By NJOKI KARUNGU KARUGA
The world has changed dramatically over the past few months due
to the coronavirus pandemic. A few months back, driving business
results, inspiring and motivating employees and strategising how
to beat the competition was a lot more straightforward. Things have changed significantly since then and we are now in a situation where every business is fighting to stay alive.
to beat the competition was a lot more straightforward. Things have changed significantly since then and we are now in a situation where every business is fighting to stay alive.
Companies are
deploying survival strategies to keep themselves afloat by effecting pay
cuts, redundancies and sending employees on unpaid leave. What do you
do if you need to motivate employees and the bonus that was promised is
now a far off and seemingly unreachable dream? What do you do if you are
barely making ends meet as a business and need now more than ever for
your employees to be motivated?
There are a few
practical strategies that businesses can implement during this time to
keep their employees motivated and drive stronger focus to achieving
business results.
OPEN COMMUNICATION:
The
current uncertain environment has led to an increase in anxiety among
employees. It is important to communicate as much as possible on what
the company’s plans are including what the current performance is, the
mitigating interventions that the company has put in place to salvage
the situation and what employees can do to help. Anxiety is heightened
by fear of the unknown and the imagination running wild with worst case
scenarios so the more information that is shared on the situation, the
easier it is to manage the anxiety. The frequency of communication at
the company wide level will need to increase during this period to allow
people to ask questions and have them answered in an open forum. While
leaders may not have all the answers, the questions will be a useful
indicator of what the concerns are and will help them think through
possible solutions later.
SHINE A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL:
A
powerful way to motivate employees would be to work out a bounce back
plan for the business. The plan should not simply include the bouncing
back strategy but should also include the requisite rewards to employees
as business slowly recovers. In instances where pay cuts have been
effected for example, a graduated plan depicting salary recovery as the
business bounces back would be very useful. Employees knowing that every
10 percent in sustained business growth will be accompanied by a five
percent salary increase will provide clarity for them as well as
motivate them to keep pushing for results. There is a possibility that
employees are worried about employers maintaining the slashed salaries
even beyond possible business recovery and this would be an effective
approach to managing any anxiety around this.
EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT:
There
is a very thin line between personal and professional life in our
current situation. While many would have imagined that working from home
is less stressful, the lengthy hours behind the screen without a break
easily take a toll on the human body and mind. Businesses that are
really serious about the well-being of their people can put in place a
policy directive of a maximum number of hours per day that their
employees should be on call to ensure work life balance and retention of
high-quality output. Innovative ideas can not be generated by a tired
mind and now more than ever, innovation is required for survival. Having
eight zoom meetings per day is simply not effective and neither is it
healthy.
Providing a platform for the team to come up
with a plan on ways of working for example blocking particular hours of
the day as a team to focus on home schooling is likely to be highly
appreciated!
Kindness really is a superpower! Now more
than ever, kindness is a superpower. Many employees are experiencing
loneliness during this time especially those who live on their own. It
is an excellent time to enhance relationships by checking in on your
team through one on one conversations that are not business related and
investing in thoughtful gestures for example surprise gift deliveries.
A
special gesture that will cost practically nothing is a handwritten
note saying thank you delivered directly to your employee’s doorstep!
The writer is a talent strategist.
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