Even before the effects of the pandemic, the future of work was trending toward a remote workforce. As the global crisis evolves, companies are making changes to support their employees as many expect to work from home for the near future. And though this change was necessitated by COVID-19, many companies are taking this opportunity to look closely at how they plan and execute their HR strategies as they move toward recovery.
In a recent webinar with Workday, Senior Director of People Operations Eamonn Stanley and Director of HR Technology Nathan Stearns from Zynga, one of the world’s leading social gaming companies, joined us to discuss their efforts to keep employees connected even though they’re physically apart.
Zynga owns some of the world’s most popular social games, like “Farmville” and “Words with Friends,” and has over 88 million active monthly users, leading to $1.8 billion in revenue last year. Here are a few highlights from the webinar, including how they’re engaging their remote workforce and how data and analytics make a difference.
How did you help your people stay engaged and positive as you shifted to fully remote?
Stanley: The success of Zynga depends on the creativity and the productivity of our teams. They are spread across multiple locations and make up of a very broad range of skills, from game designers to engineering to analytics.
So when COVID really kicked off, our leadership put together a special task force and the organization transitioned to a work-from-home model. The transition has gone well, despite this challenging time and we have heard from employees that overall; it went well for them.
Having easy access to HR data really helped, whether it was specific to high-risk locations or onboarding new hires due to start during that transition. Having one reporting hub in Workday saved time too; instead of having to ask “How do I get this?,” key stakeholders were able to go to that reporting hub and find links to key reports.
As much as possible, we focused on having a proactive, forward-looking approach to workforce planning and made sure we had a solid process to get new hires on board. And we used data to make better decisions and move faster. In difficult times, that’s enabled us to make a difference for our employees. We had a plan, and the data to support the plan.