Many HR Professionals have taken courses for managing HR in times of crisis. But few could claim to be psychologically prepared for COVID-19.
Human Resources Professionals had to question their roles and impacts, champion their practices and rethink Employee Experience in an environment where social distancing is the new norm.
Truth is, social distancing doesn’t mean “HeartDistancing”, “CareDistancing” “EmpathyDistancing” nor “TeamspiritDistancing”. While companies have adjusted their services to provide new types of Customer Experience, we as HR people had to provide an ever better Employee Experience during those hard times.
Five core values guided us through this pandemic to achieve our human and business goals while fighting the pandemic.
1. Communication
Social distancing and remote work forced us to find better ways to communicate and even more. Communication needs to be transparent, positive, open, reassuring and constant. At RightCom, we created an unique communication channel for COVID-19: we had at least a weekly meeting; we had several daily meetings within departments; one-on-one check-in with the HR department ; regular communication by emails, chat groups, etc. As an HR, you need to make sure all your communications have a purpose; whether it being reassuring, informative, inspirational, playful; or just reminding the employees that you care for them.
2. Trust
Even though many businesses were reluctant to allow employees to work remotely, they had to trust their employees’ commitment and dedication to put in the work, even from the bed!
However, let’s not forget that trust comes with a bit of control, especially in agile environment and trust goes both ways. The employees need to trust that his company and his management team will do their absolute best to protect them and the company. As an HR, your role, through communication, concrete actions, team buildings and individual sessions is to strengthen that trust.
3. Flexibility
Many reports show that remote work contributes to more productivity. But in some cases, this can’t be further from the truth. That’s where as an HR professional, you should assess your team’s wellbeing; ask questions to managers to understand how remote work affects the colleagues on day to day. The organization must be flexible with ways to accommodate different scenarios. It could be setting up a shift, consider commuting for some of your co-workers, authorizing full remote work, etc.
It can be difficult for businesses to address on a case-by-case basis, but employees should be given few options.
4. Leadership
In times of crisis, leaders are expected to set the tone and to have all the solutions. The goal is to find a balance between reassuring employees and pushing for performance in such hard times.
As a leader, you need to first rebuild confidence, provide hope and develop trust. If your employees trust you as leader and trust that even if you don’t have all the answers, you’re doing your best to protect them and the company, they will follow your leadership without hesitation. As an HR, you will need to support not only the employees but also the leaders by helping them acknowledge the crisis through communication, prioritize your actions and the company’s actions, foster collaboration and transparency across the teams but most importantly remind the employees that there is no perfect formula and that flexibility is key in every aspect of the crisis management.
5. Customer Centric
Like most businesses, RightCom saw the need to prioritize its employees’ health and safety above all and by doing so, we gave the employees the sense of how they could impact our customers with the same attitude. To provide great customer experience, you need to have great employee experience.
In our communications and actions, we asked them this simple question:
“How can RightCom add value to customers’ lives during this time as it has done for its employees?”
Every manager had to run this question in his teams and get feedbacks. We received amazing answers and ideas that help us craft new and adapted customer-centric solutions, like RightKiosk Flexi. That’s what we call #Excellence at RightCom, always pushing forward even when times are hard.
After all, brands, companies, and governments will be remembered by how they supported their employees and their customers in their time of need.
As an HR, think carefully about your daily actions and communications with the team as it helps ensure sustained motivation and provides hope and a safe place during this crisis.
