Employee engagement in the work from home era

Oct 27

When COVID first hit and we were unexpectedly thrown into the world of working from home, most businesses (and employees) did a good job of ‘making do’. The systems weren’t perfect, but during a time of crisis it was enough that employers didn’t shut down altogether. But what happens when ‘crisis’ becomes the new normal? This time around, employees will not be entering into a ‘crisis mode’ of working in good faith that there is a ‘return to normalcy’ on the horizon…this is the new normal and the needs of your employees, as well as your business, will have evolved and will continue to evolve as we step in to this period of transition.

There is no ambiguity here. If, as an employer, you don’t recognise and react to the shift that’s happening in your organisation, or indeed your sector as a whole, then you will find your competitors streaking ahead.

It’s time to plan for the future with economic resilience being at the heart of the actions we take, and your employees are showing you the way already – after all every business owner/leader wants their business to be around in 10 years time with more money on their bottom line right?

For business leaders and those in HR positions, it’s time to tear up the old rulebook and explore new ideas around what work is and how we reward effort. What are our expectations as employers and employees? And how does one value it? This thinking is crucial for businesses that want to stay ahead of their competition, especially when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, but will also affect the financial performance of a business right now and its market resilience in the future.

As a business owner, ask yourself: how can you support your sales staff to hit their KPIs when their ‘normal’ ways of working are no longer possible? How do you adjust what’s expected of them to align with what is actually achievable now? How can you help your marketing team react to current events and pivot their activities to better speak to and meet the needs of potential customers?

Where are a lot of businesses going wrong?

The biggest mistake we’re seeing is organisations attempting to apply their existing employee engagement practices to this completely new working environment. Whilst many existing systems may still be effective, many will not and this can lead to frustration and disengagement – a death knell for successful remote working. It’s crucial that business leaders understand which systems need to change before it’s too late and employees start to leave.

There appears to be a large number of organisations that are simply trying to recreate the office environment for their employees at home, rather than seeing this as a new and potentially better way of working. We’ve all heard the stories of the boss who expects their employees to log into Zoom at 9 am and stay logged on until 5 pm just so they can ‘reach you any time’ but is that approach really going to build trust, engagement and transparency into your business culture?

In reality, working remotely is a situation that needs to be reassessed and, importantly, better understood by business leaders in order for their organisations to maintain financial stability and increase business resilience.

Building business resilience

Now that we know the world of work has changed, it’s up to business leaders to adapt and put sustainable practices in place for their teams. Employers need to carefully consider how they can maintain good engagement with their employees to establish strong relationships, reduce staff turnover and increase business resilience.

COVID will unleash a new wave of issues for employers that will have serious financial impact if they don’t start approaching employee engagement differently. For example, if you have one company bound by people coming into an office and another that functions just as well with people working remotely, who’s going to be in a better position to access talent irrespective of where they are located?

Instead of spending time and money on figuring out how to get employees back into the office, leaders need to be working out what they need to do to engage employees no matter their working location/environment.

For many leaders, this is an entirely new concept, especially in particular industries such as the legal industry where working from home is an irregular occurrence. Which means it’s not necessarily going to be an easy task but those who put the effort in are likely to notice substantial benefits short and long term.

Some of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen so far and/or predict are:

Forgetting about quiet employees
There being no system in place for employees to voice their thoughts/concerns
Bottleneck management structures that stop deadlines from being met
Burn out as work life balance is not considered
Employees’ constant fear of job loss
Management at a loss of how to support remote staff (employees leave managers not businesses)
Loss of learning opportunities for junior employees as you can’t just shadow someone in the office like you used to be able to
Lack of opportunity for growth
Extroverted employees don’t get the recognition/praise/acknowledgment they need to feel good about themselves
Introverted employees become ever more isolated without having their work emotional needs met
Employers more likely to hire people they feel are ‘easy to communicate with’ aka employees like them, which is another way of decreasing inclusivity and diversity in the make-up of the organisation – a key component of business resilience
No thoughts about the health and safety implications of working from home
Remote working is, can and will result in ever increasing breaches of data and security

What do employees want & need from employers?

They want you to listen and pay attention to what they actually want/need. If we look at working from home through a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs lens, we can see that employees’ needs are developing quickly. At the beginning, they were happy working from home as long as their basic psychological and safety needs were met but as time progresses, we are already seeing barriers to reaching love/belonging as loneliness becomes a serious issue for many who feel isolated at home.

“Managers need to be highly visible to their staff, approachable even when they don’t have anything new to say, and candid about the state of things in order to build their trust and credibility. It is imperative that you train your managers how to both manage (redundancies) and deal with the highly debilitating aftermath. You have to keep the surviving employees engaged and productive, or your company won’t ever recover.” — Mark Murphy, LeadershipIQ

This is not going to be an easy situation for employers to navigate but it will be considerably harder if you are not aware of the specific hurdles you are facing. With that in mind, a considerably more personalised approach is going to be needed.

In the office, whilst each employee has their individual needs, everyone’s environment is the same. Common issues will arise but generally they will be hurdles you have come up against before. When working from home, everyone is in a different environment and faces different challenges. It will take time to work out a good way of handling problems and making sure everyone is engaged on an individual level.

Trust

As a leader, you’ve had to make considerable changes over recent months which will have affected everyone in your organisation to some degree. If you did this well, with transparency and consideration for each individual, you will have gained a lot of trust. AirBnb showed us a prime example of this by creating a talent directory for the employees that they had to let go. It’s likely that your team respects your decisions and appreciates that you know what’s best. It’s time to build on that trust and continue to prove to your team that you are putting their most pressing needs first.

Importantly, this can’t just be through statements or promises. Action speaks louder than words.

Personalisation

One of the biggest concerns that we’ve become increasingly aware of recently is a blanket approach to employee engagement. In actual fact, all approaches need to be adapted for different personalities, quiet Bob in the corner is fine when you can see him and get a feel for how he’s doing, but now? Engaging the quiet Bobs is more important than ever and employers need to come up with a wide range of initiatives if they are going to keep everyone engaged on an individual level.

Good employee engagement is the secret sauce to productive, committed and resilient teams. And now that we’re all working remotely, it’s more important than ever to know your people are fully engaged. At Gingko, we’ve been highlighting the importance of employee engagement for years, and helping our clients figure out what it means for them. We know its value and how to implement changes in your business that will improve stability and long-term possibilities.

If you’re ready to step out of crisis mode and start taking the future of your business seriously, speak to one of our experts about your organisation’s employee engagement practices.