The Chief of Staff in a reserve exercise in the north: the likelihood of war in the north is higher than before"/Doc
The war shook the economy both from a personal and professional perspective.
For many, returning to work, which is an anchor and a routine, has become extremely challenging.
Many companies deal with employees who have experienced trauma, vulnerability, lost their most precious, a kidnapped family member or those who were evacuated from their homes in the conflict zones and still do not see the end.
Reservists these days are returning to "routine" and find that the gap between 4 consecutive months in the reserves and returning to work makes it difficult for them to adapt to the situation and function in the optimal way.
Many companies understood the situation and prepared on the fly to face the most difficult challenge they had to face since the corona virus.
So how do you gradually adapt a work routine?
What advance preparation can or should be done before an employee's return, and how can an envelope be made that will contain his pain and adjust the method of support according to the employee and his needs?
Eilat Ritz Benvanishti Vice President of Human Resources Altman Health/Anat Kobi
Eilat Ritz-Benvanishti, Vice President of Human Resources at Altman Health, has to deal with the kidnapping of her cousin, the soldier Omer Nautra, to Gaza, and at the same time take care of the well-being of her employees, some of whom were among the first-line victims of October 7. "First of all, I go back a little to the early days, already So we realized that we are in a different and ongoing situation that we need to understand how to prepare for it," she says.
"We realized that there are missing people, kidnapped people and someone's son who is seriously injured.
The first thing was to understand that we need to be flexible, to see how we balance the needs of the people and the organization.
To surround with warmth, love and care and of course to offer help in whatever is needed.
From the first moment, the message we conveyed to our employees was: 'Take the time you need'.
A worker whose son was injured was very worried financially and the tasks that accumulated, people ran out of sick and vacation days and it was clear to us that we wanted to remove this worry from their hearts."
Did you have an emergency plan in the drawer?
"We were prepared, but in the process we realized that it would take time and we might have to recruit Also people to work with us temporarily until workers return.
In addition, we knew that one of the things that needed to be provided was emotional care financed by the company.
It's something that we have all the time, but during this period we really went out with it actively.
We saw it just like providing first aid that gives enough tools and a quick and available response at the company's expense."
Ritz-Benvanishti explains that work is the light and the anchor for many people: "When everything around is going crazy and there is no routine, over a period of time work was actually a comfort zone that kept the strength and strengthened" And
today, when soldiers begin to be released, evacuees begin to return and seemingly normality returns, what is happening with you?
"We are still far from normality.
The main key is first of all to be attentive to people, to remember that everyone is a human being first and then only an employee in the organization.
And our role in the organization is also to understand that everyone has their own rhythm.
Some people take a week to return to work and some take longer and that's fine.
This is the instruction that went out to all our managers as well."
Altman made sure to also give special attention to the women of the reservists, the company's employees, who have been in a difficult situation for several months. "We have always maintained close contact with the families, supported and also strengthened them financially.
We understood that there could be a great difficulty in returning to work or in maintaining normal routine hours, and we used a special workshop for human resources managers, to get the right tools to deal with it.
We have facts that their partners have not been home for more than three months.
So the support is comprehensive for every employee.
"There is no secret or magic. The way is to understand that sometimes the situation can be complex and complicated for someone and it may not be. And here special sensitivity and attention is required that may not be there on a daily basis. Call, ask. Understand that sometimes the employee first needs to be at home with the family, maybe change the The flexibility of the hours. When you are allowed, you also do your best."
And how do you cope when your family member is kidnapped in Gaza?
"It took us two days to realize that he was kidnapped, and it wasn't easy at all. First of all, I felt that the organization allowed me to put it on the front, talk about it and tell about it. On the 100th day, I also included it in my professional presentation. I was very excited and felt that I did not give the best presentation My goodness, but this is the message I'm trying to pass on as well, that expectations can be lowered during this period.
"This is our message to the employees as well. The biggest tip is to be attentive and understand that this is a period of new balances and that our role as an organization is on the one hand to maintain business activity, but to be attentive to what is happening to people. Something big has happened to us as a community and we need to find these places in the day A day that gives us strength, and as an organization we have the ability to do it."
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Liat Rubinstein Director of Human Resources Actifans/PR
"We understand that the reservists experienced something powerful, they were in a place where their contribution was significant and returning to reality is like a slap in the face. The perception is that those who were not there cannot understand," says Liat Rubinstein, director of human resources at the high-tech company Activfens, 15% of whose employees left for reserve.
