Susan O’Connor joins Kristen Walker of Clearview Consulting to discuss common communication issues that have made it more difficult for companies to connect with their employees during the social isolation and what leaders can do to help their employees get the information they need. Click on the link below.
Improving Communication Strategies For Leaders in COVID and Beyond
Social distancing has turned the world upside down for most people. Think about all the change that happened when states, then companies started to adapt the way they operated. I’m sure you and everyone around you felt the uneasiness, uncertainty and may even have been afraid of what could happen personally and for your work.
Resilience is the ability to move through such change or chaos quickly using the least amount of energy reserves. Many people equate resilience with “bouncing back” after being depleted. With change being constant in our daily lives, living in a state of persistent depletion will negatively impact your cells, your body, mind, family and co-workers. Consistently being in a state of high stress is not healthy or normal. Stress depletes your cells, muscles and mental capacity internally and likely impacts your family and work relationships. Fortunately, resilience is a skill that can be learned by anyone.
Preparation is key
You don’t have to wait to be depleted to prepare yourself with enough energy to adapt to changes/stress quickly and get back to living your best life. Having energy reserves is like having money in the bank. You’re being proactive and storing energy regularly to have it available when you need it.
Ways to build your resiliency
Here are 4 approaches to build your resilience that you can start today. Ideally, you will embed these four approaches into your life BEFORE you have a major change or issue. However, it’s never too late to start. As you practice these actions, they will become natural habits.
Consider your choices: We all have choices in how we deal with any situation. You can act/react out of fear and negativity or you can choose to look for the positive possibilities in the change. For example, you have a choice to learn about the COVID-19 virus or you can perpetuate the fear with everyone you talk to. Sharing accurate knowledge about the disease is more positive than being so fearful you become paralyzed.
Reassess your perspective: Are you seeing the whole picture in a difficult situation? Is it possible you’re missing information? Seek clarity to make sure your perspective is accurate so you don’t waste time worrying about something that doesn’t exist. How often have you assumed someone, maybe a boss, would be upset that you’re 10 minutes late in the morning because it took longer to get the kids to school? Your manager was likely too busy with his/her priorities to notice. That’s a wasted use of your reserves. Do the best you can during the moment.
Prioritize positivity: We create most of the stress we feel by allowing our negative thoughts to sabotage us. How often have you had an argument with someone in your head and it never materialized. Yet, you reduced your energy reserves to have that one-sided argument. How often do you feel not qualified for a job? How often do you tell yourself you’re not good enough of a parent? Replace negative self-talk with positivity to build your reserves. Tell yourself that you’re the best parent you can be. You are qualified for the job. Push aside the negative voices and replace them with positive affirmations of who you are. You will feel lighter and better about yourself.
Practice refueling: Consider mental, physical, emotional and spiritual activities that make you feel good. It can be as simple as sitting quietly for 15 minutes to change your perspective or breakthrough a mental roadblock you’re having. Reading or exercising may help you recharge. Find what works for you and give yourself the time to practice it. Refuel your energy daily or as often as possible. The energy you get out will be worth the investment.
Tips for success
Changing your behavior to build energy reserves can be challenging. However, you will feel the difference with each tiny step you take. When you continue to build on each new habit, you’ll end up with more ways of energizing yourself that will benefit you to move through any change quicker and easier. This is not to say that building your resilience will prevent you from life’s difficult challenges but having positive, healthy habits to draw on will better equip you to move through them.
I’ve been talking with family and colleagues and am alarmed at the number of people working for mid to large organizations who are working harder, longer and with more distractions than ever. What is so concerning to me is that many of the organizations they work for are acknowledging the difficulties being faced and providing some additional time “off” or have lessened their work expectations. However, employees are still trying to work at peak performance while dealing with the havoc wreaked in their personal lives by the pandemic.
The stress of potential failure (whether real or perceived) is taking its toll on employee mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. Our bodies aren’t built to sustain long periods of excessive stress without breaking down. These high performers, overachievers, workhorses are at risk for major fatigue in the coming months when a new normal emerges and they are expected to swing into the groove.
My question for business leaders is what more can you do to help your workers slow down, pause, take the time they need without worry or additional stress? Helping your employees take this respite now will allow them to come back stronger than ever when you get back to the new normal. They will engage, commit and be your biggest advocates if you take care of them now.
What will you do today, tomorrow and next week for your people?
I don’t know of a single event in my lifetime that has had the world gripped in fear and was not as a result of the actions of one country or person.
Countries, businesses, and families have been affected.
