Workforce management in a 'Covid World'

On Thursday 7th May, Tom Blake of Blake Connolly and myself came together to facilitate a round-table with HR Leaders focused on managing the workforce in a “Covid world”. The discussion across HR leaders highlighted some key areas as to how organisations are currently managing their teams, and what they need to do next as we start to think about productivity and returning to the workplace.

 How have we got to where we are?

The overall theme was clear - organisations reacted to the situation in front of them with the best of intentions and put in place what they could to allow business continuity. From immediate home working and the rush to order laptops through to furloughing employees, all actions up to this point have been a reaction to protect the business as much as possible and close physical workspaces. With employees working where they can and where there is no work, companies have been rightly using the furlough scheme to support employees and to help them ensure that there is a business for them to come back to.

 Where are we now?

 With participants on the webinar primarily having office based employees, yesterday’s announcement by Boris Johnson will have ‘bought time’ due to those being able to work remotely, still being asked to.

It would appear however from the discussion, that leaders were assuming that employees would return to their offices soon. Many were therefore focusing on the array of questions as to how this would work. Although several would like to see virtual working continue, it seemed that without any clarity from the government at the time of the webinar. That plans hadn’t yet got to the point of how they fully created a more virtual working organisation . 

 A few participants commented “we’ve never been a working from home company, it’s never been allowed before” so they were not fully prepared and were forced to react to the situation. With their leaders believing that employees need to be in the office to be productive, they were therefore having to focus their planning on the workforce to return to offices.

One aspect that has not helped thinking is the government reviewing plans every 3 weeks and often employers hearing of the changes at the same point as their employees. The belief is that with no clear long-term plan from the government coupled with frequent reviews, business leaders cant take action as they don’t know exactly what and even when to take action on. This was proved in the update from Boris Johnson last night. Many leaders were thinking that overall restrictions may have been gently eased however, with this now only applying to those that ‘cannot work from home’ , many of the participants will find that nothing has changed for their business since the webinar.

A key aspect is to plan for working life to remain as it is for the considerable months ahead and to take action on that basis. With timelines for change still up in the air, no organisation wants to get to get to September look back on the previous 6 months realising they still have employees working in this current “ad-hoc” way. Many reflected that more thought needed to be put into engaging their remote workforce as “having a few zoom calls is not engagement”.

Progressive leaders we found were using this time to test how virtual working impacts overall productivity with one leader commenting that “productivity of the business has not been impacted, so maybe home working could be the future” . They did note however that they had seen that working days are longer, and that the lines between work and life were blurred. Perhaps, therefore the company is only as productive because employees were tending to working longer hours? What would happen to productivity if teams didn’t supplement with the extra hours logged on? This is clearly not good for employees mental health and may also not be sustainable longer term. Why was this happening? Was it due to employees feeling more pressure from the business to deliver ?

 How do we move forward?

 ExCo teams have many questions they need to ask themselves but some are overwhelmed by the vast demands and cannot move forward, in-action is the worst reaction. The key to moving forward was for ExCos to create scenarios and put some plans behind them whilst not assuming that the government will have all the answers - even in the 50-page guidance document that was spoken of last night.

As the government starts to lift restrictions meaning some businesses can return to their workplaces, how will businesses plan to get employees into the office? Last nights statement for example recommends that public transport should still be avoided.

Leadership teams also need to ensure they are operating from a place of empathy as this will resonate with not only their employees longer term but also with their customers. 

We see that lessons can also be learnt from industries who have continued operations through lockdown ie, food manufacturing – so leaders are encouraged to connect with their counterparts in the wider business world to understand what has worked, alongside the challenges that they have faced and overcome.

 Consultation:

Whilst nobody has all the answers, the resounding agreement from the round-table is that leadership teams need to :

 1. Understand that life will not be “back to normal” any time soon so businesses have to re-imagine their operating model

2. Plan that virtual working is here to stay, so employees need the right infrastructure in place

3. Start creating plans to enable social distancing in the workplace

4. Communicate, more frequently and with empathy to drive engagement with your teams

Tom Blake is an Executive Global HR Leader and is currently helping clients define their new operating model in a re-imagined virtual world. He is also supporting clients (individuals and teams) move beyond blocked thinking enabling leaders to take action and move forward.