Show your employees you care for them, and they will be more engaged: Elisabeth Stene, Digi CHRO

Well-being has emerged as a top priority for many people leaders in the months since COVID-19 emerged: physical, mental, social, even financial. People Matters asked Elisabeth Stene, the Chief Human Resource Officer of Digi Telecommunications, one of the largest telcos in Malaysia, about the approach to well-being that she and her team have taken during this pandemic period. Here's what she shared.

Could you share some thoughts about the place that health, safety, and wellness hold in corporate culture?

In this day and age, health, safety, and wellness are paramount to the physical, mental and social well-being of employees no matter what part of the world you are in. With or without a pandemic, it is the responsibility of an organization to look after its employee’s well-being, as a healthy workforce is essential to enhance productivity and ensure sustainability of a business. Creating a positive, safe, healthy, and conducive work environment increases employees’ morale and overall satisfaction and happiness, and in turn has a positive impact on the organization.

This isn’t a new notion, and specifically for us at Digi, the well-being of our people takes priority in every organizational decision we make.

How have you been able to incorporate employee health and wellness into a sustainable business model?

Our people are our most valuable assets—with this firmly ingrained in our culture, our people’s health and wellness takes center stage, in any and every situation. This contributes directly to the sustainability and growth of our business, as well as strengthens our effort in offering the best place to work for our people and for future talent.

Developing and investing in our people is, and will always be, an important pillar in our business strategy. That’s what matters most to us and continues to drive us forward.

We have stringent and industry-leading health, safety and environmental (HSE) measures implemented at our premises. We’ve invested a lot of effort in driving awareness and compliance around HSE among our employees and the best practices and initiatives are tabled quarterly at our Board meetings. Last year, we became the first telco in Malaysia to be awarded the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management Certification.

What about best practices for mental and emotional well-being? Could you share some of the initiatives that have worked for ensuring employees' mental wellness during this stressful period?

We take a practical view in looking into our employees’ well-being during this time to ensure that our people and their families remain safe and business continues with minimal disruption. Our initiatives for mental well-being cover key areas such as:

Mental health—encouraging leaders to do regular team check-ins and equipping them with a toolkit on ways to engage with their teams to maintain connection and positive spirit. We also had virtual workshops and educational material on mental health awareness, accessible via our in-house D’Health app, and partnered with specialists like Befrienders to provide support and guidance on mental health related issues.

Leadership skills—supporting leaders with virtual leadership training and forums to empower them with the right skills and knowledge. For example, part of remote leadership is built around trusting their teams to continue to be productive and focus on achieving targets together despite a change in working environment and in society as a whole.

Psychological safety—making sure employees continue to feel respected and confident in speaking up, even though conversations had to be conducted virtually. To this end, we ensured that the various employee communication and engagement channels that we have remained active and open, in addition to underscoring the importance of applying Digi’s values—Always Explore, Create Together, Keep Promises and Be Respectful—to create a safe and conducive work environment for everyone’s benefit.

How do you measure the effectiveness of these initiatives and calibrate them for the best outcomes?

During the MCO period, we ran a pulse survey to have a better understanding of our employees' needs and requests at that time, and general sentiments on how they are coping with the changes. Some of our key findings:

• 99% of our workforce affirmed that they felt well-connected virtually with their teams

• 84% said they had daily calls with their managers to stay on top of things

• 90% responded that they had the necessary tools to work from home/off site

The survey also gave us insights into areas for improvement, for instance, what issues did the remaining 10% encounter with their work tools, and based on their feedback, we quickly mobilized teams to iron out those issues.

We believe the key here is to be transparent and communicate as often as you can to every level of the organization, and maintain open channels for feedback. 

Even before the pandemic, we had various dedicated channels and initiatives in place for employees to share their feedback with us, such as the Digi Employees Union and Best on People Council.

In addition, the management actively engages with our line leaders via leadership forums, and further addresses the changes and questions transparently with all employees via town halls. We also run an annual Employee Engagement and Enablement Survey that measures whether our people are getting everything they need to be effective in carrying out their duties.

Through these initiatives, we are able to really get close to the ground, listen to our people, gather real and constructive feedback, and engage in honest and open conversations to align the expectations between management and employees. These sessions are instrumental in helping us provide what really matters most to our employees. All in all, consistent communication and engagement is key to maintaining employees’ well-being especially during this unprecedented time.

What do you see as the most important lessons learned from the pandemic?

I truly believe that when employees see and feel that their company genuinely cares for them and their family’s well-being, it greatly helps with keeping them engaged and motivated.

What the pandemic situation brought out was the importance and incredible result of trusting and empowering our people. This is very much embedded in Digi’s values. We believe that trust is key in all our relationships, and we empower our people to take ownership and pride in delivering with precision and integrity. Having effective leadership engagement also played a vital role in building and sustaining trust between leaders and their teams, enabling everyone to stay focus and deliver on our purpose of connecting customers to what matters most, together.

That said, we are still not out of the woods yet as the nation continues to fight COVID-19, hence we are still in a BCP setup. But one thing is certain—trust and people empowerment continues to be our guiding principle in setting up the future workplace.