Alex Willcocks, Co-Founder at digital marketing agency Engage, discusses how employers can keep employees engaged and offer the required support as they move back to working from home.
Over the past year, what started as a distant issue in China has become a severe public health problem leading to the government creating significant changes to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Although lockdown restrictions began to ease and for many, we believed things to be returning to a sense of normalcy, the latest guidance is much less lax. The government’s announcement that the rate of infections are on the rise again has led to them recommending that where possible, people move back to working from home.
Although some of the UK’s workforce has always worked from home, for the majority this has been a new way of life which has taken some getting used to. Business leaders therefore need to understand how they can maximise the potential of employees whilst also offering the right support while they’re working from home.
Communication
Employers should remember that there’s no such thing as over-communication, especially in a challenging situation like a pandemic. Where possible, transparent information about a business, its finances and changing processes should be given to employees to maintain trust and provide reassurance.
Businesses should also regularly communicate with clients, suppliers and customers to reassure key stakeholders that work is still being completed and the current situation isn’t impacting on performance.
Lockdown commitments
Trust and flexibility between employers, employees and clients are vital. Working from home is not the same as being in the workplace and other commitments and distractions such as home schooling, isolation and issues with technology can all potentially impact on work. Therefore employers must trust in their employees, show flexibility and resist the urge to micromanage.
This will maintain good relationships and reduce worries that employees might have about other responsibilities they’re having to cope with.
Organisations must also learn to work and communicate asynchronously as working from home often means waiting for responses. Company culture relies on openness and patience, and expecting the same response when everyone is remote will likely lead to frustration. Developing new work habits and systems for asynchronous communication that allow teams to send messages and updates without the need for an immediate reply has shown itself to be much more efficient in a remote working environment.
Group activities
Although employees should still be completing their contracted hours when working from home, there are opportunities for employers to boost morale and maintain company culture.
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Group activities such as online games offer staff the chance to socialise with each other and take a break as working in isolation can be intense. They’re also often fairly quick so can be completed in a lunch break.
There are many other fun activities which staff can own outside of working hours such as a book club, film or TV party where someone selects a film and everyone watches together, or for staff missing Friday drinks, a cocktail-making competition could be organised where the most creative wins a prize.
If business leaders don’t invest in communication and initiatives to support their employees while working from home, maintaining results will be difficult. Employers should investigate fun and unique ways to keep employees reassured and engaged while remote working, and even once they’re back in the workplace.
For more information on supporting employees working from home and other issues during Coronavirus, please visit www.engageinteractive.co.uk.
