Maintaining people’s efficiency is the great challenge for great leaders in times of uncertainty, crisis, and panic. The new conditions shaped through the pandemic have triggered a new status-quo in the world of work marking a “now-is-the-time” for company leaders to keep navigating in an environment where employees feel fully engaged while minimizing impact of the pandemic on business.
The pandemic has forced businesses to make drastic changes to the workplace, and as a result, caused complete disruption to the employee experience. Either in their working routine per se or in their personal life, the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees can lead to increased anxiety, frustration and burnout. When left unattended, these feelings can affect employees’ productivity and engagement, leading to poor work quality, errors and, consequently, negatively affect the overall efficiency of an organization or even its survivability in times of crisis.
The most obvious challenge is remote working, a trend that is here to stay even after pandemic, according to WEF. Even in normal situations, managing remote employees is less easy than managing regular office workers because of the isolated nature of remote work. Amid this landscape, leaders are expected to actively manage the energy of their workforces, cultivate the quality of employee relationships and demonstrate a capacity for resilience to recharge their organizations during crises. When work is safe, employees are happier and more productive.
Best practices for business leaders
#1 Learn from your people
Launch an employee engagement survey, not only in order to highlight challenges to address, but also to ensure employees feel valued, heard, and engaged. Managers, directors and generally leaders need to recognize signs of distress among their people, both directly through conversations and indirectly through observation.
#2 Maintain a balanced optimism
“Bounded optimism” is the term we are looking for and describes the fine balance between instilling inspiration but always tampered with reality which cultivates a sense of hope but also an understanding of what is happening. When optimism is tempered by realism people have the chance to realize the conditions and adjust, while maintaining a leader’s integrity and authenticity.
#3 Build understanding
How leaders behave during critical moments leaves a lasting mark on their people, says Deloitte. A two-way communication between managers and employees provides the latter with the information and perspective they need, while promoting a constructive feedback regarding potential challenges and negative emotions. During times of crisis, it is also vital to establish feelings of trust with employees by continuously communicating accurate and clear information. Extra tip: Try one-to-one conversations to ensure more original and unprejudiced feedback.
#4 Maintain levels of motivation
When the feeling of disconnectedness becomes amplified after months of remote working, people lose the motivation. Even amid a challenging business environment, a direct link between individual performance and the achievement of business goals can boost employees’ confidence in the importance of their job. “Employees who feel confident about the importance of their job to the success of the organization feel less anxious about their job security,” explains Brian Kropp, chief of research for the Gartner HR.
#5 Build on psychological safety
The development of “psychological safety” in an organization is mostly a leadership task and relates to the creation of an environment where employees feel included and encouraged to contribute their best ideas, eliminating the fear of embarrassment and marginalization that block learning and creativity. The term has been firmly discussed in the business world for years but the pandemic redefined its necessity making it an expected trend in the near future of work.
#6 Do not overlook the opportunity
Change does not only hide challenges, it also hides opportunities, so by literally transforming the traditional way of work, the pandemic provides a fruitful ground for companies to go beyond just “getting through” and experiment with new practices and work differently as they seize the opportunity to emerge stronger. Therefore, leaders can learn from this period of disillusionment to create a brighter future for their employees and organizations alike, according to Mckinsey.
#7 Focus on adaptability and resilience
Leaders who invest on enhancing the resilience of their workforce not only do the right thing for their people but also set themselves up to succeed in the new normal of volatility and virtual work, Mckinsey adds, except for being better prepared to handle shocks such as COVID-19 or other business-model disruptions with greater speed and resilience in the future.
#8 Organize a safe work environment
Arranging small everyday details is the most expected but with the most profound impact on employees’ sense of safety and wellbeing: Purchase of medical equipment and supplies (e.g., thermometers, antibacterial products), self-monitoring of employees’ health, disinfection of workplaces, updating sick and leave policies and ensuring the unhindered financial support of the staff is the safety zone for happy employees in emergency situations.
#9 Do not underestimate the power of misinformation
Amid the “infodemic”, employers should become the source of accurate, timely, and appropriate information for their employees, stressed Deloitte in a recent report, advising leaders to consider creating their own news channel in the workplace based on credible sources of information.
The crisis will pass, but inappropriate decisions or behavior of company leaders in a time of crisis will have a lasting negative impact on business.
-DeloitteIn the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.
-Albert Einstein
