By Tessa R. Salazar
Like Alanis Morisette singing “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”, we can’t help but think that, because of the pandemic, the very companies that are supposed to compel you to go out, drive, travel, and transport people and stuff, have themselves been forced to keep their employees stay at home and work there. The extended lockdowns imposed on society for more than two years hit the brakes on businesses hard, making companies across all industries evolve and adapt fast.
The work-from-home (WFH) setup had been one of the more universally accepted changes. However, like all things new, it hasn’t been without its challenges.
Harvard Business Review, in its story “Our work-from-anywhere future best practices for all-remote organizations” by Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury that appeared in the November-December 2020 edition, indicated that the pandemic had hastened a rise in remote working for knowledge-based organizations. The article goes on to assess that the remote work setup has had notable benefits: Companies could save on real estate costs; hire and utilize talent globally; mitigate immigration issues, and; experience productivity gains, while workers enjoyed geographic flexibility.
However, concerns arose on the following issues: How communication could be properly coordinated across time zones; how to securely share knowledge that isn’t yet codified; how employees could socialize virtually and prevent professional isolation; how to protect client data, and; how to avoid slacking.
Despite these misgivings, global companies proceeded to adopt the remote work setup. In March 2021, Forbes featured Ford Motor Co as it announced that its 30,000 employees worldwide could opt to permanently WFH, even as the automaker subsequently allowed its employees to go back to their offices starting in July for tasks that required in-person meetings.
In November 2021, Bloomberg reported that Volkswagen AG had extended its WFH flexibility that the company had already been practicing to some extent since 2016, with employees now able to pick which four or five days a month they wanted to spend at the office. Toyota, ever one step ahead of its peers, even provided its WFH workforce practical guides on how to achieve work-life balance while employees turned their homes into their offices.
In January 2021, media.toyota.co.uk published “Working from Home: How to Do it the Toyota Way.” In the article, experts from the Toyota Lean Management Centre in the North Wales plant offered such tips as “how to solve being chained to the desk”, “losing the work-life balance”, “the messy desk (If the kitchen table now doubles as a workstation)”, tips on what and when to eat, technology challenges and more.
Now, as society goes back to a semblance of normalcy (read: pre-pandemic hustle and bustle), companies are re-assessing their work setups. As 2022 is about to end, and with the Covid-19 virus now considered as a manageable endemic disease, Inquirer Motoring touches base with car companies in the Philippines to learn how WFH has impacted their workforce, and their plans moving forward in a “new normal”. For this, we pick the brains of their top executives.
Hybrid work model
Michael Breen, managing director of Ford Philippines, said, “Ford Motor Co has shifted to a hybrid work model where employees and people leaders are empowered to decide together on the combination of remote and in-person arrangements to best deliver their work.”
Lawyer Louie Soriano, general manager of the sales division of Honda Cars Philippines Inc, said: “HCPI is currently implementing a hybrid work arrangement. Associates report onsite three times a week and are allowed to work from home for two days. We have observed that this approach has been mutually beneficial for HCPI and for the associates. It has improved job satisfaction as it did productivity. WFH arrangement has helped ensure business continuity when it is unsafe to travel to the office.” Soriano cited specific situations when WFH is warranted, such as during natural calamities (typhoons and earthquakes).
Felix J. Mabilog Jr, president and COO of Columbian Autocar Corp, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has really brought a lot of changes in the many aspects of one’s life. Who would have thought that one will be allowed to enter banks with your face mask and face shield on? Another is the WFH arrangement that companies implemented to continue operations in the middle of lockdowns. But WFH arrangements also brought about new challenges aside from the solutions that it offered. Technology offered WFH solutions to make certain operations viable during the lockdown. But this same technology created additional requirements at home: Good internet connectivity, strong mobile signal availability, software and hardware compatibility and increased electricity consumption.”
Juan Manuel Hoyos, president of Nissan Philippines Inc, said, “Nissan still employs a hybrid work setup. The pandemic taught us that there are benefits to both working from home and working onsite. We at Nissan have the tools we need to maintain our strong collaboration and communication for a hybrid work setup.”
Face-to-face service
As for their dealerships, Breen said that “most of our Ford dealerships have returned to working on-site to facilitate sales and service operations which are best delivered through face-to-face interaction with customers.”
Soriano said that HCPI dealers still allow WFH for their employees as needed. “In principle, the dealers need to make sure there is sufficient manpower onsite for business operations, and they also need to keep everyone safe from Covid infection risk,” he explained.
Hoyos said, “Since our dealers are our frontliners, and to ensure that our customers are served with utmost priority, our dealership staff are 100-percent working onsite.”
Telecommuting policy
Breen assesses, “When we developed our Evolution of Work strategy as a response to the global pandemic and the future of work, our position was that our hybrid work arrangement would help each of us to deliver for the business by creating a culture where people feel cared for, empowered, and equipped to do their best work wherever, however and whenever they are located: At home, at the office or elsewhere. We have proven this when we launched our Telecommuting policy years before the pandemic. Employee survey results proved that we are correct in this assumption that our people are more productive and more satisfied with the flexibility we have provided them through our hybrid work arrangement.”
