For the foreseeable post-COVID world, organizations will be managing a hybrid workforce. You want your employees to be engaged and stay with you. At Leap Solutions, we believe it is important to have clear policies and guidelines to keep your hybrid workforce engaged and productive. We provide you with the tools you need to create the strategies you can use to support the hybrid workforce. We are dedicated to keeping you informed and empowered with relevant, up-to-the-minute information and resources, working with you to develop practical solutions and smart planning decisions for your organization.

In this issue of our newsletter:

• Understanding the Hybrid Workforce 
• Post-COVID Strategies to Consider for your workplace

The Hybrid Workforce

For the foreseeable future, organizations will be managing a hybrid workforce. It’s possible that what’s taken place in 2020 could usher in more non-desk (work-from-home) work than anyone anticipated. But, if we want employees to be engaged and stay with us, we need to have clear guidelines about the work and how it will get done. In 2020, organizations made many decisions with very little information… and that’s okay, that’s what it took to keep things working. We have more information now, and it’s time to create better employee strategies.

Estimates put the number of people working from home to be double pre-COVID numbers. That will necessitate new patterns that successfully integrate larger numbers of work-from-home employees with office employees.

In addition to a hybrid workforce focus, there are critical and simple strategies organizations can use to ensure successful employee engagement.

Post- COVID Strategies to Consider

Discover current best practice workplaces

Research or, better yet, have an employee or a group of employees research best practice workplaces for more information and knowledge.

Identify hybrid virtual workplace approaches

How is your organization preparing for the post-COVID work environment? Are you ready for a majority hybrid-remote office model?

Policies for Hybrid workforce

Create policies, within or separately from your handbook, that outline the rules and regulations for working from home. The employee and the employer need to be on the same page to avoid confusion and pre-empt potential misunderstandings.

Recruiting

It’s time to consider non-desk work when creating jobs. Job descriptions should include whether a position can be a work-from-home job, information that could be helpful to individuals when they’re reading the job posting or applying. In this post-COVID era, perhaps it’s time to design the job position with remote work in mind, instead of designing the job position then asking if it can be a non-desk role.

Customer Service

The way we manage a hybrid workforce has an impact on customers and the business. Remote employees need the tools and technology to take care of customers, be trained to handle customer issues, and know what to do if they need a manager’s guidance.

Refocus on Mission, not COVID

In some cases, COVID has caused leaders to centralize decision-making. For speed and efficiency’s sake, decisions were pulled into the leadership team without feedback from key stakeholders.  While necessary for the short-term, this will need to change for long-term effectiveness and employee engagement. Moving forward, leaders will need to delegate participation in decision-making outside the leadership team and closer to the front line.

Communication of the organization’s strategy improved during COVID. Organizations did a good job communicating internal COVID strategies so the wheels wouldn’t come off the wagon. Research found that employee perceptions that an organization was meeting its goals actually improved during the pandemic, and a ‘perception,’ disagreed with by some, that remote employees worked more effectively.

Increase communication efforts to keep employees informed during remote work.

Employee Engagement and Culture

As the COVID vaccine takes hold and workplaces ramp back up, employers will need to reconnect with employees at a new, different level. With the increased stress of being cooped up, less work-life balance, and kids at home, consider the issues affecting your employees now and how you plan now to address those issues.

Refocus on your Values

With people coming back to a physically close workspace, and the relationship challenges that come with that — which couldn’t happen on Zoom — it will be time to refocus on organizational values.

Re-engage your top talent

Post-COVID, disengaged employees will take advantage of options and choices. While Society of Human Resource Management says employees are spooked by continuing high unemployment and staying put in their jobs in ways not seen in nearly a decade, will “the return to normal” tempt your best people to leave?

Get those 1 on 1’s back in action

Organizational cultures are moving from “performance management conversations” to “development conversations.”  Frontline managers continue to be the key link between employees and organizations. A 30- to 60-minute weekly or bi-weekly meeting can be a treasure of mutual listening, understanding, affirmation, challenge, and action for individuals and teams.

Training managers to communicate

How comfortable do individuals feel discussing issues and concerns with managers where you work? There can always be further work in this area so don’t overlook it.

At Leap Solutions we have assisted companies with these strategies and more to help them prepare for re-entry, full re-entry, or hybrid solutions. In some cases these strategies were new, in other cases it was a simple reminder, tweak, and new policy implementation to ensure all parties were on the same page.

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Leap Solutions is a diverse group of highly skilled management, organizational development, and human resources, and executive search and recruitment professionals who have spent decades doing what we feel passionate about helping you feel passionate about what you do. Our HR specialists can help you get a handle on the ever-changing COVID-19 guidelines, programs, and legislation that may impact you and your employees. We are available to work with you to develop practical solutions and smart planning decisions for your organization’s immediate, near, and long-term needs.

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