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Company Culture in Lockdown - Top Tips

8/2/2021

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As everyone grows weary of Covid-19’s bite, your company culture might also be feeling some long-term stain. The last year hasn’t exactly been the height of sociality and undoubtedly the social aspect of your workplace has felt the full effect of this - a lack of staff lunch time get-togethers, seasonal parties or charity coffee mornings.

Let’s delve into our top tips for keeping the momentum of company culture as your staff continue to work remotely, from virtual get togethers to workplace communications.

Culture - Is It Really That Important?

Businesses have faced many challenges over the course of the pandemic, from navigating sudden closures and changes due to social distancing restrictions, the subsequent financial pressures of wage subsidy schemes, redundancies and lay-offs, as well as the personal and mental impact of business owners. They could be forgiven for letting company culture slipped to the wayside.

But one year on, it’s time businesses accept these challenges and their impacts, and start knuckling down to get their organisations back on track.

As the Winter Lockdown continues, your employees may be struggling with the lack of social interaction as they continue to work remotely and live away from friends and family.

Their motivation and engagement will undoubtedly affect your business’ performance, interaction with customers and clients and in the long-term, your reputation. Maintaining and extending your company culture virtually is crucial to ensuring your colleagues feel connected to their teams and your business.

Company Culture Remotely: Top Tips

1.      Team Calls… But Not Too Many

Video meetings and calls are crucial to maintaining basic communications between your colleagues and teams. While work chat platforms like Teams, Slack and Trello can be great for instant communication that we’ve had to transfer from conversations shared in office kitchens and cubicles, it can be difficult to get tone and meaning across in a message.

Organising daily or weekly check-in meetings with teams keeps everyone dialled into company activities and ensures management remains approachable to staff members. But remember - don’t organise too many team calls. Just like the dreaded ‘meeting could have been put in an email’ situation, sometimes a video call really isn’t needed. Don’t leave colleagues tied to their laptops back to back - try and find the right balance for your team calls.
2.  Reward Culture

Everyone loves being rewarded for hard work - recognition and appreciation is key to motivating colleagues and keeping them engaged.

While your colleagues may not be in the office, this doesn’t mean you can’t reward them. Whether it’s as simple as a gift card through to work from home care packages, continue to promote a reward culture from home and your appreciation for your colleagues will be clear.

3.  Back To Basics

Company culture starts at the basics - lunch time breaks, set work hours (where possible), full holiday leave.

Whilst remote working has brought a culture of flexible working to the mainstream, this has at times been to the detriment of traditional, basic working practices. As video calls are booked to the extreme, and workers juggle caring arrangements alongside their jobs, working hours can fluctuate with breaks falling through the seams. As people hold off booking annual leave in the hope of some form of vacation after restrictions ease, your staff can easily fall into a trap of becoming burnout quickly.​

Get your company culture working right remotely by going back to basics - your business’ performance will thank you later!
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Winter wellbeing For Your Workers During Lockdown

2/2/2021

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January & February can often been stressful months when it comes to the workplace commute - snow, wind & rain - nobody likes getting caught in it while travelling to work. But in 2021, as we tackle yet more lockdowns, winter for your workplace may bring different challenges as your colleagues work from home.

Whether a windy day leads to a cut in power and Wi-Fi, or snow means children are forced to stay at home instead of being in the classroom, these situations can bring challenges for your workers as they continue to work remotely for your business. Let’s explore the attitude you should take to tackling extreme weather and the impact it can have on your workplace productivity and staff.

Why You Should Put Staff First During Winter

As Lockdown continues your staff are undoubtedly stressed, from dealing with homeschooling in some cases to tackling troublesome Wi-Fi issues. But as Winter continues, these issues could be magnified for your staff.

Whether it’s rain, wind, hail or snow, extreme weather will affect your workers more so during Lockdown, as they rely heavily on their home amenities.

So, why should you put your staff first during Winter? After all, your business will undoubtedly be under financial and productivity pressures during this current Lockdown.

But your business relies on the productivity and performance of your staff. If extreme weather causes these crucial elements to be reduced, then your business will falter. Taking the time to consider your staff and their challenges during Winter and putting them first will help boost your business and maintain your growth in 2021.

