Putting people at the centre of the COVID disruption

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected social and organisational environments around the globe in a multitude of ways. The Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) is, not surprising, impacted at various levels, given that the centre not only functions as a research institute, but also the provider of education and employment to over 100 persons.

Based in Singapore, the centre is a microcosm of the global community, made up of researchers, technicians and management staff from over 20 countries. It is a lively research hub not only for ETH Zurich and EPFL, but also partner institutions in Singapore. We receive a constant flow of master’s student, researchers on exchange, employees on sabbatical, and the such. This was before COVID-19.

But even while activities seem to have halted on the surface, researchers at the SEC are keeping busy in an environment that has changed drastically in just four months. Immediate problems are research that requires the physical presence of experiment participants; and international travel curtailment that makes it a challenge to recruit from overseas and for researchers to have face-time with their principal investigators (PIs) based in Zurich.

Ensuring that every employee has VPN, TeamViewer and antivirus set up are but the bare basics to enable working from home. The question is: what does it take to continue business-as-usual when nothing is as “usual” as it should be?

Dealing with global-scale issues in a multinational environment in tropical Singapore, some strategies are very much universal:

• Communicate: communication is key in tackling the challenge, as is the case in many other organisations, and even nations. Like the ETH Zurich, the SEC communications team has increased the frequency of the internal e-newsletter and townhall meetings to share regular updates not only on research activities, but also on how colleagues are coping.
• Engage: continue to engage with one another and with PIs in Zurich, such as with Prof. Sacha Menz on the FCL Global proposal and Prof. Bozidar Stojadinovic for the CREATE webinar series.
• Camaraderie: One of our programmes, the Future Cities Laboratory, has implemented a buddy system to make sure that everyone is responsible for someone. We assigned a mentor to each new employee who joined during this period to ease them into the work environment, albeit virtually.
• Empathy: No one gets left behind. We maintain interaction at the individual level to ensure the well-being of colleagues whom we think may have less social support. With most of them living in small units in high-rise apartments, working from home could have adverse effects on their mental well-being. Some were also distressed as they could not travel home or return to Singapore from other parts of the world.
• Plan for continuity: An emergency response flow was developed and an emergency response team has been established to handle situations that may be out of the norm, that may require additional support and specific local knowledge to resolve.
• Adapt and learn: learn from the current situation to make things better (what works, what doesn’t, what improvement opportunities have become apparent, etc.)

Reflecting on the positive outcomes, challenges, and insights, it is apparent that everything in life is constantly in the process of becoming something else. Change is a constant, not the exception. If we focus on what we can control (and not worry about the rest), we can free our thinking and let opportunities arise. If we manage to carry the learnings forward to a “new normal”, that may well be one of the good outcomes of the current period.

Thomas Rufener is the managing director of the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC). In this role, he is responsible for the operational success of the centre from the strategic as well as day-to-day management points of view.

The thing that keeps me busiest at the moment is: Keeping the SEC afloat
My favourite app is: the “no” app
One book or movie I recommend: “Immunity to Change”. Kegan & Lahey, Harvard Business Review Press
And if all else fails, my instant pick-me-up is: Going for a walk