Ondrej Safar, CEZ Romania: “A bigger push for digitalization and implementation of collected data is needed”

“The past 8 months have been the undoubted proof that we are a stronger team than we could have imagined. And our full focus when lockdown in March started was diverted in two main directions: to keep the light on in all essential institutions and homes and to keep our employees safe and sound,” Ondrej Safar, Country Manager for Romania, CEZ Group, told The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“I see many opportunities and a set of learning that boosted our development instantly and is critical to be preserved for the years to come. The digital communication with clients, the new strategies and implementation ways for traditional activities, the benefits of a mixed way of working (office + teleworking) and the awareness that we are so much more resilient than we could have imagined. (..) In 2021, we are expecting for the world after the pandemic to become more digitalized. Sector wide, it is visible that a bigger push for digitalization and implementation of collected data is needed. We need to have an ever more insightful knowledge of our clients in order to predict potential impacts more accurately and earlier.”

What leadership skills do you find most useful in the current changing work environment?

I would say that easy and quick response to any change of context is one of the most useful leadership skills in the current situation. This combined with always transforming challenges into new opportunities puts one in the driver’s seat and on a positive track. Also, my personal experience taught me that, regardless of context or challenge, a leader surrounds himself with a strong team to which he points the direction, while giving it the trust and confidence to test and confirm its own solutions. The result is always surprisingly positive and far above a single’s person’s abilities. 

Which are the empowering mindsets and building the sense of meaning & purpose, both for employers and employees, to keep each other engaged in reaching the business objectives in 2020 and in the next year?

For us, the past 8 months have been the undoubted proof that we are a stronger team than we could have imagined. And our full focus when lockdown in March started was diverted in two main directions: to keep the light on in all essential institutions and homes and to keep our employees safe and sound.

Our people in the field, as much of heroes as the doctors and the police forces, were immediately endowed with high standard protection equipment, similar to that of the medical staff in the emergency services and hospitals. Not only it gave our people the peace of mind and trust that they come first for the management of the company, but we also acted responsibly towards our consumers and clients by not becoming a contamination risk factor, while continuing our operational activity for their benefit. The digital mindset and systems we started to build inside the organization few years ago were the wonder buttons that we were able to push instantly and send to teleworking more than 50% of all employees within one week.

We have endowed our field teams with high-safety protection equipment and for the few employees not working remotely, we have secured all locations against infection and further spread, according to all the recommendations provided by the health and safety specialists.

We were all scared back in March and facing a great deal of uncertainty and we addressed all those fears with the help of psychologists, health specialists, coaches and inspirational platforms that dug deep into our inner core for the resilience and self confidence that kept us aligned with the business objectives.

We keep our employees well informed on our business goals, targets and successes and we make sure they get the credit for their efforts. We try to be by their side at any given moment with personalized internal projects, a continuous dialogue and regular online discussions. We also provided them with an E-learning platform so that they are able to continue their professional and personal development. And last but not least, we encourage them to stay involved in the company’s CSR projects and we provide them with fun/ art/ personal time activities that they could enjoy from the safety of their home.

What should be a CEO’s and leader’s power message on business resilience conveyed to peers, partners and employees  for 2021, in order to enhance the trust and engagement?

15 years have passed since CEZ arrived in Romania and started to build a strong and reliable partnership with authorities, local suppliers and partners and of course, the local community.

I would say that we have proven that energy always comes from people, despite all circumstances and challenges and I think that this new reality is just another step in our development.

How can a CEO and leader of an organization capitalize on the current challenges to enhance and promote the company’s competition advantages currently?

I see many opportunities and a set of learning that boosted our development instantly and is critical to be preserved for the years to come. The digital communication with clients, the new strategies and implementation ways for traditional activities, the benefits of a mixed way of working (office + teleworking) and the awareness that we are so much more resilient than we could have imagined.

Which are the current concerns of a CEO / leader in 2020?  Which are the hopes for 2021?

