After a series of pandemics, businesses and employees are grappling with the consequences of chaos. Most notably, a once-in-a-generation epidemic coupled with social, geopolitical, and other factors has caused unprecedented priorities in the workforce as people reimagine their professional lives in light of their experiences over the past 24 years. That the reassignment and restructuring has begun. month.
This withdrawal of the status quo is both a challenge and an opportunity for businesses to rethink their processes and priorities so that their employees can thrive for months and years to come. Simply put, to foster innovation, collaboration, and productivity, companies must abandon their current strategies and invent new ways to invest in people to foster holistic success.
There are three ways to start the process today.
1. Give importance to meaning
The COVID-19 pandemic (a global pandemic) has slowed down the pace of life for many. Instead of rushing to the office for a morning meeting or staying late to connect with colleagues, people worked from home, dealing with personal issues that felt more urgent and important. In other words, following the professional Jones family didn’t feel like a good enough reason to stick with the company anymore.
According to Mckinsey & Company Survey, nearly half of respondents said they are rethinking their work because of the pandemic. As a result, the study bluntly claims that “help employees find purpose or watch them leave.”
At the same time, helping people find meaning in their work has fundamental consequences. People who feel they are doing something meaningful 75% more committed to the organization and 33% more productive Less inspired than a colleague.
Companies can help their employees find meaning in their work, especially by showing the impact of work related to:
• Social
• company
• client
• Team
• personal success
Especially today, employees expect their work to do meaningful work. It’s important to help businesses create connections.
2. Stay flexible
Many leaders are working overtime to devise effective return-to-office strategies. Meanwhile, most employees, at least not full-time, do not want to return.
recent Morning Consultation Survey “Less than half of full-time remote workers want to return to the office,” it says. At the same time, many people have expressed a preference for a hybrid way of working, making this flexible way of work an obvious solution for businesses looking to restore face-to-face capabilities while addressing concerns of distributed teams.
However, businesses should consider going a step further by allowing their employees to choose. when they not only where they work Several prominent companies, including Automattic and DuckDuckGo, have implemented flexible work schedules to optimize employee impact and satisfaction.
explaining the process New York Times, Azad Abbasi-Ruby, Senior Market Research Analyst at DuckDuckGo, said, “It’s really regrettable that more businesses aren’t taking advantage of it. We’re doing too much, and I think it has to do with this flexibility that allows most people to work when they’re most productive.”
Some jobs require people to be in a specific place at a specific time, but most don’t. Instead, leaders often pursue tight schedules because of concerns about the prolongation of the status quo or employee productivity.
This is a solvable problem. Today’s technology gives executives, managers, and team leaders the insights they need to understand employee productivity, remain accountable, and embrace flexibility. The new standards support long-term sustainability and focus on people and their creative processes to harness technology to support these efforts.
3. Helping people work smarter
During the pandemic, when businesses moved off-campus, employees worked longer and harder than ever before. 1 employee Investigation from the first year of the epidemic 70% of professionals who switched to remote work also started working weekends, and nearly half reported working more hours than before the pandemic.
Short-term trends can become long-term norms, and the consequences can be catastrophic. According to recent analysis According to the American Psychological Association, 79% of employees reported work-related stress, and nearly three-fifths “reported negative effects of work-related stress, including lack of interest, motivation, or energy.”
Businesses must respond. Some are digging into data to help change. for example, Data analyzed by Microsoft Understand the employee productivity cycle in your employee monitoring initiatives. After determining that people were most productive during a particular three-hour period, Microsoft banned meetings during this time to help people optimize their work time.
These changes are more subtle and can also be targeted. Most companies deploy some of their employee monitoring software, and leaders can use this information to have collaborative conversations about workflows, best practices, and other optimizations that help them manage work schedules and restore work-life balance. there is.
It’s time to take action.
It has been a difficult two years for the company and its employees, and the work environment has undergone inseparable changes. Fortunately, leaders have a chance to respond. They can take steps to support their employees as they embrace the new standards and put their teams in a position to communicate, collaborate, innovate, and thrive for months and years to come.
This article was originally Forbes Reprinted with permission.