The primary challenge of 45% of Public Sector HR teams is supporting wellbeing and stress levels of employees
Businesses are coping with the Covid-19 situation in myriad ways and taking a number of steps in relation to staffing levels and redundancies, according to Strategic Pay’s recently released New Zealand Pandemic Business Response Pulse Survey 3.
The survey was conducted between 21 and 23 April. There were 202 validated responses. Of this sample, 99 were from the Private Sector, 44 from the Public Sector, and 59 from the NFP Sector.
HR Teams under pressure
In particular, the HR sector are facing a range of challenges. This includes managing the cost of staffing levels and supporting staff to work in a safe manner which are top of mind.
The primary challenge of 45% of Public Sector HR teams is supporting wellbeing and stress levels of employees.
For the Private Sector, the challenge in forecasting future workforce needs in a fast-changing market environment is most common, with 38% of responding organisations citing as such and this is reflected in the Not for Profit Sector.
Moreover, mental wellbeing of employees features strongly across all sectors and participants commented on the importance of supporting employees on reduced work weeks and managing underperforming staff at a distance.
Unintended positives
The most common unintended positive organisations have experienced as a result of the crisis across all sectors is fast tracked flexibility and remote working practices with 70% of responding organisations citing this.
The majority (60%) of organisations also mentioned the positive effect of the emergence of new people initiatives or ways of working that organisations hope will continue post lockdown.
Other positives noticed were reduced absenteeism and improved communication with the leadership team.
Moreover, very few participants 3% noted that there were no noticeable positives, showing that although a very uncertain time, organisations are trying to take advantage of any positive.
Annual salary review planning
Overall, 46% of organisations are not planning an increase when asked about their salary review planning, however 44% of organisations are not planning to change their pre-existing plans / police for salary review increase.
This is consistent across the sectors, however 11% of Public Sector and Not for Profit Sector organisations have cited they are planning to apply across the board increases, compared with only 2% of Private Sector organisations planning as such.
Those who have decided on across the board increases are planning increases in the range of 1-3%, with financially constrained organisations only planning increases for lower paid workers at this time while senior executives miss out. Many organisations are still working through their planning.
Overall, 46% of organisations have noted no change to their business outlook response when moving from Alert Level 4 to Alert Level 3, particularly those in the Not for Profit sector (66% of responding organisations).
The Private sector are looking towards a more positive outlook with the move to Level 3, with 57% of responding private sector organisations reporting they anticipate a positive impact with the move to Level 3 with one noting that lockdown was ‘dire’ so any move from level 4 was seen as a positive.
Overall, 15% of responding organisations fell their organisation situation will worsen with this more so in the Public (17%) and Not for Profit (18%) sector compared to the private sector (11%).
Organisations comment that there is a serious tool being taken on tourism and organisations that rely on philanthropic donations which has flow on effects. Comments coming through note that the step from Level 4 to 3 is much the same but that Alert Level 3 to Level 2 will be the light at the end of the tunnel.
Strategic Pay Chief Executive Officer, John McGill, said that this information is particularly important for businesses at this uncertain time to support decision making and understand broader market practice.
“There are some interesting differences in the responses between the Private Sector/Not-for-Profit Sector and the Public Sector that highlight the different pressures these groups are under,” said McGill.
“For the Private Sector/Not-for-Profit Sector flexibility in work practices and forecasting the future workforce are the clear priorities whereas for the Public Sector while flexibility in work practices is right up there, staff wellbeing ranks as their second most preferred issue.
“Clearly the pressure on costs is not quite the same in the Public Sector as elsewhere. It’s not a large difference but it does reflect a different focus from that part of the economy as they come to grips with the impact of this crisis.”
