Inclusive Management in the Age of the New Normal

By Miguel Paolo L. Paredes

Companies should be prudent in drafting their MECQ work policies to protect their employees. Before any policy is implemented, companies should include all stakeholdersĀ in the decision-making process. If, as an employee, you find yourself surprised, or wondering where these policies the higher-ups are forcing on you, came from, there is a failure in the decision-making process.

The current landscape of the New Normal has forced all of us to reassess how to go about our everyday activities. The Philippine economy has been in a relative state of inertia for at least two months. The government now has been forced to gauge new policies to safeguard the health of the Filipino people, and at the same time, to prevent an economic collapse on a national scale. The modified ECQ has now allowed for select industries to resume operations guided by strict policies to protect employees set to return to work.

Companies should be prudent in drafting their MECQ work policies to protect their employees. Before any policy is implemented, companies should include all stakeholders in the decision-making process. If, as an employee, you find yourself surprised, or wondering where these policies the higher-ups are forcing on you, came from, there is a failure in the decision-making process.
Recently, selected industries have been allowed to resume operations with 50 percent of the workforce returning to the workplace while the rest may continue to work from home. Sadly, there are some companies who have not made clear the basis in identifying which employees should report back in, and which employees can work from home. This fuels further anxiety on an already mentally exhausted workforce being forced in between the health risks to their families and themselves and receiving their continued salaries. Right now, we see the main thoroughfares slowly returning to the familiar congestion indicating more people are now returning to work. This, however, is problematic, as public transportation is now operating at a reduced capacity, forcing people to look for alternative methods to get to work. I can just imagine what goes on in the minds of some of these employees, especially if they think that they could easily perform their tasks at home, yet they are being forced to report to the workplace under fear of reduced, or non-compensation.

Policies, especially back to work policies that will have an impact not just on workers, but to the families they go home to, should be based on actionable data. This involves the inclusion of the current status, tasks, challenges each employee is currently experiencing. An umbrella policy which is expected to be implemented without these into consideration is simply wrong. There are some companies though, who seem to fall short in including their employees in their decision-making. I would like to take a page from one of my professors, Dr. Ben Teehankee. He says that “The problem is rooted in prevailing management myths and non-inclusive management practices”. While Dr. Teehankee was talking in the context of the pay packages gap between top managers and ordinary workers, I see the same concept or management myth driven by the concern of greater efficiency, as the same force which drives my point.

The point is non-inclusive management practices are counter-productive. The point is the current situation everyone is experiencing now affects each individual in different ways, their performance cannot be based on what management can see in the office spaces, factory floors or other workplaces where everyone is provided with standard tools to do their work. The new normal has made sure of that. New ways of evaluating performance based on the current capabilities and barriers employees now have should be taken into consideration. Companies need to adapt not just to protect the bottom line, but to protect their workers.

Miguel Paolo Paredes is an assistant professor in advertising and the graduate studies coordinator at the Marketing and Advertising Department of the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business at De La Salle University. His areas of interest include visual arts, mindfulness, creativity and innovation, well-being in the workplace, and humanistic organization. Email: miguel.paredes@dlsu.edu.ph