Like most organizations during this pandemic, Itiviti’s main priorities focused on the health and safety of our employees and their families, and the continuity of service to our clients.
The collaboration between internal IT teams and HR along with simple processes allowed for all employees to get the necessary equipment for a productive and comfortable long term home office set up.
It was vital for us to ensure that we provided a plan to continue business as usual but also that we encouraged and allowed opportunities for our colleagues to socialize and get together virtually. Our employees have proven very creative and have taken many initiatives themselves organizing virtual lunches, cross fit workout sessions, Zoom birthday parties, virtual anniversary milestone events, and more. We’ve enjoyed spontaneous coffee breaks, games and quiz nights, local fundraising activities, all driven by talent at all levels in the organization. The engagement, dedication and support of our people during this time has been tremendous.
Our CEO and the executive leadership team also committed to staying connected through a series of informal one hour check in sessions. The aim of these virtual meetings was to share general business and client updates but also to check in on people’s personal well being. These one hour meetings with colleagues from different departments, levels, and countries contributed to distant socializing and also created a proximity between the leadership team and the rest of the organization in a very casual and open way. Trusting our employees will deliver to the best of their abilities, and supporting them to the best of our ability has been our motto since the start of the crisis.
Two engagement surveys were conducted during the pandemic and both surveys showed a significant increase in our engagement scores, which we interpreted as a positive response to our overall COVID-19 approach.
Many of our employees moved into remote work overnight. Despite some struggles with the lockdown and isolation or the challenge of balancing child-care and work, the ‘new way of working’ was embraced by all. Productivity tools greatly helped with making this happen.
Despite the changes and challenges, our colleagues feel that Itiviti remains very well-positioned to meet its targets.
Itiviti managers received high marks for proactively connecting and communicating with their teams. Many created dedicated communication channels to ensure priorities are clear and support is given.
During the entire pandemic, up to today, the concern and care of our colleagues inspire and support them through this period.
The current circumstances have given us an opportunity to accelerate what would have taken much longer in normal settings. We asked our employees to express their willingness to formally adopt this new way of working post COVID-19. Consistent with the global trend, our employees have expressed great appetite for a more flexible work environment.
We are keen to give back time by implementing a formal global work from home approach. Homeoffice has already become a part of our life at Itiviti and we see many upsides with attracting to and retaining talent in the organization.
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Karoline Raets is EVP, Head of People Office for Itiviti Group since April 2018. She previously held the position of CHRO for Ullink where she set up the HR strategy before the Ullink/Itiviti merger in late 2017. Prior to joining Ullink, Karoline was Senior Director, Talent & Performance Management at SunGard Financial Systems, where she developed and implemented various talent management programs.
Karoline holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing and Communication and spent half of her career in business roles before moving into the HR world.