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The Era of Virtual Organization and Ways to Adapting
The worldwide health crisis that is caused by COVID-19 has been going on for almost nine months and for several countries, this pandemic hasn’t shown any sign of forthwith recovery. Making it top to 10 countries that is still severely struggling taken from both health and economic spectator, Indonesia is trying to combat the virus from health sector by practicing protocol of hygiene and large scale of social restriction (PSBB) which one of the impacts is numerous of business have to adapt to a new working method. As a gesture of compliance, working remotely or not physically attending office popularly known by the term WFH (Working From Home) is practiced by many.
Working remotely from home has forced us to adapt to change. While we are obliged to adapt to recommended self-sanitation, we also have to put effort in adapting to current trend in technology supporting this remote working style. For business to survive and avoid further financial crisis, taking advantage of working medium that costs little to no money or budget fitting will help reduce operational expense and cover loss of revenue. The emerging technology on the rise ranging from conference meeting, HR system, and data centralisation software or application have been widely utilised by companies practicing Working from Home or blended working to keep employees intact with one and another and easily monitored. Kimia Farma is one of the many companies that is making use of the trend and adapting to blended working style, working from home and from office partially.
One of Kimia Farma employee testified that not only they adapt to protocol of hygiene, they have to adapt to using new digital platform that’s still foreign to use. Not only that, managing time and productivity in home has put more burden on the employee. To help socialise ways to adapt, Kimia Farma teamed up with Tjitra & Associates to one-day webinar event with the topic Digital Ways for Personal Productivity. The speakers, Kristina Aryanti, Principle Consultant from Tjitra & Associates, highlighted future work style and how to find comfort adjusting to it and Mas Rizal Afriadi from Kimia Farma gave examples and brief tutorial on the usage of digital platform. The webinar was held on Friday, September 4th 2020 and attended by excited participants totalling up to 214 Zoom users, from staff to managerial and up levels.
Just as one of Kimia Farma’s employee had mentioned, adapting to digital platform as the new working tool is not easy and can be mastered in one night. The pandemic is still in front our eyes and we are never assured of when this will end, and much to our discontentment, using digital platform to communicate with company organisation doesn’t come with any bargain. There’s no shortcut to surviving the economic than to adapt. This hybrid and flexible organisation is foreseen as the future working style. Remote and digital based. As if adapting to digital platform isn’t already effort taking, managing time and finding comfort in the process come next.
Based on Gawe 4.0, a program that Tjitra & Associates presents a framework that raise awareness on some topics to conceptualise individuals and organisation that are ideal to thrive the future work, flexible or hybrid working style has been developed in the early stage of the pandemic as a guidelines for companies to practice a new working style, agile organisation.
Kristina mentioned there are four working areas that altered during hybrid working style based on the guidelines developed in Gawe 4.0: working space — setting up professional and comfortable working spot in the house, people collaboration — solidify teamwork by using communication platform to keep up the intimacy and notify each others about work related things, flexible working hours — as working space change from office to home-based, working hours adapting to employee needs and managing it is important but to give more quality work output is emphasised as the new focus, and the last is technology advancement — if we have to see it from positive perspective, we can take this moment as personal growth and development in learning new competency that will add value to our capacity. The pandemic, in some ways, has fastened the growth of new technology as the demand also rises.
The next thing is to be aware and figure out what type of person we are when it comes to working. With the help of Tjitra & Associates’ consultant, Alwiyah, participants filled out a brief assessment poll to determine each of their personality type in working. The types are Pragmatic Type — focused on autonomy, likes to have control in what they work on and task-oriented, Result Type — result-oriented, technology sparks idea and creativity, Relationship Type — team or person-oriented, empathetic and approachable, Knowledge Type — fact and data oriented, analytical, and the last one is Ruler Type — process and structure-oriented.
From the assessment poll, it is shown that at least 50% of the participants has Relationship type. One of the participant wondered if it was because of the influence of Indonesians very own culture, Guyub. Alwiyah then elaborated that being situated to work in closeted area with little physical interaction might have changed most of the participants working style. The lack of face to face interaction in close proximity brought out what the participant actually needed the most as they adjust to blended working. In this case, the presence of online conference technology should meet their need and what’s best to do is to fully utilise it. Just like what this webinar event practiced, Zoom brings people to the same place despite not physically being in the same place. From this assessment poll result, there are tips and trick for each of personality type to better utilise it as a future worker. Alwiyah Maulidiyah gave an example of tips and trick for productive working style for the Relationship Type personality. She advised a set of time to limit unnecessary use of social media, utilise digital conference platform to keep being connected, set a time to focus on family members and a time to focus on work.
The hybrid organisation and blended working style are seen to be the future of working fashion as the pandemic impacts on every single aspect of our life, including the economic and limit our mobility in open space. The technology will keep rising and answering the demand. As an impactful and aspiring individual future worker as well as a part of conventional organisation shifting to a hybrid one, just like what Kimia Farma is practicing. Adapting is an ongoing process, but to have a visionary mind set and to be aware of our personality type in term of working style will also lead us to must be the first step to change.
Article created by Monica Khalista, S.Psi – Consultant of Tjitra & associates