www.hrreporter.com 23
"It was more like sharing and a
community of shared best practices
amongst the managers... But it was
tough for some managers to manage it
with empathy."
Nathalie Dubois, Hydro-Québec
with the pandemic, says Dubois.
"Technology was a game-changer,"
she says, and any colleagues who
were skeptical that people could still
be efficient working from home were
proven wrong. "This for me was really
revealing."
The pandemic has also put the area
of talent development and succession
planning into perspective.
"It's a great opportunity to [consider]
'How do we build those small teams?'"
says Dubois. "We're thinking about
'How do we take advantage [of all
this] and the lessons learned and the
capabilities that we saw turn into our
organization?...' 'How do we manage
the change management that's coming
out?' So, for us, it was a good acid test."
While the technical skillsets of the
organization are very strong, HR decided
to focus more on the soft skills with
management. That meant, for example,
telling them that it's OK to acknowledge
if they're struggling, she says.
"It was more like sharing and a
community of shared best practices
amongst the managers, and creating
those moments…. But it was tough
for some managers to manage it with
empathy."
Another big change has been around
training. Before, roughly 80 per cent of
it was done in class, while 20 per cent
was virtual, says Dubois. Of course,
that all changed overnight with the
pandemic and virtual training became a
top priority.
"Instead of hiring somebody and
having like two or three months of
intense training ― because it's [about]
the health and safety in our business,
and you end up retaining 10 per cent
of what you were trying to understand
over a few months in class ― when it's
integrated with the technology and
virtually as you do the task, you do
on-the-job training," she says. "And you
can do it on your own time at your own
pace."
Overall, the COVID crisis has put
the spotlight on HR, with similarities
to the 2008 financial recession, says
Dubois.
"There's a greater appreciation of
human resources."
CHRR