According to her, "We built a comprehensive plan for the return of the reservists - we really did research, we talked with colleagues, with organizational psychologists and we also did webinars - to build the most professional and complete plan possible. Each manager is required to sit down with the HR director for careful preparation before the employee's return along with training from an organizational psychologist In addition to all the benefits we have granted, we understand that there is a great need for a gradual return to routine and we understand that for each employee this may take a different period of time."
One of the actions they did at Activfens was to follow the series of grants that go to reservists from the state and the Ministry of Defense and to update them and assist in the bureaucratic process.
"We didn't want to let them run after it on their own. These are people who haven't been with their families for a long time, so first of all, of course, we allow them more vacation days, flexibility in hours and adaptation to tasks at work again, but we are also here to make it as easy as possible for them to return in the tangle of bureaucracy".
Orly Amar, VP of Human Resources Strauss Israel/Ezra Levy
The Strauss company also had to deal with the consequences of 7/10: three of its factories are located in Sderot, Roar Hail and Vaid Mordechai, and in addition, almost 45% of the company's employees were evacuated or drafted into the reserves.
"When the war broke out, our 'I believe' as a company had two main goals," says Orli Amar, VP of Human Resources at Strauss Israel. "Caring for the safety of our people, making sure everyone is in contact - and maintaining business continuity.
We understood that it was necessary to continue providing food to the citizens of the country, but of course that first of all we had to take care of the workers and maintain unity."
Amr says that already on the first day after the war, 400 sales representatives were unable to come to work. "We immediately said how we continue to supply the goods.
We set up a digital website that allowed our employees to volunteer and help, both with the packaging and at the points of sale, so that there would be ongoing operations." "
Our organizational resilience is one of the things that is important to us and it also exists in the routine," explains Amar, "We didn't have to come up with a national mission.
The food supply was in front of our eyes and this created a great deal of stability with the workers.
We identified the exceptional cases, and established a HML that first of all gave our employees quick solutions while the government was still not available for assistance. Employees from Sedrat who were evacuated were staffed by people who assisted them with housing units and alternative living quarters. We also held events with our evacuated employees and allowed people to work from home."
Amr explains that although it is possible to create many solutions of vouchers, assistance and fun days, in the end the most important thing is that the managers themselves be in the field.
"Employees need to see them, and not as if. We know how to tell when it's a fake, when someone calls to mark a V. If I receive 100% salary and currently only give 50% because that's what I can, I want my manager to understand me, and support me to That I will feel good about myself. That is indeed what happened and that is the whole story."
You have a large number of evacuees from Sderot, and hundreds of recruited workers.
How do you deal with returning employees now?
"We're not used to this. To begin with, the solutions are spot-on. It's knowing that if you have a financial or babysitting problem and you tell me about it, I'll know how to find the smallest solution that will allow you to breathe a little and combine work and personal life. Regarding the returnees, both the reservists and those who who evacuates his home, the return is not all at once, and just as there are different versions of the deal, there are different versions of returning to work. It is not in one piece."
Where are the challenges?
"Take, for example, reservists who are at the beginning of their professional career. Sometimes they are released for a month's vacation and they return to the reserves, which creates a situation where they are not 100 percent here, nor there. This creates crises in the army, at home and at work. How do you deal with it on a daily basis? And how do the managers deal with it? We realized that we need to give tools to both managers and employees
.
All managers have gone through workshops.
There are human resources managers who formulate together with the managers how they are going to return the employee to the position, how the staff accepts him again, to know how to identify the need and respond to it."
Between the flexibility with vacation days at the company's expense for those returning from reserve service, to mental and emotional support for the employee, his friend In Strauss, also to the NTAL association for providing assistance and coping tools to managers whose job it is to also take care of the employee's resilience.
"We also ask the employees to define what they need and want, and looking ahead, we are currently working with the organizational development on a therapeutic meeting in nature in designated groups and a therapeutic mediator that will allow those who would like to process the experience in an additional way. Everything has shaken up in the last four months and it is definitely a kind of journey and a kind of understanding organizationally that the company's goals must also be calibrated to the situation that has arisen. This also requires a very high sensitivity from us."
More on the same topic:
reserves
War of Iron Swords
Gaza war
Working
work places
Welfare