If you’re a manager or business owner, you may feel slightly overwhelmed dealing with your employees coming out of this pandemic.
This could be due to masses of employees returning from furlough, or it could be due to the changing work circumstances and society changes.
Either way, there are some things you could do to help ease this period of transition to help both you and your workers.
Offer Appreciation And Support
It’s been tough for everyone during the pandemic, for employees who have both been working and on furlough. Coming out of this pandemic presents new opportunities and challenges.
A great way to move through this change, is to show more appreciation to your employees. They may be more worried then ever about their new working environment and it will be up to you and the rest of your business to make them feel as safe and happy as possible.
Even a simple thank you for a small task can go a long way towards helping your employees feel more appreciated for their work. Recognising successful and good work will assist in job security and retention in the long run.
If employees don’t feel appreciated in their job once returned, then they won’t need much of an excuse to leave.
Individual support too, is a great way for leaders and businesses to show an understanding of employee needs.
This is especially important when it comes to work arrangements. Everyone has different personal situations, such as living arrangements, social circumstances and the like. Especially with COVID-19, there may have to be arrangements for remote working for employees if possible. This could be due to health reasons or any personal situation.
Showing your willingness to accommodate your employees’ needs and support them will go a long way towards relieving worker stress and help them experience more positivity in the workplace. This creates trust and an atmosphere that employees will be happy to work in.
Assist With Outplacement If Required
Due to the financial constraints placed upon the business world by COVID-19, it may be an inevitability that redundancies will happen. Perhaps your business has never had to go through multiple redundancies at once and you’re not sure how to exactly break the news and get the ball rolling.
Fortunately, there are services available these days to assist with what happens to your employees as they leave.
No one wants to have an employee leave with no plan, especially if you’ve been together for a number of years.
Consider using a company such as Randstad RiseSmart, they offer career professionals who are highly trained to help transition your outgoing talented employees quickly into new jobs. They aim to get workers into permanent positions which should hopefully make letting them go a lot easier, both for you and your employees.
They offer expert career coaching, so outgoing employees will be able to get help individually and move on to something new more quickly.
Facilitate Team Bonding
A great way to help your team get back to pre-pandemic levels and beyond, is to engage in some team bonding exercises.
This can be done a number of ways, if you’re wanting to get the team together before opening back up, then doing something virtual is probably the way you want to go about it.
Even if you’re back open, if you’re remote working, you can make great use of virtual platforms such as Zoom.
Consider enjoying a virtual coffee break, where your employees can take some brief company time to share a coffee together and relax.
Outside of work time, you could engage with your team in some informal games. It can be either team based to help promote teamwork or you can just have fun with it and let everyone have fun in their own unique way together.
There are many games you could play with your team, but discuss what everyone would be up for before booking anything. You don’t want to pay for a deposit on a paintball session just to find that no one enjoys the game at all.
Offer New Responsibilities And Decision Making Roles
Coming out of this pandemic, your employees may be hungry to work. With many people cooped up inside over the last year, many have been itching to do something productive.
If you think you’ve got an employee like this, then consider offering them new responsibilities. It could be something small to help engage their brain in something new, or you could redesign their entire job role if you feel like the workplace has changed drastically due to the pandemic.
Entrusting your employees with new responsibilities will help make them feel empowered. In fact, many employees across the globe had to do so when the pandemic first hit, as it drastically changed daily life.
Indeed, employees who are more involved in decision making processes will feel more appreciated and may surprise you by contributing great ideas that perhaps you hadn’t considered yet.