Everything about the coronavirus (COVID 19) is scary, and each of us is trying to process the information we have to make good choices for keeping ourselves, our families and our workplaces safe. With many workplaces transitioning to remote status, we would like to offer five practices that you can employ to stay engaged with your workforce during this challenging time. If you have more ideas, we would love to hear from you!
- Communicate, Communicate, and Communicate: It is really important to set a program for communications so that your workforce knows exactly where to go to get official information about virus management, and your organization’s plans for managing the changing dynamics associated with it. While email may seem optimal, it may be difficult for those who may be distracted by children or some pressing project to pay attention to individual email threads. A better choice is to post on an internal resource, such as an intranet or a SharePoint site, or an external resource, like the company’s private social media accounts. This way your co-workers can see all of the communications in one place. You may also want to post links to the Centers for Disease Control website, FEMA’s website and your city and state websites. “Official” information can be comforting to people who feel a sense of instability with all of the change that is happening.
- Find Ways to Lighten the Load: This virus pandemic is a serious matter, but it can be helpful if employers find ways to engage their workforce at home. Using communications tools described above or other means, you might: 1) Set up a blog or your organization’s Yammer account to allow employees to post about working at home – its benefits and challenges, 2) Offer a Family Feud Challenge each day: “When I left the office last week, I forgot my ….”, then share the top 5 answers. This will introduce a little levity in everyone’s day and provide two more opportunities for people to engage with your communications portal, 3) Have one of your “gym rats” post an exercise that people can do while at home since many gyms are closed, or post their favorite online exercise class, 4) As people may be missing their favorite coffee or lunch spot, invite people to post their recipes for their homemade versions of their favorite coffee or sandwich. 5) Encourage Google Hangouts or other informal virtual social outlets to keep your employees connected on a personal level.
- Act in the Moment/Think Long-Term: Despite the challenges we could all cite about our society and everyday challenges, most of the time, we are safe and we expect the wheels of government, business and our social lives to turn with relative ease. Now we face a lot of uncertainty. Most of our planning is focused on the short-term, what do we need to do now or over the next two weeks. As painful as it might be, it is important to begin building contingencies to answer: 1) what happens if we have to shelter-in-place for two months, four month or six months, 2) what happens if schools are cancelled for the balance of the school year, 3) what happens if our local hospitals are overrun, how will your people manage their medical needs or their families, and 3) what if business slows, how will we provide income support for our people, some of whom may not be able to work full-time or at all? Developing a plan can bring its own sense of calm to the uncertainty we now face. And be sure to communicate that you are still in the planning mode. It helps everyone to know that thoughtful planning is happening and that managed chaos will not be the default.
- Try to Replicate Normal Practices: For example, if you have a monthly celebration for birthday, plan a virtual event, perhaps a Skype or Teams or Zoom call to sing Happy Birthday to those who are celebrating. It is a small thing, but people get a lot of comfort from doing things that are a part of the “normal” routine. It also demonstrates a level of thoughtfulness for those who are feeling displaced and disconnected.
- Talk About Wellness: People will face the challenges of this pandemic with various levels of calm and/or anxiety. Be sure to let your people know that it is okay to share with others their feelings of anxiousness or fear. Here are a few strategies for this: 1) Check-in calls each day at a particular time and with a fixed duration for people to just talk, to share how they are doing and to have a lifeline to others, 2) Recommend a buddy call where people can self-select a buddy whom they can call and that can call them to ease the sense of loneliness or anxiety they may be feeling, and 3) You might have information available with contact information for your Employee Assistance Program or other local resources that might be available. These kinds of lifelines are available and exist to be used.