The main focus throughout this period was to act rapidly and accordingly, get the employees engaged in work, detect any possible problems, find suitable communication channels, and ensure positive results by restructuring the companies. Therefore, the new situation required HR managers to connect more with the employees, listen to their needs, and react accordingly and empathically. The constant change caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has mandated that companies make fast changes in the leadership and engage the HR team in communication with the employees. This ‘new normal’ has taught us to adapt to new practices and politics, which will leave a permanent mark on companies worldwide. 

Due to these current changes, we decided to interview our HR Manager Biljana Stefanovska and ask her how she deals with the ‘new normal’ aspect of working from home. She shares some of the challenges that she faced during the COVID-19 pandemic as an HR manager. Read more about her personal experience on how to manage a business during the Coronavirus pandemic in the interview below.

What is the role of the HR Manager in one company, and what are the necessary skills for an HR Manager to be successful?

Maybe the shortest and most straightforward definition of HR Manager is “mother of the company.” As an HR manager, you take care of all employees, management, business, and everything in between. As of recently, the HR Management function has been slowly transforming into an HR business partner position. No person in the company knows the employees, the rulebook, or the management better than the HR manager. HR is everywhere, and with everyone, that is why crucial skills for an HR Manager are listening, empathy, objectivity, flexibility, tolerance, and an analytical mind. Modern HR is now more and more inclined towards metrics and predictions despite the simultaneous growth of importance and emphasis on the company’s personal development: from the cleaning lady to the General Manager.

What are the challenges that an HR Manager faces during a pandemic, and how do you, as an HR manager, help Cosmic Development in overcoming these challenges?

One of the most important challenges for an HR manager during a pandemic is the employees’ mental health and wellbeing. When I am present in the office, I can see and tackle every issue and mood swing of an employee, and I react immediately and accordingly to help this person. Given the fact that I have been an empathic person since I remember about myself, this has always been an easy task for me.

When we work remotely, it takes an entirely different approach to notice the switch and even more to detect the severity of distress in someone’s voice or facial expression. Yet, I am regularly contacting all employees, and we have personal coaching sessions so those who are most affected can overcome this situation. We also organized several activities for our employees under the name “Cosmic Beats Isolation” to help them deal better with the new situation. So far, our company has marked only success in every single case. 

What do you like most about Cosmic Development, and what makes this company unique from an HR perspective? How do you envision Cosmic in the upcoming years to become an ideal workplace?

What makes Cosmic unique from an HR perspective is the holistic management approach and organizational culture. I do believe that holistic and agile management are the best practice since there are no two same human beings on earth. We organize team activities. We are continually working on enhancing the team spirit within the company while simultaneously keeping in mind the needs and preferences of each employee as an individual. It means we do have a set of rules necessary for the management of the company, yet we provide the employees with flexibility, allowing them to feel comfortable and with an excellent work-life balance. I believe that we are already pretty close to an ideal workplace.

What are your favorite techniques that you usually suggest as an HR Manager, and you have used to motivate a team during this pandemic? 

As an HR Manager with ten years of experience, I can say there are no universal ways for motivating employees. Some people enjoy spending time by the swimming pool and working on their laptops surrounded by people and music, and others prefer solitude and tranquility. So, I do not practice a group approach to motivate them, but an individualistic one. Every HR Manager should spend time and understand each employee’s needs, from the software developers to the administrative assistants. And when that is done, it is quite easy to motivate them. For those who like sports, we provide opportunities for sports breaks during working hours, for those who want leisure, we have comfortable couch areas so whoever may relax. And finally, for those who are ambitious and find new skills and career development as motivation, we provide free courses and training. 

Check out how our employees break their daily work routine at the office.

What metrics do you use and suggest to evaluate team performance during a pandemic?

Another unique feature of Cosmic Development is that we are a people-oriented company, which means we trust our employees and do not use tools for control. We follow their work, deadlines, and quality, but we do not need micromanagement tools and practices. When you have highly engaged people, you do not need to control them. The basic rule of HR is the following: happy employees are equivalent to productive employees. The more content the employee is, the more productive and efficient one is. My primary concern is whether all employees have everything they need to be productive at home. We have never had better efficiency actually, which I believe is due to the freedom everyone has to organize. 

How does this pandemic influence the HR team in the recruitment and the interviewing of prospective team members? Do you think that this virtual trial will continue to be the future of recruitment?

The only change in recruitment is that instead of conducting in-person interviews, we organize them online, which does not affect the recruitment process. The ‘new normal’ brought us changes in the working policy on a global level, and now the jobs are more and more conducted remotely since there are a lot of people who work and travel. I believe this will be the future: more remote work, higher work-life balance, individual approach.

