Prioritising employee experience post-COVID

The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has pre­sent­ed a mul­ti­tude of oper­a­tional and cul­tur­al chal­lenges that organ­i­sa­tions have had to adopt and adapt to in a short time. With many work style changes becom­ing per­ma­nent, it is now imper­a­tive for enter­pris­es to plan for the longer term.

The dig­i­tal agen­da for most busi­ness­es is under­go­ing sig­nif­i­cant repri­ori­ti­sa­tion, with suc­cess­ful­ly and secure­ly enabling more flex­i­ble work styles being a key theme dom­i­nat­ing the plans. This need around remote work is noth­ing new; it is a dig­i­tal ini­tia­tive many busi­ness­es have been active­ly work­ing to deliv­er for many years. How­ev­er, most have cen­tred around tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and we should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er how we can learn to human­ise the work­place in a post-pan­dem­ic world.

Process is just as important as tech

For busi­ness­es, the chal­lenge is in enabling flu­id work styles, but in a way that does not neg­a­tive­ly impact employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and secu­ri­ty. This bal­anc­ing act has focused on mak­ing cal­cu­lat­ed invest­ments in tech­nolo­gies and ser­vices that sup­port these new ways of work­ing, espe­cial­ly impor­tant giv­en the bud­get scruti­ny many busi­ness­es are work­ing under. Col­lab­o­ra­tion tools, secu­ri­ty appli­ca­tions, using tech­nol­o­gy to track work­place occu­pan­cy and man­age shift pat­terns have all played a role.

How­ev­er, improv­ing “peo­ple prac­tices” and busi­ness process­es will be just as impor­tant. The mass home-work­ing exper­i­ment brought about by the pan­dem­ic has shown how tech­nol­o­gy chal­lenges, and oth­ers, can be over­come and how new ben­e­fits can be realised as a result. The tra­di­tion­al cen­tralised office will by no means become a rel­ic of the past, but new atti­tudes towards remote work­ing mean busi­ness­es have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve employ­ee well­be­ing and cor­po­rate cul­ture.

Peo­ple have been iso­lat­ed over recent months, both in their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lives, so bring­ing them clos­er togeth­er is going to be very impor­tant going for­ward. Addi­tion­al­ly, a flu­id work­force engages and col­lab­o­rates with one anoth­er via dif­fer­ent chan­nels, includ­ing voice, text and video.

Communication is key

Even when the tools are there to sup­port com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion among teams, devel­op­ing an inclu­sive cul­ture and ensur­ing all employ­ees have a voice and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share ideas is vital. Man­age­ment approach­es will need to adapt in sup­port­ing this ide­al and there is nowhere near the focus on retrain­ing man­agers for a per­ma­nent change yet.

Trust and under­stand­ing between employ­ees and team mem­bers is devel­oped by encour­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the shar­ing of ideas, but it would be dan­ger­ous to assume this is tak­ing place just because the tools are avail­able.

A com­mon approach adopt­ed by some busi­ness­es look­ing to strength­en cor­po­rate cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ca­tion through­out the pan­dem­ic has been to launch vir­tu­al cof­fee break ini­tia­tives where­by two or more employ­ees from dif­fer­ent parts of a busi­ness are ran­dom­ly paired togeth­er in a dis­cus­sion. Vir­tu­al cof­fee breaks cer­tain­ly have val­ue, but they alone will not fos­ter the active col­lab­o­ra­tion and out­puts that will help organ­i­sa­tions inno­vate and improve cul­ture.

Man­agers can help fos­ter more active col­lab­o­ra­tion by mak­ing projects and work tasks more col­lab­o­ra­tive, thus help­ing cre­ate a real pur­pose for com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It will take as much effort as redesign­ing the phys­i­cal office spaces in the plan­ning, but will ensure longer term engage­ment and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty than oth­er, less human tools do. Ensur­ing employ­ees also have access to the sup­port and train­ing they need, when they need it, should still be imper­a­tive for busi­ness­es and the mul­ti­tude of vir­tu­al plat­forms have proven this is pos­si­ble.

The require­ment for tech­nol­o­gy tools and solu­tions has proven vital in the ini­tial response to man­ag­ing a work­force since the pan­dem­ic. With per­ma­nent changes to the future of work, we must remem­ber not to depri­ori­tise the employ­ee expe­ri­ence.

Writ­ten by Car­olyn Daw­son, Man­ag­ing direc­tor, Infor­ma Tech