The rapid spread of the Coronavirus is affecting every level of society and certainly putting a dent on the global economy. Millions of employees have started working remotely to help contain the spread of the virus. During these tough times, HR teams & entrepreneurs must take additional measures to support their employees & foster motivation, productivity as well as mental well-being.
Here are 5 things you can implement right away to assist your employees during this ongoing situation:
1. Establish a positive culture:
Staying positive is a must when negativity surrounds mind productivity takes a back seat. Continuously reassure your employees about the steps your organization is taking to safeguard all the employees’ interests. Make sure your team learns about the positive things happening in the organization despite so many challenges.
Pro tips: Hold monthly town hall meetings online to boost cooperation, you can use free (less costly sometimes) software like StreamYard, Zoom & Google Meet depending on the size of your employee base.
2. Employee safety first:
The safety of employees at the workplace should be the foremost concern of any organization. Ensure that the office is disinfected by professionals at regular intervals. Have a sufficient amount of hand sanitizers, masks & gloves at disposal. Have specific SOP’s like seating arrangements, mandatory wearing masks at office & temperature check in place to ensure employees feel more comfortable.
Pro tips: Select a COVID-19 captain in the organization who ensures the prescribed agreed SOP’s are met, give him or her autonomy to be strict with the rule. A growing number of businesses are choosing sBusiness.xyz for Disinfecting and Sanitizing their workplaces. The platform offers proper disinfecting, verified professionals at an honest price point with warranty. It also has a COVID Safety Shop with all the needed products the office would need.
3. Offer Flexibility:
The sudden transition of working remotely from home may leave a big portion of your employees stumbling between professional & personal commitments. Try to be more flexible with your employees and working hours. Focus on output rather than usual pre-COVID processes ie. employees have to work between 9 AM to 6 PM.
Pro tips: Now probably is a good time to revisit your targets, set realistic ones, be honest and discuss the implications also, take positive feedbacks. If possible implement OKR’s to measure company success parameters more smartly than traditionally just setting sales targets. There are tons of online materials available to give you a head start.
4. Digitalize HR functions:
Usual ways of handling traditional HR jobs are no more relevant nowadays. Starting from registering attendance to tracking leaves, reporting expenses, and letting everyone know about important company announcements is tough if companies still work offline. Automating the process saves a hefty amount of man-hours, eliminates errors, and stops bureaucracy.
Pro tips: Introduce a simple intuitive HRM tool with an app to promote usage by your employees. Deploy the tool per team one at a time, do not rush. Measure success by looking into how much expense reporting has reduced, man-hours saved, leave availed, etc. sBusiness recently launched its HRM Solution digiGO App which comes with a web version for admins and app in android & iOS with an amazing trial offer. It has almost all the features to manage the workforce. 100 companies enrolled in the first 1 week.
5. Reward achievements and recognize milestones achieved:
It is pivotal to keep morale high even more now. Ensure your leaders hold regular scrum meetings online or in offices and they use this opportunity to recognize achievements no matter how small it sounds. During monthly grand townhalls reward few achievers for different parameters the company is focusing all its energy in.
Pro tips: Promote transparency, ensure everyone knows team targets, and where needed individual targets. Beam positivity into the team by speaking something positive that the team and the least performing team member has tried or done. Use software like Google Sheet, Pipedrive, Trello, or Gitscrum to keep track of progress.
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