The tables have turned: firms no longer need to give chase to workforce

What measures were taken after the virus appeared? What was the biggest difficulty caused by the new situation for MOL from an HR perspective?

Right after we realized the spreading coronavirus, we immediately introduced travel restrictions, and a few weeks later - in mid-March - we introduced home office work in all jobs where working from home was possible. However, our colleagues, who do critical work in terms of business continuity, worked from the sites also during the pandemic crisis, because without them e.g. we would not have been able to operate our refineries which would have jeopardized the energy supply of the entire region. We rewarded their brave performance with a pandemic allowance and protected their health with very strict precautions: masks and disinfectants were provided, we performed regular virus tests and pandemic disinfectant cleaning, and we also measured the body temperature of our colleagues at the entry points.

The biggest challenge from an HR perspective was that the coronavirus identified new tasks and new priorities for us:

we had to completely redesign our work schedules, we had to switch to digital platforms within seconds, and we also had to deal with the changed workload.

In some areas, the number of working hours has even doubled, while in other jobs there has been less work: we have had to apply these differences in our compensation policy and suspend some of our recruitment processes for a while.

We have had to make serious sacrifices in recent months, but together we have been able to take substantive action against both the spread of the epidemic and the first effects of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.

MOL operates in several countries and in several locations, so the composition of employees is also different. There are positions where home office is feasible, and there are some where it is not. What percentage of the employees were able to work remotely, and what was the percentage in which it was not possible?

MOL Group has 26,000 employees, and in case of more than 6,000 white collar positions we could smoothly switch to home office. However, in case of blue-collar colleagues and employees working in service stations, it’s been more difficult: we tried to implement a work schedule that could guarantee business continuity even with minimum presence at work.

Did it cause any tension? If so, how was it handled?

At a time of pandemic, when everything changes around us overnight, it is natural that uncertainties develop, but I think all of our colleagues have responded responsibly to the issue and we have adapted surprisingly quickly to a completely unknown situation. We have continuously trained and supported managers to deal with potential challenges properly, and we have provided mental health services to our employees, supported them with instruction videos and information campaigns so as to deal with insecurity caused by the changed working conditions.

The outbreak of the epidemic has created a new situation for companies. Is there any positive benefit of the COVID-19 at MOL? Are there any measures, for example, that have been taken because of the virus, but as they proved to work, you will stick to them in the future?

One of MOL Group's main values lies in its diversity: from Norway to Pakistan, 30 nationalities and four generations work together, so we can learn a lot from each other and about each other, which is a big help in effective crisis management as well.

After having to redirect our work to our digital platforms in a few days, we got closer than ever to each other despite the closed borders. To solve the new tasks, we formed crisis teams and agile work groups, where people worked together even without knowing each other, and the work was especially effective even this way, without the normal office presence.

I don’t think we should completely switch to remote working as nothing can replace face-to-face meetings,

but it is clear that, from both business and employee point of view, it is worth considering making work more flexible. We are currently examining the issue of the future potential of home office: in a group-level survey, we asked our staff for their views on recent months.

We need to note that the institute of home goes beyond a work schedule: it’s also a matter of trust, and trust is best rewarded with the commitment of the employees. In addition, we need to re-evaluate the concept of events and internal communication channels: the spreading of virtual devices is impressive even from sustainability point of view.

To what extent did HR practices / processes need to be transformed during the pandemic period?

We have shifted whatever we could to the online space: customer service, trainings, job interviews. Of course, we also gave up on holding internal events, but it doesn’t mean the past few months have been uneventful. We held a number of virtual panel discussions with industry players on diversity and inclusion, prepared annual performance appraisal discussions, held regular employee forums, town halls and communicated transparently throughout the group about company performance and the timing of bonus payments and salary increases.

There has been a clear appreciation of the role of internal communication in the epidemic: we have had to pay much more attention to what is happening inside the house and how we can keep the team going more than before. It is also an upside of the pandemic that we should keep in the future.

During the pandemic period, “caring” has become our slogan, and I think we supported our staff with a lot of tools: these include the above-mentioned mental health service, or laptops drawn among colleagues with families to provide devices to support their distance learning.

