The Post-Covid “I’m not going back to work” Crisis. How to Deal With It.

Although at times it may not seem like it, the pandemic will inevitably end. At that point, it is tempting to believe that we’ll all be able to just go back to our offices and things will get back to normal.

It’s not that simple.

The pandemic has fundamentally changed how employees relate to their work.

As a manager these are some of the challenges you’ll face:

  • More than 25% of workers are willing to look for other work if they’re forced back into the office full time.
  • More than 75% of workers still want to work remotely full or part time.
  • Hybrid work arrangements are a solution, but present a scheduling nightmare.
  • You’ll be managing a combination of remote and onsite workers.
  • Workers are suffering unprecedented mental health challenges ranging from pandemic loneliness to losing loved ones to Covid. They’re expecting their employers to accommodate this.
  • The pandemic has put the values, humanity, and empathy of corporations into sharp relief. Workers are now much less willing to work for a company whose values do not match their own.
  • The post-pandemic economic recovery will make it harder to retain good people, especially if you don’t provide the work environment that they expect.
  • Navigating with your workers to design the “new normal” is a tricky and risky process that will require empathy, insight and trust.
  • Many of these factors have already resulted in the “Big Quit” or “Great Resignation” of 2021. Dissatisfied workers are leaving their jobs in droves and the competition for talent is fierce.

It is a daunting mix of challenges.

Following are some thoughts, information, and insights that will help you prepare for this journey and reduce the unpleasant surprises along the way.

Hybrid, Remote, or Onsite. What are the options?

One of the first hurdles is to decide on the mix of work arrangements you’ll have The research consistently shows that hybrid working arrangements where workers are in the office 3 out of 5 days create the best outcomes for organizations and their employees.

But the best teamwork requires face-to-face time for the information-rich conversations necessary for creativity, problem-solving, and building cohesion. Without this nuanced, in-person interaction including eye contact and body language, it is more difficult to form bonds, trust, and team synergy. These random connections are critical for building team culture and this is why there will always be a place for the office and why companies that realize this will have a competitive advantage.

Conversely, some tasks are best suited to independent, uninterrupted remote work where the required information is codified and easily accessible remotely.

But corporations are all over the map when it comes to their post lockdown reality.

Tech firms such as Twitter, Dropbox, Shopify, and Reddit are giving employees the option to work remotely permanently. Phillips 66 on the other hand, has already brought back most of its staff to its headquarters in Houston. Financial industry players Blackstone, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have also forced employees to be back on site.

Most organizations are going for some kind of hybrid model with a combination of onsite and remote work. But this has its own challenges. For the benefits of onsite interaction to occur, you need to have the right people on-site at the same time. This leads to the scheduling nightmare that organizations adopting this model are already facing. How do you line up all the conflicting worker schedules and non-work commitments to make this happen? It will require plenty of give-and-take from both sides.

There will be workers who spend most of their time at the office and those that stay mainly at home. This can create a face time bias which leads to office employees being favoured over remote workers for career advancements. Remote workers can be overlooked because others assume that if they were serious they would be at the office. This can quickly balloon into an employment equity issue. You’ll need to develop ways to counteract this so that both remote and onsite employees have equal opportunities to move up in the company.

Working from home can also create a personal sense of disconnection from the organization. Whatever you can do to help your people create a workspace separate from their living space will help them feel like they are “at work.” One way is to provide a workstation setup that incorporates your corporate branding to help remind them that they are a part of something.

As part of the hybrid environment, organizations are looking forward to reducing their office footprint. In Britain, HSBC is predicting a 40% reduction in its long-term office needs. By 2023, Lloyds Banking Group is counting on a 20% drop in office space. This means that workers will no longer have their own desks.

This can be a problem, as people feel most safe and comfortable when they have their own space at work. After the disruption of Covid-19, this is particularly important because it can help make things feel normal and familiar and ease the return-to-work stress. If you are hot-desking, then at least provide a locker or bin where people can keep their “work kit” and bring it to whatever desk they’re using that day.

Mental and Physical Health Pitfalls

Research both before and during lockdown shows a sharp increase in loneliness amongst remote workers. Zoom and other technologies are not a substitute for in-person connectedness and often have the opposite effect. The result is higher rates of employee burnout, turnover, and disengagement.

Despite the efficiency and convenience of remote work, it may result in a simmering mental health crisis.

The list of issues affecting your employees as they return to the office may be numerous: grieving a loved one lost to the virus, financial stress from a spouse’s layoff, loneliness, and more.

The pandemic has created a situation where almost all employees will be dealing with personal challenges. Extending the kindness and consideration with which you led your employees through the lockdown into the post-lockdown environment will be crucial. Small kindnesses can go a long way.

And as a leader, don’t forget to be kind to yourself. You’ve been under just as much if not more stress than your workers. Don’t hesitate to seek out support.

Your Culture Could be Fading

Of workers surveyed, 61 percent agree that remote work has changed their company's culture significantly. 47 percent say they feel more disconnected from the corporate values.

With hybrid work models, cultural cohesion is even more important. When you’re not physically immersed in the culture, it’s much more difficult to relate to it and become part of it. Organizations will have to pay close attention to workplace culture and make sure that remote workers feel part of it. Social engagement is critical for this to happen.

All of your stakeholders including employees, customers, and shareholders are holding organizations up to much higher standards. Workers want to know that the behaviour and values of the organization they’re spending their days at are aligned with their own. Activist shareholders are demanding a higher standard of behaviour. Customers are choosing to do business with companies that hew to similar values as their own.

More than ever, organizational culture will be either a competitive advantage or an obvious liability.

Retention is Becoming a Major Issue

In a McKinsey survey, more than 25% of pandemic remote workers said that they may switch employers if forced to return to fully on-site work.

