Enabling Work-Life Harmony In The Time of COVID-19
Organizations could never have anticipated or been prepared for the pandemic that has hit us. With the workforce being compelled to go remote, leadership and HR around the world are being put through a stress test like never before.
It has been over five months of work-from-home in many parts of the world and the adverse effects of this prolonged situation are starting to show.
A) Anxiety – Employees are worried about the safety of their families on the one hand and about job security on the other. With news of layoffs and pay cuts streaming in on a daily basis, there is uncertainty about the future, about keeping the home fires burning and repaying loans.
B) Isolation – People have social bonds at the workplace, which give them a sense of belonging, comfort, and an emotional outlet. The lockdown has fractured this every day connect, suddenly leaving people feeling alone.
C) Burnout – The mental agony of everything going on around us is compounded with additional responsibilities of household chores, managing children, and elderly parents, which need to be juggled with office work. This has upset daily routines and employees are spending long, odd hours at work, leading to fatigue.
With the situation being far from normal, HR teams from around the world are racing to address the negative impact on employees and help them rebalance “work” and “life.” After all, the future of work is directly correlated to the future of employee well-being. Let’s look at some measures HR can take.
1) To address anxiety:
a) Ensure that employees receive regular updates on business performance and plans, and job security. Virtual town halls can be leveraged to address employee anxiety and dispel rumors. It is wise to overcommunicate in these times. Being truthful and transparent with employees will go a long way in allaying unfounded fears and fostering an environment of trust.
b) Get senior leadership to share their personal experiences on coping with the situation. This will help employees understand that we are going through this together and might help them cope with anxiety better.
c) Provide researched material on the do’s and don’ts of staying safe.
2) To counter isolation:
a) Create virtual formats of org-wide and team-specific events. Group activities generate positive energy and a feeling of community that employees have been missing during the lockdown.
b) Allow family members to be included in such events. This will help re-establish the social connection people yearn for.
c) Encourage people to not dive into meeting agendas right away. They should use the first 10 minutes or so to check in with each other. Keep it light.
d) Recognize and appreciate employees for their contribution and impact. Make sure “out of sight” does not become “out of mind.”
e) Create groups around hobbies and interests to get like-minded people to connect with each other across the organization.
f) Use the organization’s intranet to build engagement and encourage conversations.
3) To prevent burnout:
a) Empathize with people’s personal challenges in this situation and allow for flexibility in work routines.
b) Proactively encourage people to take holidays.
c) Emphasize that people do not have to be “always on.” Encourage them to get away from their laptops and mobiles occasionally.
d) Ask managers to give employees their space and not monitor the availability and online presence. It is important that employees are trusted.
e) Let employees know that it is okay to keep the video off during meetings and it is okay if their children or pets saunter in during meetings.
f) Deploy learning programs on topics like mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and tai chi to aid mental and physical health.
g) Provide financial assistance that allows employees to create a comfortable and ergonomic workplace at home.
It is important that HR trains managers across functions and at all levels to “listen,” “feel,” and “see” signs of anxiety, isolation, and burnout among their team members and address them immediately. HR can deploy chatbots and surveys to gauge people’s moods and take timebound action.
While we all hope to see the end of this pandemic soon, it has already created a paradigm shift in the way organizations work and this will have long-term implications. As the workforce becomes geographically distributed and works remotely, HR will have to reinvent the wheel to manage the employee lifecycle virtually. And the timeless values of trust, empathy, and compassion will be sacrosanct in building organizations with an “employee-first” culture that ensures harmony between work and life. After all, work is also life, and balancing work and life is balancing life itself.
