HR Magazine / "A New Beginning" by Mey|Diageo

Can you please tell us about your new working model? How did you switch to it?

With the new world order that reshaped living conditions, the changing and developing expectations of our employees played an important role. The digitized way of doing business brought the need for transparent communication and trust to the fore more than ever, and made reduction of the number of meetings and e-mails and simplification of business processes one of the important issues. Taking into consideration all these new conditions and our learning during the pandemic, we have made a "New Beginning" and completely renewed our working approach as of January 1, 2021. We announced it to the public through a presentation on our Linkedin account.

We have built our new working system with a focus on 3 areas, namely “Working Model, Communication and Competence”. We have brought innovations in working places, related fringe benefits, working hours, communication and competencies. We intend to create an agile ecosystem in all aspects, free from hierarchy, centered on justice, focused on empathy and compassion, in which all of our co-workers, regardless of their positions, fully respect and trust each other.

You said "With the new world order that reshaped living conditions, the changing and developing expectations of our employees played an important role." Can you please explain it?

Our co-workers made a free choice when we were shaping our working model after the pandemic. In 2020, we conducted surveys to see the preferences of our co-workers in the head office and shaped our business model based on their feedback. The results of the survey we conducted in June showed that 85% wanted a hybrid working model, 11% wanted to work full-time location-independent, and 4% wanted to work full-time at the office. However, the results were reflecting the initial shock since it was only a few months after the start of the pandemic.

The conditions were clearer after a few months, and the preferences of some of our co-workers changed. With these changes, 74% wanted hybrid working model, and the percentage of those who wanted to work full-time location-independent increased to 25% in January 2021. The percentage of co-workers who wanted to work full-time at the office was 1%. We shaped our working models and arranged our working spaces accordingly. At this point, it was important for us to produce a solution in line with the preferences of our employees. Because we care about building the new order together with them.

“Building together” is a valuable point of view. So how was the process?

For us, our new working approach is not only an HR policy but a philosophy. We wanted to build the ecosystem, which we strove to create based on this philosophy, together with our employees. Because it was very important for us to make sure that all employees understood the underlying mindset. This is why we adopted a participatory management approach and set up a committee consisting of different departments. Our committee operates based on collaborative working and makes decisions on the actions to be taken in line with the changing needs of and feedback from our colleagues, and shares the decisions taken with the company. The practices, which have been and will be put into place, are based on these decisions.

25% wanted to work full-time location-independent. So, isn't it difficult to set working hours?

With the new working order, the concepts of performance and efficiency come to the fore, instead of working hours. We, as a company that trusts its employees and respects their preferences, changed the working hours. Adjustment of the working hours according to their needs had a positive contribution to the performance and productivity of our co-workers. So, instead of a working order with no limits, we adopt an approach, which ensures working within the determined cooperation hours by taking the needs of employees into account. In this way, we want to make sure that the time when large number of people needs to work together becomes clear, and to help our employees arrange remaining working hours according to their own needs. Each change can bring along some new behavioral requirements and difficulties in adaptation. Everyone has specific responsibilities. Our leaders accept the problems as they are by adopting a realistic approach and try to find solutions, and we expect our employees to rely on the leaders during this change management, to speak out their problems with an open communication and to give feedback to their managers.

“Unity both in success and difficult times" demonstrates a strong bond between employees and leaders. So, what were the issues that made you come together as part of a New Beginning?

We focused on what we needed to do based on the feedback from our employees. In order to maintain the strong bond between us, we make sure that we socialize when working location-independent. In order to make the distances shorter through meaning-oriented activities, we hold sessions where employees share their hobbies and common interests with each other. We realized that what we missed the most was coming together at the terrace. So, we moved our terrace chats at our head office to the virtual environment. In addition, our employees have the opportunity to socialize in the groups they choose based on their interests, in our in-house sharing platform. Transparency is important to us. Our General Manager hosts online meetings where we meet with all employees of our company and discuss the company's agenda twice a week. We hold webinars and workshops with expert guest speakers in order to take the lead in the new world order. Since technology is at the center of our lives today, we, together with our employees, also discuss the works that slow us down or take time when working location-independent, and hold competitions on simplification projects. We publish guides and hold workshops for efficient use of digital platforms. These are just a few examples of our works. In addition, we provide new fringe benefits to our employees, who prefer to work location-independent, such as support for the ergonomics of their workplace and Internet support. We aim to generate proactive solutions for possible problems to help our employees.

What are waiting for your co-workers when they return to the office?

First of all, a renovated office! We have designed an interactive office that meets the needs of our employees, keeps our socialization culture alive and maintains the sincere bond between us, by putting health and safety first. We have widened the corridors to 2 meters and created socializing areas for more spacious environment. We want to ensure health and safety of our employees at the office with sanitation areas, tea/coffee stations on each floor, workstations with separators, table/room reservation system, flexible personnel service, etc. ... We want to make our office not a “place to work” but “a place to socialize with workmates and to create opportunities for brainstorms on work", after the pandemic ends. This is what we intend to do with our satellite office investment in the Anatolian Side, which we are planning to bring into life in the upcoming period. At the end, it's a journey. We will continue to take firm steps forward by building a new order together with our employees during this journey.