What trends, according to you, will shape the Human Resource departments over the next five years?

I believe that the future of HR Management will focus more on analytics, predictions, risk management, training, and especially on leadership and coaching. We all live in an era when millennials are becoming the majority of the workforce. What distinguishes the millennials among the rest is constant engagement, dynamics, and continuant professional and personal development. It means we should not leave them alone; we should be constantly alert of their needs and changes and make them feel like we do care. 

The dynamics of the labor market, especially in the IT industry, demands constant training and learning. I am more than happy that nowadays more and more emphasis is put on soft skills which were partly neglected until recently. Consequently, we must prepare the leadership for these changes to retain the concurrence on the market and keep the pace. Leadership is crucial in any business management, and nowadays, more and more companies are realizing that and investing in their leaders. Leaders, in my opinion, are the people who set the tone in any company. In the end, I would say that I am positive that HR Management will remain the most challenging occupation in the near future and, at the same time, most rewarding.

If you are part of the HR team in your company and need advice on how to deal with this ‘new normal’ aspect of life, contact us for a free consultation, and you will get direct advice from our HR management team.

The post The Role of an HR Manager in the ‘New Normal’ appeared first on Cosmic Development.

The media and entertainment industry is one of the fastest-growing industries that have been hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic, just like any other business. In the last decade, the media and entertainment industry has gone through an immense transformation as never before. The digital media imposed itself above the previous regular distribution methods and it urged media companies to begin adopting digital strategies as part of their regular business tasks. Moreover, digital media has introduced itself in the advertising and animation, as well as in music, radio, films, gaming, etc. By doing so, companies in the media and entertainment industry were required to embrace the latest digital strategies if they wanted to keep up with the current media trends. 

And now, with the development of the situation with the COVID-19, the media and entertainment industry has been mandated to implement even more digital strategies in order to keep up with the changes that happened on a worldwide scale. Similarly, this industry will mark several significant trends from 2020 onwards throughout the new decade. But how many of those trends will truly mark the new decade and how many will be prevented from flourishing due to the Coronavirus? After all, the economic crisis and recession due to COVID-19 cannot go without causing consequences. Read the article below, go through the current trends in the media and entertainment industry, and discover our opinion on the matter. 

Video Streaming 

Video streaming has become a prominent trend throughout the years and has marked an even higher peak during the Coronavirus pandemic. By the middle of 2020, a streaming war is expected to happen in which various media companies will try to find the best way of establishing a direct relationship with their consumers. Leaders in the video streaming industry such as Netflix and Amazon have been exposed to an increase in the number of their competitors. HBO Max, Apple, Disney, and WarnerMedia have noticed the possibilities for advancement that the video streaming offers, and they also joined the media and entertainment industry. And now with the newest developments due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the number of media companies that have started with video streaming has increased even more than before, thus making this trend the most remarkable of all. 

However, in the end, the video steaming companies that will be most successful in this industry will be those that offer the best content libraries that will satisfy the user’s expectations. In addition to video, companies that include music and games in their libraries will have a higher probability of succeeding in the media and entertainment industry in the new decade. 

5G Network

2020 brought changes in the telecom industry by introducing the 5G wireless network. Although there have been many controversies about whether 5G is good or bad for the people, it is inevitable that it will not only affect telecom operators but it will also make a change in the experiences that will facilitate faster broadband. The development of 5G may contribute to evolving the purpose of content in general. Thanks to the evolution of 5G, both artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) have also marked advancement in the media and entertainment industry. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence has marked the last decade with its increasing dominance in the tech world. It has been used for the improvement of the customer experience and numerous other business operations. Starting with 2020 and onward, AI will continue dominating the media and entertainment industry, especially because the media companies will want to use AI for personalized content recommendations and adequate advertisements. 

With the help of AI, media and entertainment companies are able to discover user behavior patterns and know what type of ads to show them. Furthermore, businesses and online creators who use AI learn user behavior better and know how to create more efficient content and advertisements. In addition to AI, the other two technologies that help businesses get closer to their customers are machine learning and big data technology.

Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR)

Another trend in the media and entertainment industry for 2020 is the further development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). While VR has higher applicability in the entertainment industry, AR is trending in the gaming industry. However, VR is a technology for creating 3D games, along with the help of biosensors which determine the position of players in the 3D space. It also helps in the creation of virtual museums, theatres, galleries, and parks. The latest trend in VR and AR will continue developing in the decade that has just begun and it will provide the possibility of viewing 3D images with real size in front of you. Businesses are slowly adapting to the implementation of VR and AR in their companies so that they can meet the needs of their customers and challenge their competitors. 

