LEARNING TO OPERATE IN THE ‘NEW NORMAL’
The Covid-19 crisis has severely affected every sector of industry. For multinational temporary power solutions company Aggreko the challenges have inspired new ways of working, as GCC’s Matthew Mugan discovered when he spoke to three of its senior executives operating in Africa
How is Aggreko adapting to the “new normal”?
Samuel Tumma, Head of Engineering, Africa: Aggreko has proven that we can adapt and can develop a strong resilience to unexpected events. Initially, there was a steep learning curve. However, with the use of technology we are hoping to overcome any more challenges.
Dalila Velado, South & Central Africa Area General Manager: Aggreko is a very dynamic company used to quickly adapting to different situations such as new market needs, new technology regulations, policies, etc.
Romiald Noussi, Head of Operations, Africa: In the very early days of this pandemic, Aggreko started working on a robust contingency plan including people management, process management, even free management. We included our customers in the plan and we are more like partners now, which has made things easier to manage.
How has coronavirus changed the employee experience at Aggreko in your area?
Dalila: For us, safety of our employees has always been our number one priority. That’s why we immediately put in place business continuity and contingency plans. The Africa region has until now shown the lowest Covid-19 contamination rates in Aggreko worldwide, which we are very proud of.
Romiald: The company placed employee wellbeing as the number one priority. That numbers of employees were stuck on site and could not travel home was a challenge but Aggreko has taken all necessary steps to provide psychological support, including a psychological support hotline. We also organised regular check-ins with senior leadership members. It was extraordinary to see how it could boost the confidence of a technician to speak to the CEO on a conference call.
Samuel: The travel restriction was the major challenge. We had to adjust the business and consider the wellbeing of employees stranded away from their family for an indefinite time, and put more emphasis on the use of technology to get people connected.
Are you experiencing differences on a regional and country level to your operation and the way you are working?
Romiald: We had a global plan, but it was very dynamic in terms of location because when the pandemic started the contamination curve was slightly different from one country to another. You had places like South Africa, in complete lockdown, and places like West Africa where there was a curfew but not total lockdown. We had to adapt to each location.
Samuel: When the pandemic started most of the countries in Africa had a different reaction in terms of putting preventive measures in place. Aggreko has been excellent in understanding countries’ specific rules. We put in place a consistent and robust reactive plan which was very helpful in providing a continued service to our customers.
What is the biggest challenge facing Aggreko in your country/industry in the “new normal”?
Samuel: From a business continuity perspective, the major challenge we face is mainly regarding logistics because generally all operational projects need to be supported on a continuous basis.
The second most important challenge is regarding critical resource availability. What we have done as a contingency plan is first to strengthen the use of technology to fill some of the gaps regarding critical resource availability, using video or whichever technology facility is available.
Romiald: As a company we have a central pool of competency because in the modern world you can’t deploy experts across all locations. They go on location on demand depending on the criticality of the issues. It’s been a challenge but also an opportunity to see how we could address the critical engineer issues.
What is the biggest challenge for managing your staff through this transition?
Dalila: Employees’ wellbeing, from a physical but also a psychological point of view, is the biggest challenge, to ensure that when they are working remotely, they are OK, they are motivated. We ensure they have the proper environment to share the things they are worried about, that they feel well and have confidence in the future.
Romiald: Aggreko places a lot of emphasis on the wellbeing of employees and having a work-life balance. It’s a real challenge to manage between the people who are stuck on site, those stuck at home and those who have started working from home.
It’s important that employees have proper control of their working hours. We notice that when at home people tend to have lengthy working days. The company has started addressing this by sending tips on how to manage a day accordingly, on how to cut off from your laptop when you are working from home.
Samuel: The major challenge in terms of people has been to manage the sites critically. People were stranded in a country and maybe had to accept working an unusual schedule, maintaining a bit of balance with their family remotely.
Is there anything that has changed as a result of Covid-19 that Aggreko views as a positive for the business or its people?
Romiald: Aggreko has always placed a lot of importance on work-life balance, but with Covid this will be even more reinforced as a positive sign for the business and the people.
We were also inclined to jump on a flight when something did not work properly. Now there will be a better thoughtout process on how and when we need to travel.
Dalila: We have learnt how to manage a business remotely. We have also realised that maybe we could have some savings on travel in future years. I believe these potential savings on travel may happen in future years.
What adaptations do you intend to keep when business returns to normal?
Samuel: The use of technology obviously has some visible benefits in terms of cost. And the fact that we operate as a global team and people will have less opportunity to meet face to face will definitely have an impact on work habits.
Key takeaways from this new way of life are all about understanding that a reliable business must be rooted in local capability. We are considering putting an emphasis on developing local capability.
How has Covid-19 impacted your recruitment strategy in 2020 and for 2021?
Dalila: In our case there has been no impact, all of the key positions in the 2019 plan and additional headcounts have been recruited as per the new needs and new contracts we have signed. All the headcounts we planned during 2020 have been recruited and we are proceeding accordingly, and that’s it. We believe in the future.
Romiald: There are some sets of skills that we need to start insisting on more than
we did before when selecting a candidate. One of them of is clear communication. You need a candidate with this skill when it comes to communicating information clearly when they are seeking support or when they are sharing information to help make some critical decisions.
The second thing is local talent. We must maintain the same global standards but by using local talent. I think this is the way forward. Moving people around in the current conditions would be very tough.
Last but not least is getting people with a high level of mental toughness to get through this kind of situation, especially for leadership roles. Managing intense teams remotely and delivering high performance in a very demanding industry like energy is something that is not easy to achieve.
Samuel: Recruitment going forward will be driven by new opportunities and looking at the diaspora, mainly Africans. I think there will be some massive opportunities if the business keeps the current growth momentum. High-flyers who are willing to return to their home countries and operate will have the priority in recruitment from an IT perspective. This will be one of the first drivers.
In terms of a key performance indicator to drive recruitment, we are planning to put more emphasis on IT requirements and ensuring that at all levels the people we are bringing into the business are not only IT trained, but show the capability of being autonomous and demonstrate quality use of IT technology.
When do you expect a return to normality for Aggreko in Africa?
Romiald: Africa is not a closed continent and the performance of the business is not only driven by how countries are performing internally.
We have a lot of interaction with Europe, the Middle East and Asia and have to be very cautious about what is happening in some countries in Europe, in the UK where the level of contamination is again increasing, because this will definitely impact business growth across Africa.
To be realistic I’m looking at 2022 to be the most optimistic time to have business returning to normal.
Dalila: What is normality after this situation? I believe that this is our new normal and that we have been doing extremely well working under these circumstances. It’s very difficult to foresee a specific date, as it depends on many variables that are not under our control.
I hope 2022 will be back to the old normal, but in 2021 I believe we will continue working like this.
Key takeaways from this new way of life are all about understanding that a reliable business must be rooted in local capability
Samuel: We have to be positive because we have seen over the past few months all countries in the world putting more emphasis on control of the disease. Even though it is said that most countries have reached the peak contamination level, the level still remains a major concern mainly in some European and Middle East countries, and also Africa.
We strongly believe that 12 months is a realistic time to come back to the old normal. ■