Some people will wallow in the constant changing events or numbers of lives lost.
Some people will heed advice of doomsayer’s and continue to stock up unnecessarily on toilet paper.
Some people will sit back and see what happens.
What about you? The business owner? The solopreneur? You are not helpless in this situation!
I have long professed the use of the “CMD” Plan; also known as the Crisis Management Dozen Plan. I have modified it slightly based on current events.
Let me explain……
It is all centered around “Taking Care”. Taking care of what’s most important:
1. Care of Yourself and Your Family
2. Care of Your Business
3. Care of Your People
Each of these, has 4 components that each of us could, and should, focus on during any time of crisis.
1. Care of Yourself and Family
Very easily put, you are no use to yourself or anyone else unless you start by focusing on yourself. You do this by starting with 4 very simple, yet important steps:
A. Assure your safety and that of your family. Make sure that you and your family are healthy and safe and take the necessary precautions to assure that this continues. Keep yourself and family insulated (I prefer to use this word rather than isolate) from harm by assuring you have a safe place to call “home”. This includes assuring you have the necessary amount of food, supplies, medication, etc. to make it through the period of time that you may need to be sheltered and “insulated”.
B. Make prudent financial decisions. During times of crisis, financial instability abounds. It may not be the right time to buy that new car or book a vacation. Your source of income could be jeopardized and may need to put your “rainy-day fund” in play.
C. Keep calm and poised. You cannot change the actions or behaviors of others; you can only control your own. If you have a family, you may be setting the tone for others’ actions. Be mindful of what you do and say.
D. Keep growing. If you need to work remotely, or you happen to have a reduced workload or even lose your job. Never stop learning and growing. Use technology to your advantage. There are many FREE websites and sources for education and training. LinkedIn offers free training and development courses. Use this time to positively focus your energies on activities that move you forward.
2. Care of Your Business:
Once you have assured the safety and health of you and your family, you can turn your attention to that of your business.
A. Business Continuity. All businesses should have a business continuity plan. What happens if you experienced a blizzard? A hurricane? An earthquake? A system-wide computer virus? Will you continue to operate? If so, how and where? When world events like we are experiencing now, when we are being asked to assure social distancing, working in a normal business center may not be acceptable, but you need to continue operating your business. How do you do it? You can start now if you don’t already have a plan.
B. Current Financial Review. Current world events of business environment conditions may warrant an in-depth look at your short-term financial stability. Has your business suffered revenue loss? Can you make payroll this month? Will you need to cut expenses and/or staff? If so, when and how much?
C. Business Plan Review. When is the last time you looked at your business plan? I’m not talking about your annual plan or a review of your P&L statement, I’m talking about your strategic plan. If during times of crisis, your business is slowed, take the opportunity to brush the cobwebs off your (strategic) business plan. Are you where you wanted to be (under normal business conditions)? Do you need to adjust your plan or consider alternative strategies? Now is the time.
D. People Strategy Review. Those that know me know I preach about the need for a people strategy. Now is the time to review that strategy as well. Start with a review of your succession plan. Depending upon the severity of the world events, and the possible turnover of employees, you need to assure you have the right people, in the right jobs, at the right time, for the right reasons.
3. Care of Your People:
Once you have looked at the business, you need to look at your people; the heartbeat of your business.
A. Assure the Safety of Your Employees. If your business has employees that are in a brick and mortar facility, you need to assure the safety of your employees, customers and visitors under any circumstances. Under current events, if your business is still operating and not shut down, this means you need to assure that you take the necessary precautions of social distancing, extraordinary cleanliness procedures and perhaps even providing masks and/or hand sanitizers.
B. Use Virtual Offices or Work from Home Provisions. Whether your business has a formal telecommuting or work from home policy or not, you should consider the implementation of such programs to minimize the potential for spreading of any contagious conditions.
C. Support the Needs of Your Employees and Their Families. Employees with school-age children may be faced with the reality that they need to be home with their children as a result of school closures. The employee themself, or their family member, may be sick or contagious. Support, where possible the work from home provision. If the employee is a production worker or someone that needs to be in the workplace, perhaps there are on-line training courses that this individual can benefit from while completing from home.
D. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. In times of chaos, people (employees) are begging for information. Over the past week or so, I have received no less than 3 dozen emails from CEO’s of banks, financial institutions, public services, etc. explaining what they are doing to assure the safety of their customers, their employees and of their families. While they may all have similar messages, they all felt the need and importance for communicating to their customers. As a business owner, you need to assure ongoing communication with employees; whether you are open or closed! Ongoing communications to keep your employees abreast of the business, as well as to reinforce calm and a showing of support for all your employees is not optional, but mandatory during these unsettling times.
