Prepare your team for the post-corona era
Many countries are currently dealing with one corona wave after another. The hospital beds are full and vaccination seems like a race against time. However, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel and so we yearn for things to return to normal soon. Logical too!
Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that after the pandemic we will not return to the working environment of the past. After all, Covid has thoroughly shaken global business.
Therefore, it’s crucial for leaders to know how to prepare their teams for the post-Covid world.
How will the New Normal look?
The post-Covid normal will definitely be different from how workplaces used to look earlier. We are entering a new era in which teleworking will in many cases be the norm. It is therefore important for companies to prepare for this as well as possible. Systems for working from home that were hastily developed during corona will be retained and may need to be expanded. Even companies that already worked completely remotely before the crisis will have to take a number of necessary steps. After all, even they could never have imagined that the pandemic would have such an impact on team culture and social contacts at work.
Before the pandemic, the company’s employees met in occasional retreats or in-person meetings to build connections and make contacts. This human contact is also an elementary aspect of telework. However, it is not obvious to create a similar experience.
Since the pandemic was as unprecedented as it gets, there are no current practices in place that are proven to work. Team leaders and HR departments therefore rely on trial and error to find a solution that works for most people or delivers the desired result within a particular team.
How to prepare your team for it?
Now that it’s certain that Covid-19 is bound to leave an ever-lasting impact on the workplace, it’s about time you rethink your business structure and make appropriate changes.
Here are a few ways to prepare your team for the post-pandemic world.
Increase Digital Tools
When the pandemic hit, businesses started relying on digital tools to stay afloat during the work-from-home sessions.
Those digital technologies will not suddenly disappear once the pandemic is over. That is precisely why it is so important to continuously support your teams by optimizing and refining digitization in the workplace.
At the same time, it is smart for a company to analyze how certain consumer trends have changed since Covid, and to respond to this in a handy way. After the pandemic, will consumers still mainly want to shop online? Will your existing online marketing strategy work after the pandemic?
By optimally anticipating this today, you can prepare your employees for the new needs of consumers in general and of your customers in particular.
Offer mental health programs
Funny Zoom wallpapers or kids walking in to an important meeting can make you smile while teleworking. Yet being away from the office does not always feel pleasant or relaxed.
With the economy stumbling and the employment conditions getting uncertain, the workforce’s mental health took a toll. A JAMA study reported that substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and domestic violence are on the rise during the pandemic.
In the past, such issues may not have come up at work. However, due to the pandemic and working from home, these themes are now an essential part of the HR policy, which had to match the new needs of the workforce. It is therefore advisable as a company to focus on mental support programs, so that employees notice that they are given the necessary help to continue to do their work well.
Organize online team building activities
Now that remote working is here to stay, online team building activities offer interesting opportunities. Here are some ideas:
Arrange virtual coffee meetups
When working in a physical office space, your employees can have lunch or coffee together. Or, they might even go out for drinks after closing a lucrative deal or finishing a project. However, the pandemic has stripped them of these relaxation mediums.
To imitate this experience, you can hold virtual coffee meetups where employees get together on Zoom to talk about anything other than work.
If you still want to make it work-related, you can also perfectly link an online game with a learning aspect to this meeting.
Organize virtual gaming moments
Have you been working on a demanding project for a long time? Treat your employees to a digital game to give them a relaxing moment with their colleagues.
The possibilities are endless. For example, take them on a trip around the world in teams. After all, we all miss traveling! Or lock them in a virtual Escape Room, so that they can sharpen their collective decision-making skills and creativity.
Fancy something simpler? Then you can spoil them with an interesting online team quiz.
Conclusion
The business verse is always changing, and the pandemic put the change in fast forward. In this changing digital world it is therefore crucial to keep up and also adapt your company. Fortunately, there are many interesting solutions that meet everyone’s needs.