Our HRA is a vlogger !

 Ones Villacin is our Human Resource Assistant (HRA) at the DTI Region 7 office. He holds the enviable position of main vlogger for human resource development trainings, workshops and seminars.

CHANGE IS HERE

In January 2021, video blogging officially became an acceptable form of communicating with employees and clients of the department.

Top management realized that times have changed and that it needs to adapt to the digital trend to remain relevant.

Early this year, the regional office organized 3 teams to help businesses recover from the financial crisis brought on by the pandemic : Social Media, Digital Marketing and Systems.

The main task of the Social Media Team is to increase visibility of the DTI 7 brand and boost public awareness of the agency’s activities across social media sites.

The task of the Digital Marketing Team is to utilize internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to interact with the agency’s clients and to deliver services of DTI.

The Systems Team is responsible for the building and maintenance of internal systems such as IHub, ECPMS and Geotagging of employee residences. The team also plans, installs, and monitors software and hardware to meet overall information technology needs of the organization. They oversee data security and implement new technology as needed.

Yes, Ones Villacin is with the Social Media Team, along with other provincial trade vloggers of the agency. They were chosen because they can express themselves well.

Working at a government agency has suddenly become more interesting and fun.  Not a bad change for a department that used to be associated with words like boring, uptight, bureaucratic and straight laced.

Ones talks with office staff during the Monday morning general assembly.

MASCOT FOR THE NEW NORMAL

I am an unconventional person with a weird name. Most typical government employees consider me strange by any standard. For years, I felt like a round peg in a square hole living in an emotional and mental straightjacket.  Now, with my unusual personality, you might be wondering how I ended up working for government. Like all shiftless beings, fate decided for me.  I was told to report to the department with the promise of a regular salary when my contract at another agency ended.  I discovered during the early months of my employment that the regional directors of the 2 offices decided that I was one of the people DTI needed.

Fate must have placed me in a staid environment to stir things up, ignite transformational change, and be the bridge that connects the old and new normal. It is the rationale I give myself whenever I feel exasperated or when I am trying to console myself. It is the same rationale I am giving myself now in this year of major revamps within the bureaucracy.

One recent incident was something completely unexpected for me. It was something that would never have happened in a traditional management set-up.

For a reticent, unambitious ambivert, being told to lead the Social Media Team at the regional department came as a complete shock. I felt the universe upended my small, predictable world.

But after the initial astonishment, came relief. I realized I am finally free to be my unique self and implement my own ideas. I can now safely take off my mask.

WE ARE SOCIAL

Since most of the Social Media Team members are relatively new to the organization and some are fresh from college, I have the job of doing a lot of heavy lifting for the team to move forward, while delicately navigating the figurative “landmines” of the bureaucracy.

Our team’s first project was the Sari-sari Linker Orientation for small businesses. This orientation preludes the start of the roll-out of the Sari-sariLinker.ph. This is a platform which DTI believes could help the qualified sari-sari stores in Cebu City, Mandaue City and Consolacion to go digital.  This will provide them another experience in selling their products, while providing an easy access to their customers. This webinar was crossposted to several FB pages, uploaded on Youtube, DailyMotion, Anchor, Red Circle. The activity was also posted on Instagram, Twitter, Blogger and WordPress.

We used the Open Broadcaster Software or the OBS Studio, a free and open-source cross-platform, to stream and record the webinar. Two of our staff produced the web skin using Photoshop and Canva. Along the way, there were minor mishaps and technical problems. That is expected since we are still trying to find our groove.

In the coming months, we believe social media presence will become essential for survival of businesses. There are even some local entrepreneurs that rely almost entirely on social media for PR and marketing.

And because our department is committed to sustaining the growth and development of the Philippine economy, the social media team will be there to organize the needed marketing campaigns and public relations.

One such campaign is the Social Media Calendar wherein vlogging on DTI project activities are done twice a week.  We feature 2 vloggers each week who will showcase their  field reporting skill.  This week, we had Ones Villacin.