How COVID-19 Will Affect the Media and Entertainment Industry Trends for 2020

With the current Coronavirus pandemic situation, the media and entertainment industry may develop at a more rapid speed, especially because staying at home means using the media more than usual. While many entertainment places closed during this period (such as theatres, cinemas, museums, parks, concert halls), online types of entertainment gained a lot of income. As mentioned before, the development of VR and AR helps in the creation of virtual museums, theatres, cinemas, parks, and galleries, which will try and compensate for the closure of the actual and real entertainment places. 

However, although the development of the online media and entertainment industry is on the rise, the production of movies will lose billions of dollars and this may be the end of the movie-making era if there is no cure for the Coronavirus soon. Therefore, we must have in mind the advantages and the disadvantages of this situation and how it will affect both the media and the entertainment industry. 

In the end, living our lives online is possible up to some point. However, we cannot depend entirely on the creation of virtual worlds, when we are real human beings that have the need for personal life experiences in the actual world. Therefore, we need to adapt both the media and entertainment industry to the current trends and at the same time try and find a way to help it continue developing offline as much as online. It is left to us to witness what the following months will bring. But one thing is for sure: the media and entertainment trends will stay intact and the industry will continue adapting to changes.

Sources:

• nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/11/business/economy/coronavirus-us-economy-spending.html
• forbes.com/sites/nelsongranados/2020/04/08/one-fourth-of-the-media-and-entertainment-economy-could-be-impacted-by-the-coronavirus/#414d8dc8559b
• entrepreneur.com/article/349638
• mesalliance.org/2020/03/30/industry-execs-media-will-bounce-back-from-coronavirus-impacts/
• srijan.net/blog/media-and-entertainment-2020-outlook
• deloitte.com/us/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/media-and-entertainment-industry-outlook-trends.html
• cabsat.com/news/5-trends-shaping-the-future-of-media-and-entertainment
• mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/media-and-entertainment-market-landscape

The post Will COVID-19 Affect the Media and Entertainment Industry Trends for 2020? appeared first on Cosmic Development.

The Coronavirus pandemic spread rapidly all over the world and it caused us to stay at home in isolation so that we can keep safe from it. To help our employees deal better with the Coronavirus situation, we gave them advice on how to adjust to the idea of working from home and how to spend their isolation time more productively. Therefore, Cosmic Development decided to implement interactive online social tools in order to help our employees beat isolation. We decided to organize online contests and events for all our locations. In other words, Cosmic invited employees from Toronto, Skopje, Bitola, and Belgrade to participate in these online contests and events, and spend more time together with their colleagues. Read more below if you want to know more about how our employees beat isolation.

Cosmic Online Contests

The rules of these online contests are very simple. Employees are supposed to take photos or videos of the activity they do in order to prove that they are worthy candidates for the contest. The photos and videos must be from the beginning of the work-from-home policy. Any employee who provides photos or videos taken on a date prior to the Coronavirus pandemic will be disqualified. The employee who will be proclaimed the winner will receive a prize upon the return at work in one of our Cosmic offices. The online contests organized by Cosmic are the following:

• Most active employee
• Best creative parent
• Most ambitious employee
• Best entertainer
• Best photographer

Most Active Employee

The first round of the Cosmic Beats Isolation online contest is titled: Most Active Employee. The purpose of this category is to see how our employees spend their free time and whether they use it to keep themselves active, healthy, and most of all, happy. On the one hand, our employees could participate in this contest if they have developed new hobbies during the Coronavirus pandemic such as making handmade jewelry, handmade accessories, and clothes, writing poetry, painting, etc. On the other hand, our employees who have a fully amazing free sports time can also participate in this online contest, especially if they practice any type of sport at home (yoga, pilates, cardio), if they cook new recipes and eat healthy food prepared by themselves, or simply if they play logic and fun games with their families.  

Our most active employee during the isolation period is Milan Andreev. He provided us with photos of all the sports activities he does on a daily basis. He stays 100% physically active: he jogs, hikes, walks in nature, climbs, and most importantly, he motivates other colleagues to stay healthy during isolation and start being active. Well done Milan, you truly deserve this award.

