JUNE 2021HR TECH OUTLOOK EUROPE8In MyOpinion"TO SURVIVE, WE THRIVE"Dr. Heike Virmond, Global Vice President People, Culture & HR, GategroupBy2020 was a hard year ­ I think no one of us would disagree with it. Business-wise, it asked many companies to adapt quickly and bravely in times where structured planning was almost non-existent. As people, we were catapulted into a new way of working and living. For us at gategroup, it was especially challenging as so much of our business is directly related to the airline industry, which was decimated by COVID-19. From an HR perspective, this was an enormous challenge ­ we had to find a viable path between the often-conflicting forces of business continuity, financial restriction, organizational restructuring and terrible, terrible human costs. There always is a path, but where and how to find it?Dave Ulrich once described the role of HR as "paradox navigators" ­ and at some point, in our career we have all had to face these paradoxes. The paradox I'm now facing is one of surviving and thriving: ensuring the going concern of gategroup and preparing the phase after the crisis while enabling the path out of the crisis. Both are required, but they require different activities, skills, and mindsets ­ and the root of the paradox is simple: it's not achieving one or the other, but both. For context, airline and airline-related industries have been hit dramatically by COVID-19, with the most optimistic estimate for recovery being by mid-2022, and more pessimistic estimates reaching as far as 2026. For gategroup, this was unprecedented. With no planes, no food is needed on the planes, and even with planes, meals have been restricted to a minimum. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand the impact this new reality has had on our organization, business, and people. The realities of the world as we had come to know them had fundamentally changed, and we unprepared and wondering what to do next. Obviously, we had to continue, and the company must remain a working concern ­ a situation demanding immediate and decisive action to impose and maintain cost control, reorganize the business, and keep Dr. Heike Virmond
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