How Technology Combined With Culture Helped Us Smoothly Shift to Remote Work

The global shift to remote work came suddenly, but HRCI was ready. As an organization, we had begun experimenting with hybrid and remote work models before COVID made the choice for us. We had a technology infrastructure in place to support the shift.

While we credit quick technology adoption and distribution for our smooth transition, the truth is a far more basic element made the shift possible. Our culture embraces empathy, learning and adapting to change. We’ve been advancing the human resources profession for 45 years; we’ve evolved before and will continue to do so in the future. And that made all the difference.

Our tech stack played a pivotal role in HRCI’s shift to remote work last year, but it’s our team’s distinctly human traits that powered our transition. Here’s how.

Pre-Pandemic Investments Paid Off in Unexpected Ways

HRCI invested in tools, processes and relationships that would support remote work at scale. Quite simply, looking around the corner and shifting our processes to the cloud long before the pandemic eased our transition significantly. 

“People could pick up their laptop and go work from home without experiencing much of a difference from being at the office,” says HRCI’s Information Technology Manager Frank Primus, aPHR. 

Because we had a basic remote work infrastructure in place already, we maintained processes without any disruptions to the business, and we rolled out new products and services like the online proctoring option for exam takers during the pandemic.

We already had a relationship with HR and had collaborated with them to prepare technology to support remote processes. Rene Sotolongo, aPHR, System Administrator at HRCI, fondly recalls hearing an HRCI board member discuss the importance of HR and IT working in tandem. “It really pushed us to look at how we communicate with HR differently,” he says. 

Building trust between the two departments was a necessary step, making it possible to establish a firm foundation for future collaborations.

We Listened and It Led to IT Improvements

A portion of HRCI’s workforce was already working remotely full-time before COVID. Even employees local to the DC metro area worked remotely a day or two each week. This allowed us to listen, learn and improve our IT operations to power the shift to remote work to accommodate what is currently a fully remote workforce. 

Our biggest challenge was developing the remote call center. “Some of the challenges were people not having the right internet connection speed to handle calls or the sound quality not being the best,” Primus says. “We had to spend a little extra time getting everyone's connection steady.”

One tactic that helped adapt the call center for remote work with minimal disruption was appointing Sotolongo as designated liaison between the customer experience department and IT. He filtered out the noise and cut straight to the team’s needs. “That was a huge step in being able to support our call center,” he says.

We Kept Learning From Our Customers

Developing relationships with our internal customers (employees) helped us stay on top of barriers to work. Of course, we knew they weren’t the only ones impacted. We were very aware our external customers’ needs were changing, too. Keeping abreast of those changes was a top priority. 

Primus and Sotolongo are both aPHR certified. “Now, when I do something, I know exactly why and who I’m doing it for,” Sotolongo says. “It changed the way I do my job.” Seeing the shift to remote work through that lens helped us prioritize workforce and customer concerns. They were able to understand workflow processes in greater detail. They understood what the customer journey looks like — and how COVID affected it. And they made sure they kept listening and learning from our customers, so that not only can we deal with current challenges, but begin taking the steps to ensure we’ll be ready for those to come.