How to Get Ready to Return to the Post COVID Workplace
As we begin to think about re-opening our places of work, diving right back into doing things the way we did before our lock downs isn’t going to work. As a globe, we have been going through a significant trauma and the impacts of this trauma will be walking back into our “brick and mortar” spaces. We need to be ready to return to the post COVID workplace.
To ensure smoother adjustments, it will be critically important for leaders to get prepared to deal with the emotional “hangovers” of COVID 19 as well as the new ways of working. If not prepared, an entirely different set of crisis will be upon them.
1. Understand the Aftermath Realities
Be prepared to deal with the emotions that come along with loss and trauma. Many will have lost family members and friends to COVID. Some will have lost co-workers due to layoffs and will experience survivors guilt. There will be others who are losing their hope of being able to retire within the next year or so. The stress we’ve been going through have driven us to operate in survival mode and it will take time for all of us to feel safe to move out of operating from that part of our brain. Dedicate time to learning about how stress impacts our brains and bodies. Learn how to recognize impacts of trauma and how they may show up in the day to day work environment so that you are prepared to help.
2. Navigate through the COVID “Emotional Hangovers”
Any leader worth their weight in gold understands that establishing intimate connection with their direct reports is foundational to creating the engaged workforce. Create the psychologically safe workplace that allow people to speak up, be heard and not experience any negative consequences. Initiate opportunities that allow people to share what’s going on for them, whether in a team setting or individually with you. It will be tempting to focus on the tasks and work at hand to try to recover the economic losses you’ve experienced. But remember that as a leader, you are there to serve the people who work for you, not the other way around. Placing their needs first will go miles towards helping with readjustment cycles.
3. Leverage Your Emotional Intelligence
This is the calling of the new normal leadership. Never has the time to utilize your emotional intelligent skills of empathy, understanding and compassion been more important to building trust among your teams. We are going to see a radical shift in the way cultures will be managed in post COVID times. It is a critical recruiting point and talent retention strategy. Secret Tip: Exploring the root causes of your own triggers of insecurity and self-doubt and getting them healed will literally free you up to create deeply productive relationships with your employees.
4. Sustain High Performance in the New Ways of Work
While the Post COVID workplace will reintroduce face to face workers, many organizations will find an uptick in their remote workforce demographics. Leading and sustaining performance of the remote workforce is very different from being able to walk over to the cube to check on how things are going. Get comfortable with setting clear performance objectives and then let go to allow people to do their jobs. Build in accountability measurements. Follow through on your commitments. Eliminate the excuse of not knowing how to work the technologies such as Zoom, Slack and the like. They are here to stay. Our quarantine has proven that with the right tools and processes in place, personal connections are accomplished regardless of the physical distance.
These should help you take a HUGE leap forward and set the course for maximizing the adjustment to the new normal while strengthening your leadership skills in the process.
**If you’re interested in having me lead the full virtual training for your organization, or work with you on mastering these skills and more, please email me tsteege@transformstrat.com.
