“Starting with trust and giving employees great autonomy and flexibility allows people to feel independent and empowered while still feeling like a part of something bigger. This leads to happy, loyal employees with a rich quality of life, which in turn leads to an amazing culture.”― Larry English
Covid19 pandemic has ushered in a new era of working from home which has resulted in digitizing the employer employee relationship. People have started feeling a sense of isolation and loneliness due to dwindling social interaction and human connection. Companies need to look at different ways of reinventing themselves to cope with this challenge to mitigate the impact of remote working and build a collaborative workplace for the future.
To feel comfortable and stay motivated during WFH, companies need to look at providing the infrastructure support required for employees to create a virtual office environment at their work location. Creation of online forums for community building for sharing their posts and updates would help in staying connected preventing burnouts. Having virtual coffee sessions and water cooler talks helps in taking a break from work and socializing with other team members.
The leadership team needs to demonstrate a culture of empathy and connect with their teams to provide support and motivation for keeping the employee engagement levels intact. The communication between the senior management and the employees needs to be maintained on an ongoing basis for providing regular updates about the pandemic and the steps taken to handle it proactively. This would result in sustaining a stress free environment at the workplace by promoting inclusivity and a sense of personal concern. A centralized platform or information hub containing all the critical information about covid19 response along with company policy and procedures needs to be shared with all the staff for disambiguation and positive assurance.
Businesses need to work on making realistic plans for bouncing back from challenges and staying resilient during crisis situations by leveraging on social capital. Upskilling the workplace and allocation of resources based on business requirements would help in reducing the overload at work resulting in effective utilization of resources. This Will also help in improving the work life balance of employees by allowing them more free time with their kith and kin resulting in better personal and mental well being. Rewarding the efforts of employees who demonstrate a positive attitude and willing to take the extra mile to support their colleagues will go a long way in building a healthy relationship at the workplace and creation of high performance teams.
Despite remote working there is a need for employees to stay connected digitally without much supervision. Businesses need to foster a culture of trust and openness to achieve the desired results and business outcomes by empowering their workforce. Creation of focus groups conducting fun filled activities like online puzzles, quizzes, brainstorming and groupthink would result in enhancing the creativity and boosting the performance levels of employees. To break free from rigidity and bring an element of fun and heightened interaction, meetings can be made more interactive with specific agenda and sticking to committed timelines. Invoking participation from all the attendees will make them feel more socially connected helping them to vent their feelings without any inhibitions. Since the workforce is scattered across different locations in remote working, setting specific goals and metrics would be critical to track and measure the results.
Conclusion
We at Newlineinfo Corp have an engaged team capable of delivering sustainable business solutions to our customers through digital transformation and enablement.
