Organizations like yours are working hard to cope with business and simultaneously deal with the Covid-19 situation. With so much going on out there, there are HR amendments every human resources manager must take care of, to deal with this crisis.
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1. Keep your workforce informed and prepared
The pandemic has created a large set of questions and it is unsettling for every member. Questions like how the company is doing financially, what is their job security, how the future looks like, etc., constantly bothers your workforce. As long as employees don’t have answers to such questions, they will not be able to focus completely on tasks at hand.
It is highly recommended that you address this challenge and help your workforce stay well-informed. Here are some great HR amendments:
- Empower your front-line managers to answer such questions and understand their situation
- Stay transparent about how the company is doing at a financial level
- Package up all necessary information in the form of emails, web pages, and resources
- Conduct weekly staff-wide meetings and offer status updates from each team
2. Reskilling and Retraining
The world has moved from physical offices to virtual at-home workstations. Remote working or work-from-home which were once an employee’s luxury are the models of regular work in the new normal. Even sales reps are meeting prospects online.
Digitization and telework are still new to many organizations, including IT. Many IT companies never thought of these helpful work models, and instead relied on physical office infrastructures.
Hence, your employees might have a hard time pertaining to devices, environment, work structure, etc.
Now is a great time to invest in reskilling and retraining your workforce with all the new work systems and tools. Share HR amendment programs on:
- Successful working from home
- Ensuring security and secrecy of confidential company data
- Communication, engagement, and collaboration
- New work management tools
3. Organize stress-busting activities
Only those organizations are progressing right now where HR managers have been able to recreate the same, healthy culture like it was prior to Covid-19.
Clearly, everyone is under a lot of stress. As an HR manager, you must keep a close eye on who is getting affected the most. Plan out one-on-one meetings with your employees and understand their pain points.
From a group’s perspective, organize fun activities virtually and ensure one hundred percent participation.
4. Prepare for some failures
Yes, Q2 was not very good for most of you. However, things will be better in the upcoming quarter. Use what you learned from Q2 and reshape your messaging and communication in the next quarter.
Alternatively, advise teams and team members to be:
- Self-aware
- Diligent towards work
- Communicate clearly with stakeholders
- Make efforts to achieve KPIs
5. Make employees feel safe
If your organization has begun operations – with less workforce – or is going to, safety issues may arise.
There are huge amounts of regulations at the state and national level now than before. And besides, you must be more cautious in improving workplace safety than the workers themselves.
Your employees expect you to take every precaution in terms of safety. Post-pandemic workplaces are coming sooner or later. In both cases, make sure that your employees feel safe returning to their workstations.
HR amendments in this area will include:
- Social distancing within and outside the workplace
- More spaces between workstations
- Added partitions
- Multiple sanitation stations
- Sanitizers for each workstation
- No more in-office cafeteria