Mental health, work-life balance, and flexibility are now top of mind for workers.

As the economy picks up, people will start looking for other opportunities if employers do not meet their post-pandemic expectations. In addition to the McKinsey survey, a recent study by Prudential provided even more startling numbers. Fully 42% of workers would not want to work where they were required to be on-site full time.

This is a seismic change in the HR landscape and many organizations will struggle to adapt and will lose valuable workers because of it.

It's Critical That You Make A Plan

Every leader who sees the writing on the wall will want to know what employees will demand in the post-lockdown world. As always, the best way to find out is to ask them. But not through a survey. You’ll need something more in-depth. Depending on the level of trust and openness in your organization, you may be able to do this internally through an honest, collective forum. A skilled facilitator will make the most of this process by keeping the conversations focussed and providing a methodology for openness, trust, and information capture.

If the trust level is not up for this, you can bring in an impartial third party to have one-on-one conversations with a representative sample of your workers. I’ve provided this service many times and it always amazes me what people are willing to share with me confidentially over the phone. This input paired with my interpretations and advice has proven invaluable and often surprising to the leaders.

Based upon this information-gathering from your workers, you will need to modify your work environment to optimize everyone’s contribution to the organization while still providing the flexibility they demand.

Working from home is best for independent tasks when communication at a distance suffices. However, when work is interdependent, fluid, creative, and unpredictable, it’s best to be together at the office. You must prepare your employees for a detailed look at the type of work they do to assess how much of it depends on proximity for quality and how much of it can be done remotely.

If you adopt a hybrid arrangement, you’ll require a structure that ensures that employees are together for the parts of the work that have the greatest need for interdependence. This is conceptually simple but operationally complex.

I Can Help

You can take advantage of my facilitation skills, team dynamics insights, and impartial perspective to help you navigate through this crazy time. I’ve helped hundreds of leaders and organizations just like yours get through difficult patches and come out ahead. You’ll save time, money, and stress and reduce the risk of losing top performers. Call or email me to get a feel for my approach. If it feels right, we can get the ball rolling!

Call me at +1 (403) 270-0000 or email me at info@experienca.com

Author

Trent Schumann has been helping organizations overcome their Team Dynamics, Training, and Technology challenges since 1992. Whether he's working with a global multinational or a small enterprise, his clients value him for his practical, actionable advice and his insights into the root causes of dysfunction in their team dynamics, training, and technology.

He's worked with 100's of teams with 1000's of challenges and is happy to share what he knows and bring all those lessons to bear on whatever challenge you're facing.

Avoid the Disasters of Managing Covid-19 Home Office Workers

Teams are already reporting technology meltdowns, gridlocked processes, interpersonal conflicts, workers missing in action, security breaches, worker lethargy, communication breakdowns, missed deadlines and more. Breathe easier. We’ll show you how to get through this.

You’re in the midst of the biggest management challenge you’ll likely ever encounter. This article lays bare the problems you’ll face and shows you what you need to do right now to avoid the quagmire in which many teams are already suffering.

READ MORE >

What Every Leader Needs to Learn from the United Overbooking Scandal

By now almost everyone has seen the United Airlines Incident.

Dr. David Dao being dragged off United flight

United Airlines had a passenger forcibly removed because they needed the space to transport four off-duty crew members to a flight they needed to work on.

It was horrific to see on the cell-phone video taken by one of the other passengers. And if the initial incident wasn’t enough, the subsequent tepid apology from CEO Oscar Munoz was underwhelming. Basically saying that he was sorry for having to “re-accommodate” the passengers.

But it gets better.

READ MORE >

The Real Reason Volkswagen is Crashing and Burning

Volkswagen screwed up.

Badly.

But how could this have happened?

Recent revelations that Volkswagen intentionally duped environmental regulators has caused a PR and legal firestorm for the company.

stock priceThe stock plunged 35%, the CEO has stepped down, and one can only imagine the regulatory fines they may be liable for.

Almost anyone looking in from the outside has to think, “WTF!? How could they have been that stupid?”

Fair question. After all, these people are paid very well to guide the company.

READ MORE >

8 Things Managers Do That Make Layoffs Even Worse. (How many are you guilty of?)

What’s even harder than laying people off?

Making sure that the survivors don’t start fending for themselves instead of your business.

 

Managed incorrectly, layoffs can lead to:

  • Loss of Star Performers. They’re the most likely to have other offers and most likely to be disillusioned by the betrayal of layoffs.
  • Destroyed Morale. Remaining employees lose trust in and commitment to the organization.
  • Unrecoverable Penalty Costs. This may cost you more than what you save through layoffs. Decreased productivity, costly mistakes, attrition, outright sabotage, and failure to operate in the best interests of the organization can easily negate the savings of layoffs.
  • Vanished Productivity. As the survivors deal with their emotions and struggle to cover vacant positions, up to 80% will simply “check out”.
  • Ruined Corporate Reputation. How your former and current employees speak about you can do grave damage to your standing. When things turn around, the most desirable candidates will shun you. This is especially true of the highly mobile under-40 segment.

READ MORE >

Corporate Speak: How to Speak Without Really Saying Anything

I was recently involved in a large 1-day employee engagement process. After they had all poured their hearts and souls into crafting recommendations and ideas for the company to implement, the CEO stood up and said:

“I am wholly committed to wanting to move this forward!”

Huh?? What does that mean?  So what exactly are you wholly committed to? To wanting? Or to actually move this forward? And what exactly does it mean to “move this forward”?

It’s unlikely that he would speak this way with friends and family. Even if it was extremely important.

So why do we speak like weiners at work?

READ MORE >