Many of us kick started 2020 with a ‘let’s do this’ attitude before the rapid escalation of the coronavirus outbreak plunged companies into uncertainty.
Business leaders suddenly found themselves responding to a fast-evolving situation by supporting their employees, managing their remote teams and doing their utmost to minimize disruptions in day to day operations. It has been, without question, a challenging and exhausting time for many.
Adjusting to the ‘new normal’ means that how we manage our employees, the welfare of our team and our management practices could change for good. As life slowly returns to ‘normal’, with many commuters now venturing out of their homes and back to the office, organizations are carefully analysing to how they responded to the outbreak moving forward. Many questions are being asked including, what changes should be implemented as a result?
Working Remotely
Although remote working, or dynamic working as we prefer to call it has grown massively in recent years, we ask, how have your teams adjusted to life at home? Are you using the right tools to monitor the productivity of your team? How can you manage individual’s performance and their wellbeing?
A work from home setup can only really be a long-term solution if managers and leaders have the tools to ensure their team can truly thrive from anywhere. With each member of the team having different skills and different needs, you may have found that, for instance, introverted team members may have thrived in their home office and that their productivity levels have soared. But, equally, this is not always the case.
On the contrary, some of the team who rely on the social elements of the office may have struggled for motivation while working from home. All of these different types of situations need to be carefully assessed and addressed as we begin to move forward to the new normal.
In a recent survey from Telefonica O2, they asked 2,019 working adults in March 2020 about flexible working. It found that a third (33%) of respondents expect flexible working to increase, allowing them to work from home for at least three days a week, while the majority (81%) expect to work at least one day a week from home. Additionally, almost two-thirds (63%) of employees will be willing to live up to an hour away from their offices if flexible working becomes commonplace. Two in five (41%) of respondents would move out to more rural locations, while 16% would choose seaside towns and 12% would choose countryside areas.
What’s clear is that we have seen plenty of benefits over the years from giving employees more flexibility to work from home, including fewer distractions, contributing to higher efficiency, lower stress and boosted morale.
Business Leaders should be speaking to Active Digital about how they can use technology to support their employees; keep them feeling connected and how they can protect their mental health. Especially in a time where mental health is a national priority. Last week, Nuffield Health reported that around 80% of British people working from home now feel lockdown has had a negative impact on their mental health, while a quarter of those (25%) said they were finding it difficult to cope with the emotional challenges of isolation.
Active Digital are aware of the demands and stresses placed on employees and so we created our own iOS app which enables us to track employees’ moods and wellness on a weekly basis. Wellbeing is about the individual and their self, but that’s also its achilles’ heel. Richard Groves, Active Digital Managing Director and chief app creator says “Wellness is crucial, and this has to be made personal to people for it to work. We ask our team just a few simple questions every week via our custom made IOS app which gives us crucial weekly results on our employee wellness. From how they are sleeping, to physical wellness to so much more.” He says: “The environment we live in – our always-on, blurred work/life – isn’t going to change,” he says. “So, it’s our responsibility to give people the tools to deal with it. Ultimately, wellbeing is really all about demonstrating we have our staff’s best interests at heart.”
If you are looking to put your employee wellness at the front of your priority list in the ‘new normal, please talk to our team to ask for a demo of the wellbeing app today or watch this video: –
