Companies need to implement a well-designed restructuring so they could better position for a recovery from the pandemic, while using digital technology to market their products.
“It is now proven in research that organizations that are diverse and inclusive outperform other companies. Even when you look at whatever key business metrics, productivity, innovation, safety and profitability, these companies are really outperforming the other,”Amel Villanueva, workplace gender equality advancement manager for Investing in Women (IW), said in a webinar.
Villanueva said resourcing for future growth can involve expansion of need for diversity of skills and ideas, and increased employment opportunities for gender-balanced teams.
To mitigate the impact of layoffs, she cited examples of practical actions including providing retraining, career testing or establishing employment connections and opportunity sharing through marketplace platforms, or making links with other organizations in adjacent industries.
Villanueva said it is imperative to discuss which changes are most likely to support the needs of both the organization and the affected workers, and how best to implement them.
“To explore options for next steps, rapid skills assessment (is imperative) to identify where skills not used in one area could be shifted to other areas of the organization, internal job advertising to promote internal mobility,” she added.
Melissa Vergel de Dios, corporate sustainability and investor relations head at PLDT, underscored the importance of digital inclusion especially to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
“…Narrowing the digital divide so that you can use your technology to revive your business. Maybe rethink your business model, rely on technology, rethink, reimagine how you can resurrect under the new normal,” she said.
De Dios said pandemic-hit MSMEs need to transition to a more digital kind of workplace.
Anna Chua-Norbert, chief group culture officer at DDB Group Philippines, urged companies to use technology to market their products.
“It’s really crucial because what we found during the training of MSMEs is that we had to teach them the very foundational ideas of how to do social media postings, how many letters, your graphs, your colors, it’s really back to the basics,” she said.
“How surprising that the Philippines is one of the most advanced and the most populated when it comes to social media but as business owners, you don’t really know how to market yourself so it’s very crucial to continuously do this,” Chua-Norbert added.