A Short Guide On Motivating & Inspiring Your Team During the Pandemic
Apart from the need to cope with the physical aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, many employers are also finding themselves combating the emotional impacts of the pandemic. In the meantime, employees are suffering from anxiety, depression, and stress as they try to settle in their new work practices. No doubt, everyone is going through a challenging time right now. Still, as an employer, you need to step up and get personally involved with your workforce while addressing the significant health challenges the world is facing today.
For businesses to operate successfully, it has become more vital now than ever to ensure the well-being of employees. This means helping the employees handle the emotional disturbance they might be experiencing during this time. Let us discuss the five ways to motivate and inspire your employees during the current crisis.
- Be a calm leader
A leader is always needed, but this need intensifies during times like these. No matter how the employer might be feeling in these situations, the workforce will need someone to rely on for reassurance. As a motivating leader, you need to remain calm while conveying a clear plan for moving forward and even accepting the changes to business as usual.
- Consider safety as a priority
Your employees won’t feel confident if they don’t feel safe in the first place. Therefore, employers must make sure that the workplace is in conformity with the State as well as National guidelines, and it also shows the value for employees’ health.
Moreover, for businesses that are still operating on-site, proper safety measures must be taken. This means providing hand sanitizers, hand wash, tissues, gloves, and masks for employee use. Companies that are operating both remotely and on-site need to publicly discuss their health policies. Also they should highlight any changes in their plan in case an employee gets affected by Coronavirus.
- Paying attention
One of the best work practices but very critical to implement this time. As an employer, when you pay attention to your employees’ concerns, you will have the opportunity to tackle the problems before it can grow. Moreover, for many employees, just being able to talk to someone about their issues makes them feel relieved and get back to work with a fresh mind. Additionally, employees feel cared for when you listen to their concerns genuinely.
Meanwhile, for some employees, listening will put forward certain needs that the management can address via flexible arrangements. For instance, a stressed-out parent might need to shift their work hours to provide better care to their child as schools are shut. While an employee looking after a sick person might need to work from home for some time. Listening to your employees with empathy will help in maintaining a positive work environment during this time.
- Reorganize activities
As observed lately, not all activities that are completed smoothly at your desk in the workplace can be carried out easily at your workstation at home. This is where reorganizing your activities comes into play. Because attempting and failing to do such tasks at home, which they could effortlessly do at the office, can demoralize your employees.
Therefore, it would be a wise move to put such activities at a halt during this time and assign your employees tasks that can be easily done at home with a relaxed time frame. Meanwhile, you can use this time to make your employees go through their files, clean out their desktops and emails. Doing so will not only keep your employees engaged but will also make them feel productive. Moreover, they will be relaxed and refreshed enough to resume their work once the lockdown is lifted.
- Start investing in the development
As per the famous saying, everything has a good and bad side; this situation is also a great opportunity to invest in professional and business development. Offering professional development opportunities to your workforce will make them realize that there is going to be a future for them, for the company, and above all for the world while providing them adequate tools to operate with renewed passion and confidence.
The same applies to business development too. Start discussions with your employees regarding changes that can improve the company’s management and dealings overall. Acknowledge their suggestions and implement the creative ideas and solutions put forward by them. This strategy will not only allow your organization to grow but will eventually boost your employees’ morale and productivity. As a result, your business will prosper and achieve new heights once this lockdown ends.
All these five strategies, when adopted together, can motivate and inspire your employees during this pandemic. This will ultimately help your business to emerge as a durable and successful entity post the Covid-19 crisis.
We hope this information is useful to you. Let us know how these strategies work out for your employees and organization via the comments below.