The shift to fully remote work (*PayPay introduced “Work from Anywhere at Anytime (WFA)” on September 1, 2020) has had a significant impact and changed not only the way we work but also our minds and bodies. What are PayPay’s thoughts on maintaining and improving the health of employees working remotely and what measures are being taken? In this article, we will show you our latest initiatives.
Visualizing remote employees’ condition
How do you visualize how an employee is doing in a remote environment?
Kawai: We check employees’ condition online (using a “pulse survey”) twice a month. We decided to use a one-minute survey so that employees can respond quickly and intuitively, instead of requiring a longer one that takes time to fill out.
What effects have you observed by doing that?
Hagiwara: It’s the same as checking your blood pressure or temperature every day – you start to notice the changes and try to maintain and improve by improving your diet, sleep, etc. Visualizing your condition has the same effect. Changes in various areas, as shown in the diagram below, can be detected early, not only by employees themselves but also by the company. As a result, improvements can be made together according to the stage.
What led you to introducing this system?
Kamide: In September 2020, PayPay introduced the WFA system (Work from Anywhere at Anytime), which involves everyone working from home by default. While we were able to provide employees with a way of working that allows for more freedom, we were also concerned about possible delays in detecting employees who are not well, which we could notice by seeing each other in the office every day, and ask “you don’t look well today… what’s the matter?”
We consider managing employees’ health as one of the most important missions for us, so we introduced this system in order to grasp the situation in real time as much as possible.
Why does PayPay emphasize health management?
Hagiwara: We believe that maintaining and facilitating the health of our employees is the foundation of the company’s success and a key to increasing the chances to succeed in making our business evolve into a “super app” that makes people’s lives more convenient and fulfilling. By providing the right support, we think we will be able to raise morale, improve performance, hire more talent and retain them.
What specific approaches are you taking for improvement?
Hagiwara: The overall approach we have is to analyze multiple scenarios and improve productivity. We have accumulated data for the past two years, so we can check the condition of our employees by going through this and looking at the processes and results. We leverage it to implement data-driven measures (management initiatives, human resource allocation, incentive design, retention measures, etc.).
The individual approach is to respond immediately if we find signs of deteriorating condition. There are a variety of measures we have, such as the assigned HR rep interviewing the employee after checking what their optimal status was, offering both an internal and external hotline to consult about health-related matters, suggesting an interview by an industrial physician, or setting up a management consultation with their superior, amongst other things.
So, employees have various options if they need to talk to someone!
Kamide: Yes. Imagine the whole company supporting each and every employee. If someone has a work-related concern or is experiencing any troubles, they not only have their direct superior to talk to – they can turn to their mentor (someone aside from their superior who has slight seniority), HR business partner, the person in charge of labor-management, external counseling service that will preserve their anonymity, industrial physician, or compliance hotline. Many different cases are covered through these options.
Please tell us your thoughts as the person in charge of labor management.
Kawai: PayPay is a highly dynamic company that operates at a fast pace. While this gives us a sense of joy and rewarding experience, we are concerned that it might make it difficult for people to say something like, “I’m not feeling well,” or “I’m in pain.” Therefore, we would like everyone to answer frankly about their situation through visualization of their condition. We would like to learn as much as we can about your situation and concerns, and work with you to find ways to improve them so that we can protect your physical and mental health, while at times making sure to refer you to medical professionals. Physical and mental health is the most important foundation for work. We will continue to take necessary actions such as preventive measures in the future too so that we can keep the balance between our business growth and firmly protecting that foundation
[Final remarks]Hagiwara: Before the introduction of WFA, we sensed whether our co-workers are in good condition or experiencing some kind of problem by looking at each other’s posture and facial expressions in the office, listening to each other’s voices, or going to lunch together. The approach we have introduced for the visualization of conditions under remote work is somewhat similar to that. However, saying that everything is fine now that we have visualized everything would make us stop thinking and growing, damaging the fruits of our labor, so our goal is to aim for a more advanced visualization based on the data accumulated by HR, and then to further improve the quality of our solutions. In a highly uncertain environment, we believe that being at the forefront of change and making constant updates can help reduce that uncertainty, and therefore we want to do this in the health field as well.
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Authors: HRBP Team / Managing Editor: Az (PayPay Inside-Out)
*Employees’ affiliations are as of the time of the interview.
