How ME achieved 90% satisfaction with its employees in the midst of a pandemic

electronic-market-growth-in-crisis

electronic-market-growth-in-crisis

Mercado Eletrônico, the leader in B2B e-commerce in Latin America, has a lot to celebrate, even in such a difficult year for Brazil and the world.

The company – which in 2020 already won the awards GPTW Brazil, GPTW Woman, GPTW IT e Amazing Places to Work achieved a 90% employee satisfaction rating and is seeing the results of the actions taken during the pandemic impacting business: hiring, which was halted at the beginning of the year, has returned with double the amount needed.

At the forefront of actions, Adriana Olive tree, HR director at Mercado Eletrônico, who has worked at the company for 17 years and rose to the position of director a year ago, in gives more details about the lessons learned along the way in a chat with VOCÊ RH.

 

What actions would you highlight as largely responsible for this 90% satisfaction result?

The last five years have been years of transformation. When we focused on “people first,” we had a turning point. My team and I started taking actions focused on the employee journey. We worked hard on diversity and set up a committee for this. We started working in squads, using the agile method. And we moved offices in 2017, moving to an environment that was completely dedicated to creativity and well-being. We wanted to bring something new to those who had been at ME for a long time, as if they were moving to another company. Everyone felt like they were in a new home. We created an onboarding program for employees and changed to value our achievements more.

This brought us a very strong maturity in people management. And the leadership was there. One of the programs that I am very proud of is “ME Desenvolva”. We use a 70% learning methodology. on the job (in performing tasks), 20% learning through interaction, in exchanges with people and what they believe learning is, and finally, classroom activities, which for us represent 10%. At ME, the protagonist of the career is not HR or the manager: it is the employee. They know that we believe in their protagonist role. To this end, we put them in a position to discuss their career with leadership. Last year we were able to implement an educational incentive of R$2.000, which could be spent on whatever the employee believed in. The manager only advises, but does not interfere, and neither does HR.

In addition, we also have feedback, which is biannual, and recognition practices, because salary alone is not enough. Every quarter, we can nominate a person who made a difference in my work, who helped me make a delivery, creating a points system, which are accumulated and can be exchanged for gifts at the ME store every year. Today, my focus is on further developing our managers so that people can deliver the best results.

 

What actions were taken to care for employees during the pandemic?

In early March 2020, Eduardo Nader, CEO of ME, was talking to experts about the new coronavirus. We talked to the board and decided that we would work 100% from home. We already had part of the team working remotely, so everyone already had a laptop. And if any adjustments were needed, we would make them. And that's when our actions began. This was the first feeling of pride: having a direction for this.

We thought we needed to provide individual, not collective, service. Why individual? Because each person had their own financial and family needs. And it wasn't just about providing service to the employee; we also needed to provide service to their family. We called people, talked, and decided that we would do a live broadcast with Eduardo every 15 days. We even did this in other countries where we have offices (Mexico, the US, and Portugal). During the live broadcast, employees can ask and answer questions without needing to identify themselves. The live broadcast, which initially lasted one hour, sometimes lasted up to three hours, because people liked the idea of ​​feeling heard and welcomed.

 

Were there any suggestions that were implemented?

Our main focus was to identify how people were feeling emotionally and how we would address this issue. We already had programs with psychologists, so we didn’t need to create something from scratch. Employees were able to receive psychological and social support and felt comfortable talking to someone other than HR about what they were going through and feeling.

Another action was “Exact Measure”. We did it thinking about the health of the body and mind. Every Friday, we had a meeting with a health coach so that people could have a moment of rest and emotional balance. We held group chat and meditation sessions. Then came the actions to improve the home office: we gave a R$200,00 voucher for people to buy items that would improve their performance at home. We also did drive thru of chairs, flu vaccinations and rapid Covid-19 tests. The pandemic was an emotional challenge for all of us, because HR also needs to be balanced and continue working hard to keep up with all demands.

 

How can HR become even more strategic for the company's business, especially at this time we are living in?

Leadership needs to give HR the opportunity to be involved in the business strategy. How does this happen at Mercado Eletrônico? When there are leadership meetings, I am always present to understand what is happening. People who look from the outside always tell me “you spend so much time in the meeting as a listener”. It’s true! But I am present, learning about the company, about how to set up our projects. squads and what they expect from digital transformation. And how do I contribute to this? Talking about the strengths of certain people, their areas of development, etc. To assemble an agile team, if you don't have this experience of what it is, what the rituals are, how to divide tasks into smaller actions to be executed, if you don't have this well defined, the team will have a lot of trouble.

I'm saying this because we've experienced it. We make a lot of mistakes. You have to be part of the business and present at strategic meetings. Another thing I have on the HR team is a person who monitors the team's health. And how do we monitor this? We promote a time when leaders can talk about everything that is missing from the team's goals in a very open way. They define the action plan themselves and execute it. HR is there once a month to fulfill this role and then transform this action plan into a list of tasks with a responsible person and follow-up.

 

See the article also on the website You HR.

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