In the last issue of Lider, we published an extensive topic on new work models that have emerged after the lockdown. Remote work, working from home, home-office, remote work… all these are names for the greatest global change in the corporate work model that was born during the corona crisis. All these names can now be unified under a new term, the so-called SmartWork, which has begun to be used by global companies, including in Croatia, turning temporary work from home into a long-term strategy. However, not as an exclusive but as a hybrid model, that is, a combination of home and office work. This mostly applies to technology companies, but other sectors are increasingly considering the permanent possibility of working from home.
For all entrepreneurs considering this idea, we bring a series of examples of SmartWork model leaders in Croatia. We discussed transformation and reorganization with Ivan Bartulović, a member of the Management Board and Chief Human Resources Officer at Hrvatski Telekom.
What were the key internal factors in your company that influenced the decision to change the work model?
Through employee satisfaction surveys, which we conduct regularly, we received feedback that employees are very satisfied that they can work from home without interruption, which was one of the indicators that we directed the new work model in the right direction. In fact, in a recently conducted employee satisfaction survey, it was shown to be the highest in the last 15 years. This sounds incredible given the situation, but it confirms the rule that quality organizations show their true value when it is most needed, and more than 90 percent of HT employees were very satisfied with the company’s actions during the corona crisis. Over the past three months, we have witnessed the transformation of Hrvatski Telekom from how we work, how we collaborate, and how we communicate, and our physical daily routine has been replaced by a digital one. Given that this situation was completely unprecedented, we all learned on the go, and therefore it was extremely important to analyze daily how things function in practice, and feedback from our employees was extremely important. Starting from the satisfaction with the possibility of working from home and the safety of their own home, to the desire to return to the offices and personal contact with colleagues when the situation stabilized. With the desire to capitalize on all the good things we learned in recent months, we created a new operational model – SmartWork, which was officially introduced on June 17.
What does SmartWork specifically entail in practice?
SmartWork integrates the best of both worlds, combining the best practices and benefits of working in the office and working from home, and clearly describes how we work and what we want to achieve. It is a model that defines us as a digital company in the digital age in which we operate. The new work model implies the possibility of occasional work from home, and it is, in agreement with the supervisor, available to almost all employees, while some groups of employees, such as technicians or colleagues in direct sales, due to the nature of their work, do not have the possibility of working from home. If an employee wants to take advantage of the possibility of working from home, they agree with their immediate supervisor on how many days and which days of the week they plan to work from home. Within the new work model at Hrvatski Telekom, there are several schedules, and some other combinations of work schedules are possible in agreement with the supervisor and according to the needs of the job: 2 days from the office – 3 days from home, 3 days from the office – 2 days from home, 4 days from the office – 1 day from home, 1 week from the office – 1 week from home, 2 weeks from the office – 2 weeks from home. At the company level, we are aiming for a long-term work ratio that approximately implies that 60 percent of the time is spent working from the office, and 40 percent of the time is spent working from home. As an additional precaution, we have also introduced a division into teams based on functions critical to our business, where employees work in rotations, and work is divided to respect distance measures.
How challenging and demanding was the entire transformation process for the company?
Our main priority was the safety of our employees, and equally important was our responsibility to our customers and fulfilling our role in society, where I believe everyone agrees that connectivity and ensuring telecommunications services allowed us to continue functioning. Hrvatski Telekom had a previously developed business continuity maintenance system, so the decision to work from home did not catch us unprepared. On the contrary, most of our colleagues were able to start working from home even before it was recommended on March 19. However, reorganizing the entire business of Hrvatski Telekom with more than 5,000 employees was an extremely demanding endeavor. Systematic organizational changes require months, and we successfully accomplished this in less than 10 days. To ensure work from home, we changed more than 100 internal and external procedures, and we transported 1,250 computers and laptops to the homes of our employees. Additionally, we managed to transfer the entire customer support, more than 1,000 employees, to work from home, and colleagues received reinforcement from employees from sales and stores, whom we temporarily transferred to new responsibilities and trained in a new type of work, wanting to preserve all jobs. For colleagues who remained working in the field due to the nature of their work, we procured the necessary protective equipment, and we are extremely proud of them because they were on the ground every day, ensuring that customers remained connected and could work and function. Because of them, children were able to follow school through e-learning, people could work from their homes, and families could stay connected despite physical distance.
