Post-Covid: Work Without Losing Productivity
Post-Covid- How to Incorporate A Flexible Work Week Without Losing Productivity
Since the start of this year 2020, we've experienced a slow to high unemployment rate; which created a 'buyer’s market', shifting the influence of workers to the owners.
In order to maintain their processes, organizations were forced to reduce salaries and benefits. But now after October 2020, there are signs that the economy is starting to rebound with the Indian unemployment rate dropping from 7.4 percent in July to 7 percent in October 2020 and is projected to grow by six million jobs over the next nine years.
To illustrate how many organizations are struggling with retention during Covid-19 pandemics, KPMG surveyed CEOs to identify the biggest priorities on their agenda. While only '1' percent said 'talent risk' was the biggest risk on their agenda pre-Covid-19, it's now their biggest risk overall with 21 percent of CEOs rating it that way. To combat their 'talent risk' concerns, they are providing new tools to keep their talent connected, focusing on well-being, re-skilling, and restructuring. (source: ET Graphics)
While a teleworking(WFH) uprising had been predicted for over four decades, it never really materialized. Indeed, figures from representative labor force surveys show that until the advent of the Covid-19 crisis, only around one in twenty people employed in India usually worked from home till 2019 – a share that had remained rather constant since 2009.
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting constringent duration put in place to slow down the spread of the virus suddenly changed all this, out of necessity. During the first semester of 2020, working from home has become the customary mode for millions of workers in India and around the world.
The important role of telework in preserving jobs and production in the context of the Covid-19 crisis has been highlighted by the Ministry of Labour & Employment in its recent communication on the 2020 country-specific recommendations. Yet, teleworking is not for everybody, raising the possibility of a new divide between those who can telework and those who cannot. Against this background, identifying how many, and which, jobs can be performed remotely has become a key factor to understand the pandemic’s economic and distributional consequences.
"Working from home feature or (WFH) has recently started to become a norm."
Many Corporates & Organizations have started incorporating changes in their office work culture to enable a healthy stress-free work zone.
Workers hope that their employers will take even more care of them during a crisis when their lives are much more challenging. They want to be with a company that is constantly cooperating and encouraging their plans and benefits that will help them solve their work and personal problems.
When the employees are satisfied with their issues regarding healthcare, finances, childcare, and their safety, they can be more focused on being extremely fruitful workers. Diversely if the worker is sanctified, financially, physically & emotionally, this is all he'll think about even when he attempts to do work.
As Director, H.R, from Encoding Enhancers I feel some methods of engaging and retaining the employees during Covid can be summarized as:
I. Go for discreet check-ins and discussions. Managers can start engaging staff with personal meetings, they can check-in with them to make sure they are feeling OK and their development in their ventures. While personal contact was always important, employers must invest more time, during Covid-19. Employers can show a bit more empathy and care by showing that you're there for the employees as a support system. They should acknowledge the employee’s situations with compassion, and then ensure that they have what they need so that they feel safe and secure in their job.
II. Employers should try to provide their staff with all the benefits they require. Getting the right assistance in place reduces employee’s financial stress because of this factor into the costs that employees would have trouble paying right now during Covid. Aids are not only a competitive advantage in recruiting but can be leveraged for retention because employees don't want to give up the reimbursements, which they need to support themselves and their families. The most important employee benefits during Covid include flexibility, paid leave, healthcare coverage, and childcare support.
III. Now, approximately three-fourths of companies offer flexible working, 80 percent offer virtual mental health services, and 86 percent said health insurance is a 'must-have'. Workers need both day-care supports, to help them manage their job and parent their children, and paid sick time, just in case they contract Covid or another illness.
IV. Employers can start using technology as an aid instead of a burden. All the available tools, like WebEx, Slack, and Zoom, have strongly enabled people to work remotely, team up, interconnect, communicate, cooperate, learn, and share work together.
V. But as controlling and projecting 'as these tools have become', especially during Covid, it's easily forgetting the effective usage of them to absorb them in a human way. It is also seen that when we overdo technology, such as sending multiple messages to & for, it usually creates misunderstanding and pointless arguments within the staff. Therefore, it is suggested that supervisors should encourage video conferencing and telecalls to certify that the communications are getting through whenever they are needed.
VI. Management should show transparency to the staff and regularly express concern, and compassion to them. There is stress all over because of all the ambiguity, doubts, anxiety, overload, having near and dear ones who are un-healthy or have recently passed away, or the fear of dismissal from the job. A head can lighten some of the apprehension by honestly speaking out these feelings, and collaborating regularly with the employees with empathy, care, consideration, and sympathy. By recognizing what employees are going through, we can help them to be more resilient, confident, and optimistic, which is actually the need of the day.
VII. Employers should make employees feel safe and secure; if they want to discuss what they are going through (because many times) they are spending more time with their acquaintances than others. When an employer shows care for their workforce, the workforce feels included in their organization (95%), would recommend their organization to any associate or friend (91%), and plan to stay the organization for many more years (60%).
VIII. Companies should invest in staff development and progress learning along with change. By investing more in the workforce, as they are more inclined to reinvest back into the organization. And, with all the disruption they are facing. It is cheaper to provide the employees with the edification they need in order to fill important roles within the company than having to recruit external prospective candidates. Now that most learning is virtual, this is the time to either create an in-house curriculum or partner with third-party benefactors to give them access.
The organization should be optimistic about the future of commitment and confinement because companies are under pressure to combine and devote to the right employee benefits programs. And, should be judged accordingly to how they are treating their workers, which will result in better leadership in the aftermath of Covid.
While we must go through this incredibly challenging workforce reset, it's an important one that will hopefully lead to better employable behavior and move forward into a brighter future past Covid.
We are happy to announce that Encoding Enhancers follows these procedures with utmost honesty making sure our employees feel safe and secure during this pandemic.