How business managers can change their way of working during the Corona crisis
With the spreading of the Covid-19 pandemic around the world, many companies are changing their way of working. Employees are asked to work from home, technology is supporting this shift in daily life (think about an app like Teams, Zoom, Skype) and managers are doing their best to keep going with their activities.
Despite having several Authors in the past weeks writing on how to manage virtual teams, how to build resilience and how to keep yourself mentally healthy, my intention in this article is to provide a framework for managers on how to adapt their way of working during the Covid-19 times.
How can we still be closer to our employees although far away?
How can be built stability and ensure focus on moving forward?
Here my three pieces of advice.
- Be brutally honest — bring awareness & listen.
Some people are still in the first step of the quarantine curve. It means feeling anxious about their jobs, fearful of the overall health situation, strange in working all day alone in their apartments. They can also be affected by mood swings and intrusive thoughts. Some of them may have experienced people having Covid-19 too.
All these put managers in a condition to be brutally honest with their employees.
We must acknowledge the moment and the complexity we are in. We must openly listen and practice empathy to engage with employees and give their time to go over their feelings and share them, if needed, in a safe environment. This will create a strong level of trust which will be the first building block for our journey during Covid-19.
A practical tip for this is to create routines to strengthen their confidence. Something I tried and is working is set up 15-minute coffee slot every day in your employee calendar. Better if you use Skype, Zoom, Teams and you put your camera on. A moment where they know you are there for them. You can discuss which movies they saw the evening before, what they cooked or also how they feel. This will create an inner circle of stability, to which they can refer to when mood swift will affect them during the day. Try to let them drive these meetings, sometimes do no show-up and let them connect and sometimes be there. Show enthusiasm and honest optimism. It is quite contagious!
2. Be brave and show them the way — experiment & learn
It will be a bumpy road. You, as a manager, have to the role to try to bring them out of this anxiety moment and let them focus on what they are supposed to do.
It’s key to leverage the stability you are building with the first step and find a new effective way of working. This means i.e. sharing some tips & tricks on how to cope with this lock-down period. Here some practical tips you may try yourself first and then share with your employees:
- get dressed — by creating a routine of dressing up as if you would have been going to the office, your brain is mentally shifting to the work dimension and preparing for the environment. That’s why the webcam during the call is fundamental. To force yourself to get dressed every day and do not show your colleagues your great pijamas collection!
- organize your day — decide what are you going to do during the day and what you want to achieve. This will help you focusing and avoid going in a circle without a clear direction;
- safeguard your private life: make sure there’s a moment when your laptop is off and you start your personal life. It’s quite common these days to have emails flying in at all hours, people working over the weekend. Make sure you show them the way by having “ordinary” working hours and do not expect them to have fluidity in the working time. This will destroy their lives and very soon they will be sick of working!
- limit the usage of media and exposure to Covid 19 news — listening once per day the news is enough. You can’t influence the situation, so better you stay informed but you don’t get overwhelmed by the negative news of these days;
- keep moving: several online apps allow you to train at home. Having a weekly “appointment” with the gym can be a good reward for your brain which will help you pushing more the focus, in order to dedicate the time to this;
- carve out time to do what you love: spend time with your family, watch the movies you always wanted to watch, print online the great pictures you took in your latest travel. Build time for yourself is a good way to balance yourself and stay centered.
As a manager, share some of the tips you are using to get out of the complex moment we are in and make them visible. In this way, they can see it works and they will try themselves which one suits them best.
3. Build a purpose, place it in the middle and run for it
Now that you and your team have stability, confidence and found the way to cope with the situation, you just have to do what a manager should do. Run with your team organizing them and making sure they see the purpose you built for them!
Celebrate successes, even the small ones, enhance their capacities through constant feedback and build resilience in the delivery. This will allow you and the team to keep moving despite the adversity. And maybe you will also find new opportunities while working from home. A new way to do things faster, funnier and know more of your colleagues.
To conclude, this period is for sure something we didn’t aim for. But the key is what we make out of it. We can blame Covid-19 or we can flip it around and build on it. It’s up to us. So what’s your choice?
I never worry about action, but only inaction. Winston Churchill
Luca Condosta(Ph.D.) is a finance professional with global experience in multinational businesses. Passionate for data, leadership, strategy and people. Author of two books (Sustainability reporting and Natuzzi — The Italian Harmony Maker) loves finding and sharing stories.