Taking The Right Attitude This Winter

So, how can you take the right attitude with your staff this Winter? Here’s our top tips:

1.      Be Patient

Remember to have patience with staff. It’s understandable that your business faces a host of challenges - keeping contracts and customers, maintaining performance and growth goals despite recurring lockdowns and Covid-19 pressures.

But your staff face their own challenges this Winter. From sharing household Wi-Fi and equipment with children to ensuring extreme weather doesn’t affect electricity supplies.

If your staff face a challenge that could affect their attendance or productivity whilst working from home, remember to be patient and show some understanding and empathy with staff. Your workers will feel valued and appreciated by their employer, boosting loyalty and job satisfaction in the long-term.

2. Offer Help

Whilst listening and demonstrating patience is a positive attitude, offering help to staff when they face a challenge will go that extra mile. Whether it’s offering a mobile data supply when a staff member faces a Wi-Fi shortage, or a social distanced workspace in an emergency, offering help to staff members will demonstrate your appreciation of your workers.

Offer help and this will benefit your business by maintaining productivity and performance, regardless of the challenges of a Winter in Lockdown.

3. Learn

While it isn’t your organisation’s responsibility to control extreme weather during Winter, it is important to learn lessons on how to treat staff during a winter crisis.

Whether during a lockdown or not, consider the attitude you have taken with staff in the past and take time to think about how to improve this. By considering learning from mistakes or attitudes from the past, you’ll ensure that your business’ productivity and performance will not be impacted by winter challenges whilst your staff will receive the correct attitude and help to deal with any future challenges due to extreme weather.
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The Importance of Boosting Staff Morale After Job Losses

8/4/2020

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While this period of redundancy and lay-offs may be hard to manage as a business, it’s likely the aftermath may be just as challenging. For those staff lucky to keep their jobs, they may feel threatened of further risk in the future. They may feel guilty that they have been able to stay on while fellow colleagues have not, resulting in negativity towards your business.

Your HR team can act as a catalyst to boost staff morale in such incidence as this. As they say, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and neither can your business’ reputation be rebuilt as quickly. Leveraging the skills and talent of your HR team is crucial. Here’s why:
 
Loss of Loyalty

Periods of job loss can be a tough road to navigate. With different policies for different types of workers, legalities and a host of other related issues, it can be hard to keep focus on what matters – your staff. Regardless of their situation, they should always be at the forefront of any decisions.

Often, job loss can leave existing colleagues anxious for their own future. This can impact not only on their morale but in their long-term loyalty towards your business. With fears for the jobs in the future, many of your staff may begin looking elsewhere for a job with better prospects.

Maximise the potential of your HR team by ensuring that communication to all staff about these changes is a top priority. Explain fully why any redundancies are made and if you intend to keep certain staff on, communicate this to them. This will avoid any unnecessary anxiety amongst colleagues, keeping them onside and loyal towards your plan for your organisation in the future. While you may have been forced to lose valuable skills and talent due to financial constraints, this doesn’t mean that you can’t retain the talent that you have left; boosting staff morale by communicating all changes to your business will maximise loyalty and your future talent retention.
 
Rebuilding Your Reputation

It might take a decade to build a reputation in business, but a period of job loss can wipe this away, harming the perception of your organisation both internally and externally. Internally, your existing staff may distrust your plans for the future, feel guilty to those colleagues who have lost their jobs, impacting on their capacity to remain loyal to you. But your HR team can help with that.

Facilitate one-to-ones and focus groups of staff where you, as a business, can personally thank them for their loyalty towards your organisation, while listening to their concerns over any recent job losses. Ask your staff questions about how they feel regarding the situation, and where they would like to see change. But remember: don’t just ask, listen! It is all well and good leveraging your HR staff to organise these discussions, but if you don’t listen, you can’t act on any feedback.

Without action, your reputation will remain poor and you may struggle to retain talent and keep staff onside. It may be a challenge but your HR team are here to help.
 
Keeping ‘Human’ at the Heart of Business

The clue is in the name – Human Resources. Job loss, financial insecurity, stress – these are all issues that can challenge staff – your humans!

Your HR team and their skills have the potential to make a lasting difference to your business in the aftermath of job loss. Keep human and personal to your staff by facilitating discussions, using feedback and communicating effectively why you have had to make cuts, how this will help your business and your staff in the future, and what you need from your colleagues within your organisation.

We are all people at the end of the day, and your people will appreciate your efforts as a business to remain personable and approachable during any period of job loss.
 


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