Most Creative Parent

The second round of the Cosmic Beats Isolation online contest is titled: Most Creative Parent. The purpose of this category is to see how our employees spend their time at home with their children and what they do with them. We know that it is very challenging to keep our children at home all the time and make them stay engaged and happy during this isolation period. So, instead of letting them go out and playing with other kids, we – the parents – must find ways to keep our children engaged, and that includes us playing with them. To become the most creative parent in Cosmic, our employees need to take photos or videos of playing interactive games with their children at home, painting or drawing with them, helping them in the learning process and homework assignments, encouraging them to create handmade decorations or toys, and any other interesting ideas.

Stay tuned to discover who will be the winner of this category and what will be the next one.

Cosmic Recommends: TV Series

To find a way to stay at home in isolation and keep oneself occupied, we decided to create a Cosmic Recommends section. We asked our cool Cosmic employees to share with us which TV series they prefer. It’s nice to get a glimpse of our colleagues’ preferences during this Coronavirus period.  By doing this, we also offer our readers a list of the most popular TV series among our employees that they can watch during the isolation period. 

Cosmic Recommends: Food

While working from home, our Cosmic employees also work on their cooking skills and either develop their existing passion for cooking or they experiment with new hobbies. Either way, our VP of Engineering – Petar Shokarovski, who also has his own cooking blog, decided to share with us his recipes for Ratatouille and Eggs Benedict. Check out the photos below.

Gaming Wednesday

Cosmic decided to make Wednesdays more fun and introduced several games that are available to all of its employees, regardless of their location in the world. We call these days Gaming Wednesdays. For instance, we have played two online games as part of our Gaming Wednesday tournaments, on request of our employees. We always welcome new suggestions from our employees. As a result, they have the chance to suggest new games every week.

The first gaming tournament is in Counter-strike. Our male employees get to enjoy a good Counter-strike game along with their colleagues from other Cosmic offices. We also invite our female employees to join this tournament and spend several hours playing this game after working hours.

The second game of our Gaming Wednesday event is Pictionary. This game is inspired by the famous charades game when one player draws a word that is written on a piece of paper. However, this time, since it is an online game, the goal of the game Pictionary is for one person to draw a picture of the object they choose and let the other players guess what the drawing is. Therefore, employees need to think of a thing they like to draw, write the name of the thing in the program, and start drawing. The person that draws the word of their choice is not allowed to use letters, numbers, or words to explain the drawing. 

Cosmic Bar

We reserved the last workday of the week for our Cosmic Bar online event. Every Friday we organize an online party at a virtual Cosmic Bar where employees from all offices can hang out and enjoy the company of their colleagues. The only requirement to participate in the Cosmic Bar online event is to provide a drink of your own choice and be present in front of your computer or laptop at the designated time. The rest is our job. We play online drinking games such as “Never Have I Ever” and have fun after a long week of hard work from home. The rules of this game are probably familiar to many: for instance, one person says something they have never done, and everyone who has done that thing takes a drink.

The post Cosmic Beats Isolation appeared first on Cosmic Development.

Get a free IT consultation and cut up to 50 percent of your operating expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Business owners who are facing financial problems due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus can now contact us for free IT consultation and get the most suitable IT solution for their businesses.

Many people and companies are trying to find different ways to help others in difficult times like the ones we experience nowadays, as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak. IT companies are constantly offering many benefits to ease the time spent home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the most excellent IT companies in the world, such as Microsoft for instance, offer free online courses that are accessible to every person on the planet. Furthermore, restaurants and fast food places provide food discounts and/or free delivery for their customers. There are also numerous food delivery applications that people use more during this period.

Following the countless examples of other companies throughout the world that have changed their ways of working during this new situation, Cosmic Development has also decided to ease people’s lives as much as possible. As you already know, we are an IT support services company that offers IT solutions and staff augmentation services to worldwide clients. During these hard times caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, we decided to provide free IT consultation and discounts in the vast range of services we offer on a daily basis. Continue reading below to learn more about the free IT consultation and discount of services we offer during COVID-19.

What Cosmic Did to Help People During the Coronavirus Outbreak

We provided our readers with different content in order to help them deal better with the Coronavirus pandemic. As a company that allows its employees to work from home when needed, we created an article with the most important aspects of how to work from home during the Coronavirus period. In it, you will find information about how to protect yourself from COVID-19, the top ten free-to-use tools of our choice and helpful tips on how to manage your time when working remotely. 

After guiding regular employees on how to deal with the new “work from home” situation, we decided to help out our clients who are business owners to learn how to manage their business during the Coronavirus pandemic. To do so, we provided the five most important insights that will teach them how to deal with their business management issues. 

Finally, we made an overview of the current financial situation in the world that happened as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak in every country. We have explained which industries are most affected by the current pandemic and how we can recognize that a recession is happening. Moreover, we have explained what business owners need to do in a time of global financial crisis and recession.  

