The rapid spread of COVID-19 has upend­ed count­less norms and dis­rupt­ed the day-to-day flow of vir­tu­al­ly every com­pa­ny on the plan­et. Two weeks ago, a huge por­tion of the work­force was hard at work in their offices. Now, as world lead­ers encour­age social dis­tanc­ing, many peo­ple are work­ing remote­ly from their homes. 

While almost half of Amer­i­cans work from their homes on occa­sion, the shift to such a huge swath of the work­force con­duct­ing busi­ness from their homes — as opposed to the office — presents tech­no­log­i­cal and orga­ni­za­tion­al chal­lenges for com­pa­nies around the world, regard­less of their culture.

Adjust­ing to Remote Busi­ness Practices

Togeth­er, many com­pa­nies are adjust­ing to these new con­di­tions in real time and fig­ur­ing out how to run their busi­ness­es in such a flu­id sit­u­a­tion. To help its mem­bers nav­i­gate this com­pli­cat­ed time, ASUG has begun host­ing dai­ly Think Tanks, plat­forms where mem­bers can open­ly share their expe­ri­ences and hear how their peers and col­leagues are deal­ing with a cer­tain issue. ASUG Think Thanks are online dis­cus­sion-based oppor­tu­ni­ties for users to con­nect, net­work, and dis­cuss chal­lenges they are fac­ing. Host­ed on Zoom, each Think Tank cov­ers a spe­cif­ic top­ic relat­ed to SAP, rang­ing from finance to sup­ply chain.

“The Think Tanks offer cus­tomers a chance to con­nect and share when face-to-face chan­nels just aren’t an option,” said Dan­ny Pan­cratz, direc­tor of prod­uct devel­op­ment at ASUG. ​“This is par­tic­u­lar­ly help­ful with the dis­rup­tion to the sta­tus quo, increased sys­tem demands, and shift­ing pri­or­i­ties we are see­ing in the work envi­ron­ment.”

SAP Cus­tomers Shar­ing Exper­tise and Advice

The Think Tanks typ­i­cal­ly fol­low the same mod­el. After hear­ing from an attendee who presents a prob­lem or sit­u­a­tion they are cur­rent­ly fac­ing, the rest of the par­tic­i­pants offer their own exper­tise and advice. The con­ver­sa­tion then opens to oth­er rel­e­vant top­ics the group wants to discuss.

“The great thing about the Think Tanks is that there’s both a social ele­ment but also an ASUG­/S­AP-focused ele­ment that brings peo­ple togeth­er with their peers from sim­i­lar func­tion­al areas to dis­cuss how our busi­ness­es are react­ing and adapt­ing in the wake of COVID-19,” said Pan­cratz. ​“These are oppor­tu­ni­ties to make con­nec­tions dur­ing this time of social distancing.”

The dai­ly reg­i­men of Think Tanks start­ed and will con­tin­ue through the fore­see­able future, as employ­ees con­tin­ue work­ing from home. So far, they have offered a fas­ci­nat­ing pic­ture of how sev­er­al com­pa­nies are deal­ing with the real­i­ties of con­duct­ing busi­ness right now.

How HR Is Cop­ing with COVID-19

In the sec­ond dai­ly Think Tank ASUG host­ed — which was focused on HR — sev­er­al atten­dees dis­cussed their company’s work­force sit­u­a­tions, where exact­ly employ­ees are work­ing, and how they are attend­ing to HR mat­ters. Ed Hagar, man­ag­er of com­pen­sa­tion, ben­e­fits, and HRIS at Ingalls Ship­build­ing, spoke about how many of the company’s employ­ees can­not work from home because they are welders, car­pen­ters, and pip­efit­ters who are need­ed on-site.

“All week, we’ve quick­ly been com­ing out with a pay pol­i­cy, rules on the use of sick and lib­er­al leave,” he said. ​“It has been a hec­tic week in HR.”

Ingalls Ship­build­ing has been run­ning lists of their employ­ees, cat­e­go­riz­ing them in groups such as which coun­ties they live in, which employ­ees are request­ing leave, their age, and their work depart­ment. Each day, the com­pa­ny keeps close track of which employ­ees are work­ing remote­ly, which are on-site, and which are on leave. Ingalls Ship­build­ing has also devel­oped guide­lines for employ­ees who recent­ly trav­eled or might need to go into quar­an­tine, and it has devised a spe­cial pol­i­cy to pay sick employ­ees for up to five days.

“We don’t want peo­ple com­ing in if they are feel­ing sick,” Hagar said.

The State of the Sup­ply Chain Today

In a Think Tank focused on sup­ply chains, the atten­dees dis­cussed how their com­pa­nies are get­ting impor­tant infor­ma­tion out to large work­forces scat­tered among dif­fer­ent locations. 

“Our man­u­fac­tur­ing areas are work­ing. We have repeat­ed in dai­ly safe­ty meet­ings the impor­tance of hygiene and keep­ing their dis­tance,” said Michele Ohlson, man­ag­er of ERP solu­tions at Olin Cor­po­ra­tion. ​“It’s hard, because some peo­ple are work­ing from home, while some peo­ple aren’t able to.”

Think Tanks as Peer-to-Peer Connections

As ASUG mem­bers grap­ple with their response to COVID-19, these Think Tanks will con­tin­ue to pro­vide a great avenue for atten­dees to under­stand in real time how their col­leagues are approach­ing the busi­ness chal­lenges that have been chang­ing week to week.

“These are out­lets for con­nec­tion, with oppor­tu­ni­ties to dis­cuss the SAP-spe­cif­ic impacts this dis­ease has on busi­ness,” Pan­cratz said. ​“Ulti­mate­ly, the Think Tanks will act as a new peer-to-peer con­nec­tion that pro­vides val­ue well beyond the time­line of COVID-19.”

Vis­it the ASUG events page to see a cal­en­dar of upcom­ing Think Tanks and reg­is­ter for the next one that match­es your inter­ests.