Ciara Pauline Kirsten S. Bancoro, fondly called Ciara by friends and colleagues, joined WeGen in 2018 as one of the managers of the Human Resources department focusing on Compensation and Benefits. She did not come unprepared. Already, she was an HR expert with comprehensive experience after being employed in similar positions for an IT company, a local chain of restaurants and the biggest retail and wholesale company in the country.
What Ciara wasn’t really prepared for was working for a company that had a defined social good orientation.
“It was all too good to be true for me. When I was first interviewed for the position, I was told that WeGen was a company that worked with the Catholic church on solar energy projects that were in keeping with Pope Francis’ call to humanity for ecological conversion. That already sounded very interesting. When I signed on and began working, that was when I saw that WeGen really wanted to be a different kind of company: it was not just intent on making a profit and making a mark in the solar energy industry, it was also determined to do well by its employees,” she said.
Ciara elaborated on why her last observation was somewhat unusual. Shouldn’t it really be the norm?
“Oh, we all know that there are labor laws that are meant to protect the rights of employees and workers, but most companies observe them just for the sake of compliance: they don’t want to be reported to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for Labor Code violations. I know this because I’ve worked for other companies. WeGen is different because it doesn’t want to merely comply with the law: WeGen wants to ensure that its employees are protected because they are considered not only to be the company’s most valuable resource, but the company’s main partner in implementing its mission and vision, “she said.
The COVID-19 Litmus Test
The real test of WeGen’s commitment to its employees came when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country hard, and businesses were forced to either close shop or make critical adjustments to its work arrangements. Ciara, who by this time was appointed head of the department as the Vice-President for HRAD immediately began to put together a plan of action together with the rest of the HRAD team together with the Interdepartmental Task Force.
The HRAD with the guidance of the IDTF prepared a COVID-19 Response Program. This was approved by the company Executive Committee with the aim to address all possible consequences and effects of the DOLE mandated Flexible Work Arrangement on employees.
Still, while this was actually in keeping with government directives, WeGen’s management took to a higher different course of action to ensure that the Flexible Arrangement will not result to any temporary suspension of any of the employees, or to the reduction of their salaries.
“We have released at least five Memoranda on how we’re addressing the pandemic. We also constantly assure the staff by consistently communicating the efforts we’re making to secure the welfare of everyone, not just in the National Capita Region (NCR) office, but those in the regional branches. The memos contain the comprehensive guidelines on flexible work arrangements, payment schedules, and the stringent measures we implement to protect the health and safety of the staff who report to the office as part of the skeletal crew,” she explained.
The priorities of the company are actually stated in the memos:
WeGen's GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF RESPONDING TO COVID-19 AS A COMPANY:
1. Employee’s well-being as the top priority
2. Business Continuity with a flexible working arrangement
3. Provide transparency of all actions and decisions by complying with all government-mandated rules and regulations for the private sector.
People over Profit
Ciara shares that she continues to keep abreast of developments in other companies and their own efforts to adjust to the pandemic, and what she’s discovering are, as can be expected, depressing.
“As early as April – two weeks after the government declared the community lockdowns in different cities and provinces – many companies began implementing measures that did nothing to help their employees and workers. Some cut the salaries of their staff by 50%; others immediately laid-off all their contractual and probationary staff. There are even shocking cases where companies just declared themselves suddenly bankrupt so they won’t have to pay their employees separation pay and other benefits, “she said.
Sanitizing and disinfection at the office daily to keep WeGen employees safe.
WeGen, for its part, made only the slightest adjustments when it came to employee compensation: since employees were not anyway required to report to the office, the company decided to just suspend the transportation allowance of its staff and nothing else. All employees continued and continue to receive their full salaries, and the medical benefits are intact. Company founder Michael Saalfeld has even been heard to say that employees should be supported because “it’s not their fault that COVID-19 happened.”
“We all know that companies exist because they want to make money – this is a given, and there’s nothing wrong with this at all. But given that we are all burdened, suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m so grateful that I work with a company that did not hesitate for a moment to support its employees first and put its own business and profit goals second,” Ciara said.
“Given all the support that WeGen continues to give all of us employees, we really hope that we can all be inspired to also do our best to help WeGen succeed in its business goals. It’s really not the typical company, and I know this based from experience. In the case of WeGen, the adage is true: that a company is a success if it is a success for all for its employees, and all its partners . We see this in all the projects and the social good campaigns and actions it engages in.”
Family and Community
Apart from helping lead the efforts to protect the WeGen family and her own immediate family - husband Evan and four-year old daughter Cassie, Ciara is also making efforts to help the community she belongs to.
Ciara recently celebrated her birthday, and in keeping with the WeGen spirit as well as from her own upbringing wherein she was taught to practice compassion for others, she celebrated it by holding a relief drive for tricycle drivers in her community whose main source of livelihood was suspended for months because of the restrictions that came with the COVID-19 quarantine.
With the help of Kring Santos from WeGen’s Social Transformation (ST) unit and the 2KK Foundation Kring works with, Ciara and a few relatives packed and distributed some 300 bags of vegetables and essential groceries to tricycle drivers and their families.
“If there’s one thing I’m really learning during this entire trying episode of our lives, it’s that we are all connected. If we don’t care and look out for one another, the damage that the pandemic will cause will be even greater. We all watch and read the news – so many Filipinos are already suffering and more will continue to suffer because of the lack of adequate and efficient social and medical support. We must all step up and do what we can to help others because what happens to them may well happen to us. The actions we do or don’t do have effects on the lives of our co-workers and our neighbors. It’s like wearing a mask in public and maintaining physical distancing: we’re responsible not just for our own health and safety, but for the health and safety of others around us,” she said.
Spoken like a true HR expert. #