Things to Think About When You're Thinking About Your Employees Returning to the Workplace
As of today, more than 63 million Americans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to NPR. That equates to just shy of 20% of the country. If President' Biden’s revised goal of 200 million doses in the first 100 days of his administration is met, that would mean (using rough numbers) that almost 30% of the Americans will be fully vaccinated by the end of this month.
How does this affect you, as a business owner?
Simple, people will be returning to the workplace. This will happen either because you want them there, or because they want to be there (as opposed to working from home) or, more likely, a bit of both. But don’t think that things will go back to the way they were.
They won’t.
They can’t.
Are you ready for the new workplace?
Recently, several Harvard Business School professors got together to talk about the new workplace. Their thoughts were interesting:
Face time in the workplace should be prioritized. People need to see and interact with people. Isolation is not good. But this doesn’t mean employees will not want to work from home (apologies for the double negative) — they will prefer to maintain a work from home situation, but will punctuate it with “going into work” occasionally. Let them. And they will love you for it.
Everyone is still scared about this new world. Have open and honest conversations with employees. Establish reasonable expectations for daily life. Don’t over-promise. Keep your goals low and obtainable. There are few things worse than hypocrisy when it comes to leadership. Don’t be that hypocrite.
Work to avoid loneliness and isolation. Maybe it’s a Tuesday Taco day or a Friday ice cream social, but foster interaction between people. They will value each other and business more, if you do.
Leadership with empathy, and concern about trauma/burnout, will garner you far better results than your old-school style of leadership.
In the end, you need to be open and flexible as your workers return. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.
To read more about the HBS professors, click here.