What Cosmic Offers to Current and Potential Clients

Aside from providing our readers and clients with the essential information that will help them with their business issues in these difficult times, we also decided to provide our current and future clients with something even better. We offer a free IT consultation for business owners who are searching for new employees to hire but are unsure of what exactly they need. Therefore, they can contact us and get a free IT consultation where they can explain what their business needs are so that we can deliver the most appropriate solution to them. In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to offer short-term heavy discounts on our services.

All you need to do is to schedule a free IT consultation by following the link above and completing the form so that we can get back to you with the best IT solution created according to your personal needs. Let our team of professionals build your brand, especially now when we are facing an invisible enemy (the Coronavirus). For those of you who still are unaware of the types of services we offer, these are our three main categories of services:

• Software Development
• Digital Marketing and Sales
• Administration and Virtual Assistance

Software Development

The primary type of services that we offer is the software development services. We have professional developers who have been working with us for many years and have shown to be experts in their fields. The IT solutions we provide to you are not only about web development software but also about building web and mobile applications for your company. Our experts will create the software you need for your business to work during these difficult times we face. They will use specific programming languages and a series of programming code required for the software you want for your companies.

Digital Marketing and Sales

Another type of service we offer to other companies is digital marketing and sales. Although marketing and sales services can be done separately, we believe that nowadays they are so intertwined that they cannot go one without the other. Therefore, we help business owners to get the best professionals on their team and create not only an outstanding digital marketing strategy but also a sales plan of action. That way, companies can build their brands with the help of our experts who know how to compete in the modern world and who follow every change in digital technology. Moreover, they will discover the vulnerabilities of your competitors and help you win battles that will raise you above other companies.

Administration and Virtual Assistance

If you are looking for remote workers and virtual assistants, you are in the right place. We offer administration and virtual assistance services for companies who want to lower their expenses on such teams but get professionals who will complete their work qualitatively and most efficiently. Our team of administrative specialists will deal with your daily administrative tasks and schedules remotely, without the need to be physically present at your office. Moreover, you can outsource your business processes to our team of experts in finance, accounting, human resources, etc. 

Keep on reading our weekly blog articles in order to discover more useful tips and insights that will help you get over the Coronavirus pandemic period. You may even get a better overview of the working atmosphere in our company and implement some of our ideas in your company. Stay tuned.

Sources:

• linkedin.com/feed/news/us-hiring-hit-by-covid-19-5155530/
• nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/list-companies-offering-deals-discount-freebies-coronavirus/2256595/
• barrons.com/articles/cvs-facebook-walmart-target-coronavirus-pandemic-51584479961

The post Free IT Consultation During Coronavirus appeared first on Cosmic Development.

It goes without saying that the world is facing an economic crisis as a result of the rapid spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe. The Coronavirus pandemic went from a health emergency to an economic crisis with the speed of light. The pandemic not only increased the numbers of confirmed and deceased people, but it also increased the chances of facing a global financial crisis and recession. At first, countries and governments thought that the virus might go away soon. Then the spread of the virus made companies send their employees to work from home during the Coronavirus outbreak.

Moreover, business owners dedicated themselves to discovering how to manage a business remotely. However, as the Coronavirus started spreading to other continents, causing deaths of too many people daily, all countries began wondering what might happen to the world’s economy. Discover more information about the global economic crisis and recession that are happening as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic by reading the most frequently asked questions below.

Tell us how you manage your company during this recession and the global economic crisis of 2020. Have you prepared ahead of time, or have you just started taking specific steps at the last minute?

Sources:

• foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-economic-crash-2008-financial-crisis-worse/
• nytimes.com/2020/03/18/business/dealbook/coronavirus-economy-bailout-plan.html
• nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/coronavirus-economy-debt.html
• dw.com/en/coronavirus-shock-vs-global-financial-crisis-the-worse-economic-disaster/a-52802211
• creditcardgenius.ca/blog/canada-recession/
• forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2020/03/28/why-the-us-is-now-in-recession/#2e8c309ba5ef
• vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/30/21184401/coronavirus-covid-19-economy-charts
• cnbc.com/2020/03/20/analyst-anticipates-worst-crisis-since-1929-amid-recession-fears.html
• thebalance.com/u-s-economy-collapse-what-will-happen-how-to-prepare-3305690
• epi.org/blog/coronavirus-shock-will-likely-claim-3-million-jobs-by-summer/

The post Economic Crisis and Recession During COVID-19 appeared first on Cosmic Development.