5 Tips On How To Support Your Team During COVID-19
Social Distance. Flattening the Curve. Quarantine. These are words and phrases that we were never expected to hear in our lifetime. The effects of experiencing COVID-19 have had profound and lasting impacts on not only our personal lives but on our professional lives as well.
Society is transforming into a collective work from home culture, an unprecedented cultural and economic shift. Companies are seeing firsthand how requiring employees physically to work in the office may be more of an antiquated concept of “productivity”. With lives and public health at stake, working from home has never been more crucial - and confusing.
Lines are becoming increasingly blurred on how to get business done as usual, digital workplace boundaries are often lacking, and the desire to seek the “normal” in an extremely abnormal global climate have made the adjustment to work from home difficult for employees and employers alike. Due to rapid responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses and organizations lacked sufficient time and resources to prepare for major shifts leading to a work from home culture that has been largely reactive instead of proactive.
HERE ARE 5 WAYS YOU CAN MAKE A LOCAL IMPACT ON YOUR EMPLOYEES AMIDST A GLOBAL CRISIS.
Technology is the critical touchpoint for work from home culture. Without it, we can’t be productive as a team. Using tools like Zoom, Slack, and FaceTime can help to facilitate an online community. Even though many of these channels are solely for work purposes, organizations can create intentional online spaces and encourage open dialogues for employees to talk about their emotional state and wellbeing.
Example One: Create a slack channel dedicated for staff to have space to openly discuss what they may be going through and how they’re dealing with this crisis.
Example Two: Create a fun Slack channel for staff to chat about helpful coping mechanisms, like the best Netflix shows they’ve been binging during quarantine. It’s important for your team to feel heard and cared for, even from across the digital divide.
As much as tools like Slack, Zoom, email, and text are a great way to connect, nothing beats a personal phone call or message from a boss to check in on you. While we often carry as an assumption, that if a member of the team is feeling a certain way, they’ll reach out to you as a manager or supervisor, that’s not always the case.
As a leader, it’s important to anticipate these needs as much as possible - especially during something as drastic as a global pandemic. Call your team members individually - not as a group - and ask how they’re doing. Be sure to always hold space to reevaluate work boundaries too, some days folks might not feel able to talk on the phone, so integrate flexibility into your management approach to meet and support staff needs.
Lastly, keep the momentum up while also making sure your team feels affirmed. If you have the resources available, you can consider sending care packages to your team such as an herbal tea garden or a calming lavender candle, which allows them to feel appreciated from afar. Prioritize buying care packages from local businesses to help support your local community and your staff at the same time. You can also send weekly affirming emails or hold space in your virtual meetings to shout out your staff individually for the incredible work you’re doing.
Everybody going through this traumatic experience is processing it differently. Remember that your staff will have different coping mechanisms and varying ways of working during a crisis. Some will rely on a constant need to be busy in order to feel distracted and productive. Others may need more rest and emotional moments to recharge. Keeping a traditional nine to five workday can actually decrease productivity for some employees who might feel restricted and micromanaged.
Value your employees by being flexible and equitable. Hold folks accountable to getting their work done but allow them space and time to manage that on their own terms. By creating check-ins, holding space to discuss emotional and professional needs, and leading with compassion, organizations can build and develop trust in their team to get the job done - even if each employee handles it differently. Give your team the freedom to get the job done in a way that feels unique to their individual styles and make sure you’re always operating with an equity lens so that no one is taking on other folks’ work because they cope differently.
Mental health is just as important as physical health, especially in a time of uncertainty and anxiety. Make sure your team feels as though you are on their side when it comes to proactive self-care. Encourage staff to go on daily walks, not work during their “lunch break”, or cheers to each other during virtual happy hours. If someone on your team needs to take time for a therapy session or a personal health day, be supportive and sincere.
At the end of the day, the work is important, but so is the mental health of your staff. Folks may be much more understanding right now of different ways of working due to the pandemic, but a sustained commitment to the mental health and wellbeing of your staff should be an evergreen principle of your organization. Movements for liberation are sustained by individuals checking in on themselves and taking care of themselves.
Working from home has many benefits, but it also has distractions as well. Kids walk in during Zoom meetings. Dogs bark. Meals need to get made. The stress your staff is feeling from all the things that are “piling up” in their personal lives will have an impact on their work-life. Allow your team breaks in the day to catch up on the personal impacts of the pandemic. They may have a sick, elderly parent, homeschooling a child or sibling, have a shortage of toilet paper, the list goes on. Whatever is going on in the lives of your staff likely feels a lot more pronounced right now. Remember everyone wears more hats than being a worker. Be supportive and allow your team the time and space to handle the management of life from all angles - even if they’re not wearing any pants.