Managing Employees through "Working from home" | EmployeeConnect
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Managing Employees through “Working from home”

Working From Home has became the “the new normal”

The business environment has completely been reshaped, Working From Home has became the “the new normal”, which leading to the employee management changed, and everyday thinking transformed. COVID-19 has completely changed the way that we work, and these changes are becoming more likely to be permanent. Many great business leaders have stated COVID-19 to be the greatest accelerator to the new age of workplace transformation.

When the new vaccines are rolled out and our memory of a normal world is restored, it is highly likely that organisations will still operate with the knowledge and tools gained throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing, continuous risk assessment, safety measures, work from home, health and safety protocols and many other critical actions will find their way into our new normal.

Likewise, the following blog will help you better understand the best employee management practices by leaders and human resources professionals going forward in “the new normal” faced at work.

Culture of Flexibility

With the return to the workplace and the “normalisation” of our working environments comes the new attached culture created throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the culture of flexibility. Many employees have become extremely used to working from home which has seen many benefits for both organisations and employees.

When employees working from home, if they can be offered flexible working arrangements and are not pressured into unreasonable working arrangements a large increase in productivity could be found. Remote workers throughout COVID-19 have proven to face adversity and bring success to their organisation through the hard work they complete. Likewise, organisations moving forward will reward this hard work by keeping this culture of flexibility at the core of the business.

Increased Transparency

Moving into “the new normal” of work managers will need to be transparent in all that they do and how they interact with employees. As employees throughout the COVID-19 pandemic had a sense of worry for change and feared the unknown, it has become extremely essential that managers guide employees and reduce their anxiety and worries.

This was done through managers increasing transparency and making it a part of the culture, whereby employees are invited to ask questions, receive feedback and find a path to building trust, belonging and a strong sense of safety and purpose in the organisation. This increase in transparency has found organisations to increase levels of employee satisfaction and efficiencies, which has led great HR professionals to emphasise the push to continue the push of increased transparency as a key employee management strategy for business success.

Continuous Communication

Critical to successful employee management in “the new normal” of work is continuous communication. Specifically, communication is critical as employees will now be working not only face to face in the office but also remote working from home.

This means managers will need to now communicate often each day and continually check in with employees to see if they are okay, productive and working well towards the end of projects they have.

Emphasis on Online Training

One of the best employee management strategy that HR professionals have recommended is providing working from home employees with online training. When employees moved into a new nature of remote working, employees didn’t know what to do. It was a completely new experience and managers needed to take action to guide employees throughout the COVID-19 remote working experience.

Likewise, many organisations introduced online learning and training platforms to assist employees not only learn the skills they need for daily practices but also how to manage their work-life through working from home. In turn, managers should provide employees with online resource groups, eLearning courses and a variety of training courses that will help employees moving past COVID-19.

Investment into Online Tools

Employee management has been redefined by the COVID-19 pandemic and HR professionals have all agreed that there is a critical need to invest into online tools. Specifically, the online tools are utilised not only in the office but at home when employees are remote working to stay connected and productive. Many organisations have invested into utilising tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Slack, Dropbox and many other great tools.

Furthermore, a lot of organisations have also looked into investing into HR software to help HR departments better organise their work and stay connected anywhere. Cloud HR software has allowed HR professionals to increase productivity, remove unnecessary paperwork, make strong data-driven decisions, increase employee engagement and satisfaction levels and further provide HR departments with an extremely high level of critical data protection. EmployeeConnect provides a HR software solution for your needs! If this is something you are interested in, then click here to learn more and book a free demo today!

Monitoring Employee Wellbeing

More than anytime monitoring employee wellbeing has become the top priority of employee management and best HR practices when employee working from home. With the rise of the digital age, employees are always switched on and working whenever the time calls. Likewise, managing health, stress and anxiety levels have become more prevalent as employees are dealing with the coronavirus, emotional, physical, mental and spiritual issues at all times.

Moving into working from home model, managers will need to effectively conduct surveys and monitor employees seeking feedback and indicators of employee’s health. When the data and physical indicators show that employees are stressed and unhealthy, effective action must take place immediately to help employees. Furthermore, it is critical that managers take proactive actions to ensure employee wellbeing are being well maintained. Managers may provide employees with positive wellbeing enhancement tools, recognition and rewards to help employees stay positive and healthy.

Constantly Seeking Leaders

Due to COVID-19 managers would have found the critical importance of finding leaders within their business. Throughout COVID-19 employees would have been dealing with extremely difficult situations and many employees would have failed, while others stood out and succeeded. The success of many is due to personal attitudes, skills and traits of being a strong leader.

Leaders are able to strengthen the people who working from home in any given situation to make the best of the current conditions presented. Likewise, it is critical as a key employee management strategy for managers to effectively find leaders to handle future situations of difficulty. This will allow the business to fight through difficult moments and prevail successfully through meeting key business goals and objectives.

The Definitive Guide to Employee Engagement

Jake Amodeo
Jake.amodeo@employeeconnect.com