largest tech giants, including Google, Amazon, and Facebook, have transitioned to virtual recruitment processes. Amazon has changed from face-to-face interviews to virtual interviews. We can expect that virtual recruitments would become a reality in the future as embracing the digitalization of HR processes, holding interviews online, and facilitating remote working, will bring them in a better position. The HR leaders are now moving from a static to an agile planning approach and this would continually reshape the workforce during the pandemic and beyond. There is extensive use now of HR analytics and technology-led programs to aid in employee acquisition, boost engagement levels, and increase retention. In fact, flexible workforce planning has become an urgent need for today’s organizations. It is now imperative for HR leaders to remain vigilant to identify where and what the impact will be for their organization’s talent and skill needs, especially in the scenario of remote working norms, procedures, performance appraisals, etc. as almost the majority of the companies globally will be moving on to a hybrid working model with remote working and physical presence in offices. To support this hybrid model and to keep the HR function keep assessing the new talent realities to secure a competitive advantage for their organizations, there would definitely be the need for integrating all these activities by using the latest HR technological tools and analytics.
With increasing emphasis on remote working or ‘working from home’, one reality that has emerged and needs to be understood by the HR leaders is that ‘location of talent is no longer geographically limited. New remote work norms have made it clear that talent is potentially available anywhere. Consequently, the talent competition will change exceptionally; the options for acquiring lower-cost talent will expand and it would be easier to recruit diverse talent for the organization. Another emerging reality for HR leaders is that they need to make HR planning effectively in the post- COVID19 environment. They must assess the impact of the pandemic on their organization’s business model and identify and build the required workforce skills to influence or respond to an evolving business model. The need for urgent hiring of requisite talent would also be imperative. The HR leaders must remain predictive so that the workforce can continue to drive strategic initiatives.
PAGE: What is your take on online training?
Aamir Ijaz Khan: Online learning for students and online training for professionals and the organizational workforce are now assuming much significance in the context of COVID-19 pandemic scenario. Many academic and professional educational institutions, including ICMA Pakistan, have moved to online and hybrid models of coaching of students and even embarked on remote examination. This trend seems to continue, at least in the next several years, and students and professionals would have to participate in virtual training offered by trainers to keep their knowledge and skills current and relevant in today’s fast-paced business world. Needless to say, that upskilling is becoming increasingly imperatives in the current and future challenging environment and the professionals especially must strive to upskill their existing skills and upgrade them so that they can perform better in current roles or have more of a potential for promotions into higher levels. The major emphasis of such training should be on technological skills so that they can remain to stay more competitive in the marketplace. Businesses are now focusing more on online learning to train their employees in new products, software applications, new technology skills, or other business innovations that the employee will need to excel in their role. The advantages associated with online learning are vast and varied across all spectrums. With online learning, users can access training materials, watch live or recorded lectures, take assessments, interact with instructors and other learners, all from their homes or offices wherever they may be located. Online training is also cost savings for the organization as they can avoid costs related to travel, accommodation, TA/DA, and other expenses of training staff. In a nutshell, it can be said that online learning is a more convenient, accessible, flexible, and efficient method of training which can greatly benefit professionals and business organizations. The HR leaders must have sufficient budgetary allocations for the customized training of staff to encourage them to learn new skills and develop leadership abilities to become an asset for organizations.
PAGE: Could you tell me about your experience of Working from Home?
Aamir Ijaz Khan: Well, we had never thought before that working from home would become a necessity for us but the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown compelled us to change our mindset. Now, remote working is gradually becoming a new normal across the world and many companies are encouraging and facilitating their employees to work from their homes. COVID-19 has made a lasting imprint not only on our mindsets but also on our approach to working style and priorities. Today, organizations are considering ways and means on how to manage their teams more effectively until things get back to a state where we can return to our offices and maybe even beyond that. Working from home has also necessitated the requirement for an HR system that enables and facilitates remote working. The need for a complete staff management system that allows employers, among other things, to hold staff meetings online, give out tasks, and keep track of the progress is imperative during these times. The work from the home policy should be seen as part of a broader HR policy response to coronavirus. As far as my experience is concerned, we had to initially comply with the government’s instruction to cease coaching as well as stop office work when the first wave of coronavirus was in full swing from the end of March to July 2000. However, during these compelling times, our core activities continued with skeleton staff whereas most of our staff continued to work remotely from homes. In July 2020, the management decided to revert to physical work at the office with strict compliance with SOPs including the use of facemasks, sanitization, and social distancing by staff. I can say with much satisfaction that our front-line officials supported by their teams demonstrated remarkable performance by continuing with the routine activities and meeting the timelines. I coordinated with my team on zoom at regular intervals to assess the status of working and take decisions under the evolving situation. We engaged our students in online classes and also embarked upon remote exams. We also kept our members engaged in virtual events like webinars on different professional topics for their continuing professional development. Our regular publications were released on time; though we decided to stop the printing of publication as it may become a means for spreading coronavirus. After a respite of a few months, the printing has been resumed. Certainly, coordinating all these activities and managing work staff from home was a difficult task but this is what we say ‘learn, unlearn and re-learn’.
PAGE: Kindly tell us about the upsides and downsides of digitization of processes and the subsequent outcomes?
Aamir Ijaz Khan: Digitization has become an integral part of today’s society. It would be right to say that technology is interwoven into every aspect of our daily lives and has clearly transformed our personal lives. The cloud-enabled applications on our mobile devices guide our decisions and instantly connect us to our social circles. The business enterprises are also experiencing the same kind of profound changes in their daily operations as they adopt these technologies. Digital transformation of business is now inevitable to keep up with the modern world. By digitalization in business, we mean the changes impacting all the business functions and processes with a strong customer orientation.
Digital transformation is much more complex and requires a completely different approach to the business processes of organizations. Business processes are the essence of a company; they drive the business and assure that everything works as required, providing good results, products, and services. Applying digital technology to business processes is a step that can help any organization to reach its goals faster and achieve a much higher performance than it could have thought.
Automation is necessary as an essential part of digitalization requiring certain software to handle strategic and everyday processes in organizations. Improvement is also an integral part of digital transformation that is required to optimize business processes and components. I remember a very interesting survey sponsored by Microsoft on the ‘Digital Transformation of Business’ which was conducted by Harvard Review Analytic Services. This survey, polling 537 executives of enterprise organizations, provided surprising insights into the transformative effects of technology on business operations. The four key outcomes of this survey were (1) Mobile is enabling new business scenarios (2) Cloud computing is driving business agility (3) Big data is helping companies innovate and (4) Social channels are transforming core business processes. If the Pakistani organizations, in particular, focus on innovation and improved agility by spending more on technology, this could help them survive and excel in the environment beyond COVID-19. The executives handling the business processes need to be trained to assess the various business capabilities of their organizations and develop a strategy and a road map to improve and differentiate their core capabilities with these digital technologies.
As far as outcomes of adopting digital technology in business processes are concerned, it could help in building the abilities of organizations to reach new markets; increase productivity through business process automation; improve employee experience of remote working as well as customer relations. This could also lead to improvements in internal efficiency and greater responsiveness to external threats and challenges.