Listen to this articleAlmost every business has experienced profound disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have adapted quickly and have not been hit as hard by the financial impacts of the pandemic. Some have had to pivot industries altogether and are starting out on a new venture. Whatever your situation, the leadership of your company has likely not had time to stop and breathe, much less assess the ways in which the new company structures are affecting the workforce and their wellbeing.
The time has come.
As we launch into Q4 and PPP loans are coming due, stay at home orders are still coming in waves and there is little to no certainty around the future of in-person office work, it’s important for corporate leadership to step back and assess the state of the company culture.
Mission Vision Values:
If your company has a list of values, a mission statement, or a vision for the future, there’s tremendous value in starting your internal assessment process right there, with what you already have. Look at the vision you created. How has that changed with the pandemic? What can you keep and what has to go? If you have a list of company values, create the space to collaboratively discuss them, how they are being lived each day, and what values may have become more important. By doing this you can lead with greater transparency, create a strong culture-building activity, and see your way into 2021 with a clear eye to how your company culture has shifted.
Talent Recruiting:
Just because things have changed doesn’t mean that value and role alignment can go by the wayside. Focus on recruiting strategies that keep a strong bench of killer talent waiting in the wings. The office visit may be a thing of the past – (as is dinner with the potential candidate and their spouse) but virtual visits, group Zoom calls, and even outdoor socially-distant walks can step in where the old ways have had to go. Talent recruitment isn’t always about bringing new people in. With shifts in corporate focus, some areas may be stagnant while others may grow rapidly. What strategies are in place to re-skill, re-align, or move people within the organization into aligned roles to support the new company direction? Think outside the box and keep looking at your team for answers as to how the right people can be brought into the company.
Collaborative culture:
HR is in the unique position of seeing the company from the perspective of organizational effectiveness, upcoming role, and talent needs, and cultural alignment all at once. As such, leadership can loop the HR leader into discussions about the future of the company culture. How is the home office set up for success? Do all employees have access to fast-enough Wifi, robust computers? Regular contact with team members and group interactions?The changes that have taken place are significant and there is a need for HR to take the lead in assessing areas where culture is fragmenting in the disparate workplace.
Leadership & Accountability:
Accountability and leadership are essential – even more now with workforces disconnected from the group mentality of hard work and focused effort. HR is in the unique position of being able to off the C suite insights into how the staff works best, where they are vulnerable to becoming disaffected and how leadership can manage with more clarity and accountability to keep the teams together.
What is Social Capital and Why is it important?
“Social capital is the goodwill, fellowship, and shared understanding that allows us to work together most effectively.” From onboarding to flexibility in levels of employment, HR can assist in the maintenance and growth of social capital. Creating culture teams internally to host virtual happy hours with company swag, or virtual message boards to post images of home life with competitions for best caption, cutest dog, etc… are ways to use virtual workspaces to foster camaraderie and continue to keep employees engaged.
Engagement:
It’s not easy to keep remote workforces engaged, so having internal systems to create buddy-teams, accountability around not only tasks that are being accomplished, but ideas being shared is crucial to ongoing culture optimization. Try the “idea board” concept. Create a Virtual Board and invite each employee to offer 3 ideas a week. All ideas welcome. Every month the previous month’s winner chooses the next winner and set the new theme: Ideas for a holiday party, ideas for the newest product launch, ideas for the logo for a new online service.
Diversity:
Inclusion and diversity training is not to be ignored in these times. Home situations vary widely due to economic class and cultural differences. Understanding creates acceptance, and it’s up to HR to create safe spaces for concerns and requests to be fielded. The COVID crisis had disproportionately affected black and brown people, and as an organization, failing to acknowledge those disparities is almost as bad as perpetuating them.
Health and Wellbeing:
Take the temperature of your workforce: How is work-life balance? What is the well-being level of your team? How can the company help create a healthy work environment remotely? Mental health is not to be overlooked. Isolation, death, and illness are not temporary obstacles to be overcome, rather they pervade the lives of everyone touched by tragedy or illness. With over 200K people dead from COVID and an average of 9 people in mourning for each person who dies, that’s nearly 2 million people directly affected by death from COVID. Check in with your teams to see who has been affected and how the company can support them.
Systems and Processes:
How have your benefits changed during the pandemic? If you haven’t addressed compensation, it’s time to look at 401K’s retirement plans and benefits offerings. It may be that your workforce is less interested in a 401 K these days and would rather shift their benefits all to medical coverage. Listening to the needs of the workforce will build goodwill and uncover places where outdated policies are costing the company money without creating the goodwill for which they were intended.
Handbooks and policy initiatives. Your HR team likely write 2 policies a year… since COVID, there have had to be so many updates and brand new policies… likely you’re overwhelmed with policies. Don’t give up! Policies keep people safe, give clear parameters for productive and healthy work environments, and keep everyone clear on the rules (avoiding litigation). Keep reading the old manuals and rewriting them to address new situations.
Returning to the workplace.
The holy grail, “normalcy”… It’s a far off dream right now, but the fact is, some of us are already trickling back into offices. HR can create comfort and security around that transition by clearly outlining protocols for returning to the office, enforcing mask-wearing and temperature checks, and checking in with team members who choose not to come back in to ensure that they are remaining motivated and connected to those who choose TO come back in.
HR can be tremendously influential in leaderships’ understanding of the future of work in this new normal. AS a CEO, bringing in support teams for your internal HR people can fundamentally improve the outcomes across operations and talent management. At Culture Works, we assess your company culture needs and operationalize the systems to support your growth and future success.
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