This has certainly gotten all of us by surprise. The COVID-19.
I am fairly definite that when all of us returned from our annual vacation in January of 2020, none of us envisaged that our lives will turned on its head. The confusion and chaos this virus has caused and continue to affect us is totally unimaginable.
The concept of social distancing was born, so was the new importance of washing hands and sanitising. More importantly, working from home has taken a new meaning and significance. Previously all of us could work from home as and when required, particularly to balance personal and professional needs. Right now, it has become mandatory and with it a whole new set of rules and regulations.
With businesses under tight economic constraints and major challenges forcing companies to shut their operations or scale down dramatically. More significantly, employees are losing jobs by the millions in practically every country. And those that are kept on will have to work from home.
With this “New Normal” being the norm in all organisations, what are the challenges for HR. What is the role of HR? Besides the layoffs, which would be rather difficult, there will be new rules to be put in place for the remaining staff who will have to work from home.
How would you maintain the engagement of the employees and make them feel connected to the organisation when there is no real organisation ‘physically’. There will be no more face to face meetings, breakfast or lunch meetings, let alone Friday drinks. Coaching, mentoring and performance meetings all have to be navigated on line with no emotional and behavioural intricacies to deal with. Can we really be effective in managing people when we do not have any personal contact?
The question is how do we maintain and grow meaningful human connections between individuals, especially between employees and their supervisors. How do we communicate and collaborate effectively while working remotely and from home?
The question then is how do we as HR professionals maintain the integrity of the meaning of “connecting with your staff to engage them?” What happens to Town Hall Meetings and Departmental Meetings. The honest truth is that some people will be good at working on their own from home or virtually, while others may struggle with the absence of face to face contact.
One of the challenges facing HR professionals is that we will have to train our Managers and Executives to work in this new virtual medium effectively. We also would have to put in place various channels to keep the communication open and available. When someone who is working from home, family issues crop up or they may be lonely through isolation and mental issues may become issues to deal with. How would employees deal with these issues and is there someone they could reach out and talk to? Guidelines and contact numbers and people to call on will have to established. One company has set rules that Managers and Executives will have to call their staff at least once a week and have chats with them, with specific questions set as base guidelines. And virtual drinks on Friday evenings via zoom has become quite the norm.
What does HR do in the meantime?