Soriano said, “especially during the pandemic, we have seen how the WFH arrangement has been imperative to protect the health of associates and their families, and also to keep the business running and provide much needed products and services to our customers. Later on, we also recognized that this work arrangement is appreciated by our associates and they have also improved the way they navigate work and personal time. Some may argue that productivity can be an issue, but it can be resolved with systems in place and proper mindset towards the management of deliverables. It does take mutual effort by both the company and the associates to make the system work. We have also recognized the merits of physically reporting to the office and interacting with friends and colleagues. We can say that a hybrid work arrangement helps the well-being of our associates, keeps them motivated and productive whether they are working in the office or from home.”
Mabilog said: “A company whose product requires manufacturing and assembly cannot fully benefit from WFH. And that’s what we are. Car companies are nothing without a product that requires to be assembled, or sell a vehicle that is best appreciated when test driven, or replace spare parts that need to be withdrawn from a warehouse and needs to be installed by a technician. And this is the nature of our business. Of course, there are still some parts of the operation that may benefit from the WFH arrangement: Marketing, planning, finance and administration. The WFH arrangement is only a quick fix as required by the circumstances. At this time, we allow WFH as required due to quarantine, health and/or medical reasons.”
Mabilog added: “WFH offers certain benefits to employers primarily in reducing overhead expenses, maintaining effective communications among key personnel and preventing complete cessation of operations. And to the employees, there is no need to commute to the workplace if one is working at home. But it also made it difficult for employees to enjoy work-life balance. If you are working at home, your personal space is now also your work space.
“Technology has answered some of these social interactions through the various social media platforms, but people need to fully interact with other people. And no technology can replace personal interaction where not only the sense of sight and sound are satisfied but also smell, taste and touch as well,” said Mabilog.
Hoyos said, “Working from home has definitely given everyone in the workforce new perspectives on how to navigate through our day-to-day tasks to support our business. A few benefits of WFH are that the remote setup eliminates travel time and avoids traffic, bringing more efficiency to a number of our departments. WFH also has its challenges, one of which is the lack of personal interaction, which is important in establishing relationships in the workplace and building a strong corporate culture. We make sure that we still keep our employees highly engaged despite the hybrid setup.”
Moving faster, more efficiently
As far as WFH impacting productivity, Breen observed, “Our hybrid work arrangement is an acceleration of our efforts to modernize the business and has allowed us to move faster and more efficiently to offer more Ford vehicles to our customers, such as the Ford Territory and F-150, at the height of the pandemic.”
Soriano said that the hybrid work arrangement has helped HCPI sustain business operations while protecting associates’ health. “Through the WFH system we can continue to operate, our associates can continue to work, and therefore we can continue to provide our customers with products and services. It’s the same world-class quality, perhaps even better because without the WFH system, operations could be easily hampered by natural disasters, for instance.”
Hoyos said, “WFH, especially during the height of the pandemic, posted a lot of challenges on our product offerings and service deliveries due to limited movements. We needed to adopt new ways of working and pivot to digital methods quickly. As a result, we became more creative and innovative in delivering our products and services to our customers. Some of our innovations were digital launches, virtual showrooms, and Service-on-Wheels (to bring our services closer to the customers). While working from home, most individuals and families wanted to take a break by travelling. Hence, we launched Safe Trips, a campaign with the Department of Tourism to address the need for safer and more responsible travel. The campaign encouraged safe ways to travel during the pandemic, and also promoted physical and mental health.”
In place pre-pandemic
Breen revealed that even before the pandemic struck, Ford employees had already been practicing remote work. “The WFH arrangement had already been in place with our telecommuting policy. All employees have been provided with the necessary work tools such as laptops and VPN connection, as well as mobile phones for field personnel, senior managers and executives to be able to attend and participate in meetings from wherever they are.”
Soriano also observed that the WFH setup would have been inevitable, with or without the pandemic. “I believe businesses were already (going in the direction of WFH), especially in the context of improving business performance through employee satisfaction and business continuity during times of crisis, like natural disasters, and risks from infectious diseases.”
Hoyos revealed that even before the pandemic struck, NPI had already set up flexible working situations for its employees. “We actually can say that when the pandemic hit, we were able to quickly pivot, and balance compliance with national policy and business interests. We believe that working remotely could have found its way around even without the pandemic. It may be hard to think that the automotive industry could operate under such conditions, but it’s global events such as the pandemic that taught us that we at Nissan can achieve the unimaginable. With situations such as rising oil prices and the economic struggles we have been experiencing of late, we need to take a look at the bigger picture and see how we can innovate to allow our workers to grow the Nissan way.”
Departments ideal for WFH
Soriano said that those engaged in sales and marketing departments can work from home more easily. “It’s possible for other departments as well, provided there will be systems in place that will allow them to do so. However, I believe a hybrid work arrangement is better than permanent WFH,” he stressed.
Hoyos said: “While a full WFH setup is advantageous for all departments, we cannot deny the importance of working onsite. There are customers who would rather prefer to test drive and see our products in person rather than visit a virtual showroom. Working onsite also allows teams to build deeper relationships and communicate better with others. I think that a hybrid setup, which is a mix of remote and onsite work, is the best option for everyone. I also believe that this is where the future of the workplace lies as we try to balance productivity and well-being in the post-pandemic era.”
