COVID-19 has heightened the need to reassess ‘culture’: Tasha Macknish of Data#3
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In some ways the disruption has united us as a business like we have never been united before, says Tasha Macknish, Group Manager - OD&HR at Data#3, in an interaction with us By Mastufa Ahmed
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o business can succeed without its people, and Tash is passionate about people. She firmly believes in adding value and commercial success by creating an environment that supports and nurtures employees and having worked within human resources in the IT industry for over 20 years has shown that this is a winning formula. Tash started on this path working in project and contractor coordination with Dimension Data in 2001, moving to Data#3 in 2008. Here she held various roles with a strong focus on people. She started with managing talent acquisition and retention for the business, moving to partnering with key business units to provide end-to-end employee experience and human resources services, and ultimately moving into the role | July 2021
of National and then Group Manager OD&HR, starting in 2014. Tash’s leadership style mirrors the value she places on the people. She thrives on supporting, motivating, and coaching people and the challenge of aligning the needs of individuals and teams to business strategy. Here are the excerpts.
Do you think COVID19 has changed the world of work for good? How will it look like in the postpandemic days? None of us could have ever predicted the year that has unfolded. No one had time to prepare for the transition that was thrust upon us, yet we all adapted to the situ-
ation that was presented. I think the goalposts really haven’t shifted but in some ways, they have disappeared. The parameters for the new ways of working have and will probably continue to shift for the coming months if not years. I think creating the change in whatever format that works for your businesses will need to have some level of flexibility for the foreseeable future. From an HR perspective, I think it’s important for leadership teams to continue to take their people on the journey with them. At this current time, we can’t fully plan or predict the future, there is still so much uncertainty and leaders will continuously be required to consider several factors including employee fears, family losses, working preferences, organizational culture, customers, and further outbreaks/restrictions. I recently read an article where the difference between change and transition was referenced. “Change” is the physical shift that goes on around us, while the transition happens inside us, in our thoughts and there are
