When people say Coronavirus has changed the world forever,
it is not an exaggeration. To top it off, no one can say for certain when it
will leave us, letting the world go back to its pre-Corona time. Coronavirus
has impacted the stock markets, businesses, industries and even workplace.
While in the last one year, many organizations have remodeled themselves to adapt to the changing times, the majority are still clueless when it comes to keeping the morale of their employees high.
While many companies
were resistant to the idea of their employees working from home pre-Corona, now
that they are left with no other option – they are getting used to it. Even
major tech companies such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft had to ask their employees
to work remotely. Schools have moved their physical classes to online classes,
people shop online instead of visiting malls and workers are doing their jobs
from the homes now.
“Be mindful. Think from your employees’ perspective.”
These unprecedented times have put everyone in a difficult
condition, be it employees or employers. Employees who never permitted their
employees to work from homes have now accepted this new reality. Employees have
to simultaneously juggle between their personal and professional lives.
Keeping the retention rate high in your organization and
keeping the morale of your employees high is very important in these trying
times. If your employees don’t feel 100%, it will inevitably affect their work
performance and eventually your company will suffer.
Here are five ways that you can use to help in effective management
in Corona times:
Five Ways to Keep the Morale High
Prioritize tasks
The first thing is the understand what is important and what is not. Being the manager or CEO of a company means identifying and labelling all the tasks according to your importance and priority.
Once you have done that,
see which tasks can be done later on and which tasks should be done right away.
Give your employees a breather on things and tasks that are not required for
now.
Take a look at everyone’s task lists and figure out if their
schedules are too tight, leaving no room to relax. Always remember that these
are challenging times also for your employees. Be mindful of that and don’t
push trivial tasks.
Be calm
Employees unintentionally model the behaviors of their managers. If you are always panicking or in a bad mood, your employees will also naturally feel low. It is important to remain calm and manage your emotions in the right way.
In many organizations, rumors about lay-offs, salary cuts
circulate which can negatively impact the employees’ health and performance. If
there is a problem, address it yourself. Keep the employees in the loop about what’s
happening.
Have a direct communication channel with your employees. Conducting
weekly meetings can be a good starting point for that where you educate employees
about happenings in the company. Always remember that if you seem troubled,
your employees will think there is a problem with company and their jobs are at
risk.
Be flexible
The unpredictability of the current fiasco demands that employers show more flexibility towards their employees than ever before. While its true that your business always had a 9-5 timing and Corona has made it difficult to manage everything, you have to think from your employees’ perspective too.
Instead
of focusing on the timing, focus more towards the end-result. Are your employees
delivering their tasks regardless of their work hours? If the answer to this
question is ‘Yes’, then cut them some slack.
Be flexible when it comes to their work hours, if an
employee works 8 hours but completes his tasks nevertheless, time does not
matter. Unless their performance is suffering, do not be strict about the in
and out timings.