A few months ago, one of the biggest problems was lack of available workforce, but now the situation has changed: unemployment is rising worldwide. How have the preferences of employers and job seekers changed? Did MOL need restructuring, downsizing or layoffs due to falling oil prices and declining consumption?

It’s been estimated that almost 60 million people’s jobs in Europe will be affected to some degree by the epidemic and the crisis, be it reduced working hours, reduced wages or even layoffs. About 400,000 new unemployed people are forecasted in Hungary, but there are signs that the unemployment peak will only be at the end of the year, and we will reach the January 2020 figures by 2021 Q4.

In pessimistic scenarios, there is a protracted crisis that will put the unemployment peak by the end of 2021, and we can only expect rebalancing by 2024. But let's not just talk about Hungary: the whole region has been hit hard by the crisis. In Croatia, for example, there are already 25,000 new jobseekers.

The data also show which service areas have been hit hardest by the crisis: demand for chefs, waiters or vendors fell by 84-86% compared to last April's figures, but the situation is even worse in tourism. They are looking for 90% fewer staff in hotels and the need for professionals working in tourism has fallen by about the same.

At MOL, we also needed to restructure our work, as demand for our refined products decreased significantly and we devoted significant resources to protecting the health of our colleagues.

We temporarily suspended our recruitment processes, but we were able to avoid downsizing despite falling oil prices. The epidemic has clearly paved the way for us: we need to be faster and more flexible in both product development and retraining colleagues.

At MOL Group, we’ve always put a lot of focus on trainings, but the crisis has clearly shown that we need to be even more conscious and able to identify what knowledge and expertise we will need in 5-10 years. Digital and IT skills are becoming a basic requirement in all jobs and there is a growing demand for programmers, but we need to realize that it is not the right fit for everyone. We also need to keep this in mind when fine-tuning our training strategy.

In case of recruitments, did it change compared to what jobs you were looking for before the virus exploded? What are your experiences with online interviews and quarantine onboarding? What about foreign employees, do you experience reluctance when relocating?

Immediately after the outbreak, we switched to online interviews, which proved to be very effective: we and the candidates were able to save a lot of time and energy, and there were very few examples of technical disruption. Of course, there was also a downside to the virtual conversations: it was hard to tell whether there was a chemistry between the new employee and the interviewers, and the candidate saw pretty much nothing from his/her future work environment.

We had a lot of call-offs in the final stage selections, due to the crisis many people decided to stay in their jobs instead of taking the risk of a probationary period somewhere else. This has completely changed by May-June, and now we receive a lot of applications again.

In case of our foreign employees we see two trends. Due to the low oil price, many professionals are looking for jobs for whom relocation is not a problem, but professionals living in the region - Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian colleagues - who used to move abroad, are now returning home. During the home office, we proved how well we can work together virtually, so a new talent pool will open up for MOL. We already know that physical location is not necessarily important, certain jobs can be well performed remotely from another city or even a country.

Overall, we had a good experience with quarantine onboarding: we had even high-level executives starting with us during the pandemic period and took over their teams without having the opportunity to meet in person. They got on board without a problem and delivered beyond expectations. The challenge was rather the handover of the right tools and dealing with the administration, but we also managed to solve this with the right precautions.

Was the Growww program suspended in April and now relaunched? What do you experience, has the number of applicants changed since the pandemic? What opportunities do recent graduates have now? To what extent have your options changed compared to before the pandemic period?

We are happy that we do not have to give up on the 2020 year Growww graduates, as generational diversity is one of the core values of MOL Group, and in such a complex industry, besides the deep and comprehensive professional knowledge of our older colleagues, we also the need young people’s innovative ideas.

This year, we are looking for fresh graduates for 102 positions who aim to develop and learn in a truly international environment.

The pandemic has also resulted an interesting situation in this area: in the past, in line with labor market trends, we had to fight for good candidates, but now we experience a renewed interest compared to what we saw in March.

We would like to encourage all recent graduates to apply for the Growww program by July 17, as they can have an impact on the future of the energy industry at MOL Group and at the same time support sustainability efforts. We are a huge organization, but good ideas are not wasted: we don’t let agile, talented people got lost in the files or production lines.