Mine, as a CEO in the utility sector, definitely refers to protecting both the health of its employees and customers, along with all measures required to reinvent the operations and keep doing your business in the current pandemic conditions. From our point of view, as a key energy supplier, distributor and producer, we are permanently looking for new ways to improve our activity, to respond to our clients demands using our online channels, to keep on being a reliable partner for the local community and to strictly implement all protective measures for our employees/ clients and partners.

In 2021, our goal is to act towards the new reality and to keep in place the lessons we learned so far and that enabled us to have the same or even better results that the previous year, from an operational point of view.

What kind of  innovative measures and inclusive leadership initiatives have been applied within your organization this year, to better cope with the current context and bring the business forward in 2021?

We were considering a work-from-home pilot for CEZ employees’ way before the COVID-19 situation started to develop but at a smaller size. From the first cases in Romanian, we managed to instore a rapid decision-making process and an emergency project team that would enable us to consider all personnel and operational aspects of our business.

By the nature of our activity, we play a critical role in the overall economic, social and technical ecosystem and we have the mission to ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity to many critical locations, population segments and business partners. This is why, we have created a comprehensive plan of measures to ensure the optimum protection and functioning for our employees as well as for the customers and consumers of electricity and natural gas.

The current pandemic context was definitely a hard dry-run for our digitization strategy, but it also proved once more that we are on be the right path. One of the key pillars that kept us functioning under the strictest prevention conditions were the extended remote dispatching of the network, allowing us to work in turns with the dispatchers, and thus provide them with the highest prevention possible against contamination, while still having a functional control over the network. The second most important is the work force management we implemented, allowing us to coordinate and monitor the small teams in the field distantly. Again, it highly reduces the risk of contamination at group level and, thus, backing up the functionality of the systems.

We were the first in the sector to take the bold decision of closing the customer and consumer centers and divert all our customers and consumers towards online channels, in order to decrease the risk of intra-communitary contamination by. After 2 weeks, we have twice as many downloads for MyCEZ customer app compared to the weeks before the pandemics, and an increased traffic in Call Center and Back-Office, all solved and processed under the same parameters as before the pandemics. That leads us to another key conclusion: our clients and consumers are more motivated to adapt to using online channels, which may become the new reality.

Along with the other systems we have been implementing since 2016, we are now able to manage the entire service and product portfolio with more than 50% of the employees working remotely, from home.

We bear the responsibility of part of the local economy by acting as a buffer between the national overall economic challenges and our subcontractors, diffusing the economic pressure over the team. Although insignificant fine-tunes were necessary, we manage to keep all our commercial obligations and partners safe, by ensuring, wherever needed, rescheduling or reallocations of tasks and activities.

With more than half of the employees changing their way of working from one day to the other, we understand the change may be uncomfortable. This is why, we are undergoing training and support for employees to adapt and keep the teams performance  high. Very importantly, we decided to absorb all the potential negative impacts over their income in case of infection, self isolation or quarantine.

Nevertheless, another take-out from this period is the importance of maintaining a permanent dialogue with the local and central authorities on a regular basis. As we always acted as a responsible economic player, we stepped into the local emergency committees first hand and we had an active role in the overall force mobilization. We are playing the same pro-active role at central level and we contribute to the overall efforts of adaptation, from all perspectives: economic, regulatory, technical etc.

We have a national and diverse portfolio, when it comes to our clients. We are taking full responsibility to provide them with customized solutions to the issues they may face currently. We believe that being there for them now means finding the right solution to their specific problem, which may be different from case to case.

In 2021, we are expecting for the world after the pandemic to become more digitalized. Sector wide, it is visible that a bigger push for digitalization and implementation of collected data is needed. We need to have an ever more insightful knowledge of our clients in order to predict potential impacts more accurately and earlier. Most likely, the buzz words for the energy generation market will be flexibility and liquidity in order to be able to react faster to the changes in the consumption.

It is a fact, however, that despite the absolute novelty of the challenge, the entire energy sector was able to fine-tune and implement promptly coherent and solid contingency plans that ensured the functionality of the sector and that proves the high professionalism of the Romanian energy sector.