As I indicated earlier, I have modified the CMD Plan based upon current events. However, the basis for the CMD Plan are important and critical during any emergency situation.
For more information on our CMD Plan or any component within this article, please contact Randy Lumia, President and People Strategy Lead at Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC. at Randy.Lumia@ParadiseWorkplaceSolutions.com
Motivation can be energizing. Do you remember a time when you were inspired or you motivated someone? Do you remember what it felt like? The thrill of the spark igniting within you, or helping a child, friend or employee help themselves and seeing the ember catch fire. The energy is contagious.
That same energy is in your organization, namely your people. You know you’re likely to put in more effort and care when you are motivated and feeling good about what you’re doing. Your employees are the same. They will put in extra effort if they are engaged and feel appreciated.
Increase engagement, increase profitability
In a recent global Gallup poll on employee engagement with 82,000 teams, the results showed 21% higher profitability for those organizations in the top quarter compared with those at the bottom. Shockingly, 85% of employees are disengaged or actively disengaged.1 That’s a lot of people who need motivation and a good deal of profit that never makes it to the table. Obviously, there’s a great deal of work to be done globally. Yet, it’s your business we’re focusing on now.
You probably think about motivating your employees with salary, benefits and a nice work environment. Those incentives are a given in the current labor market. You need to do more. The good news is that you can and it doesn’t have to cost you much.
Start motivating your employees today
Uncover what motivates your employees
Here’s a simple way to get specifics about what motivates your employees. Ask them! Let them compile a list of options for recognition for a job well done. Some examples of both monetary and non-monetary items could be
Talking with employees about how they like to be recognized and motivated is an opportunity to communicate about performance, expectations and the value of your employees. Always connect any recognition with performance and the value an employee brings to the business. Reinforce the behaviors and skills needed to make your business successful.
Below, share some ways a company has actively engaged you?
1 Building a High-Development Culture Through Your Employee Engagement Strategy, Gallup, Inc. Washington, DC, 2019.
Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.
Many business owners aren’t in a position to hire full-time human resource expertise and your business may not need it, yet. But you do need a people strategy to be confident you’re evolving the structure of your business and hiring at the right time. That’s why we’d like to share a concept that HR experts use with leaders to diagram business needs and milestones with future employee requirements–the People Schematic.
People schematic defined
The people schematic is the first part of a successful people strategy that also includes a People Plan and People Metrics. Just like a successful people strategy, the schematic helps to assure that a business has the right people, in the right jobs, at the right time, for the right reasons. Also like the people strategy, a people schematic is a living, developing diagram that gets reviewed regularly alongside the people strategy and the company’s business plan.
The people schematic is one element of a broader strategic workforce planning process.
Components of a people schematic
The people schematic uses information from the business plan that includes
The schematic is the plan used to close the gap between the current and desired future state. For those familiar with the traditional human resources lingo, this could be considered an extension or means to the development of a headcount or recruiting plan.
The people schematic is a graphed representation that shows the number and type of employees that will be needed over time against the business metrics that are used. The business metrics are different for each business. It could be the number of widgets necessary to be produced or the revenue needed to be generated. The metric could be the number of patients that need to be reached. It could be anything that the business deems to be its goal. However, two things are consistent regardless of the company’s product or service: the companies financials linked to the business plan, and the use of any and all metrics that measure key human resource information, such as turnover, time-to-hire, etc. The key point is that the schematic uses information derived from the business plan.
Drawbacks of not creating a people schematic
Is your business at risk if you don’t have a people strategy? Maybe not…initially. But it can catch up to you.
“Just-in-time” hiring is not easy and takes diligence. Factors such as manager input, recruiting ‘lead-time’, employee turnover and ‘lost time or opportunity’ need to be considered.
Evolve your people schematic along with your business
Naturally, as the business advances or encounters difficulties, you need to modify the people schematic and business plan. Actively review both documents regularly at the leadership level. Also critical is that your managers understand both plans because they hold knowledge and experience of your business that is critical to implementing an accurate business plan.
Important to note: Before determining your demand for external talent, identify gaps in skills and capabilities in your current workforce. Fill these gaps through internal mobility and ‘upskilling’ first. We’ll cover these topics as part of the People Plan in an upcoming blog.
Contact us if you have questions on a People Schematic.
Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.
Imagine if Martin Truex, Jr. or Kevin Harvick had the fastest race car in NASCAR and a map of the course at Talladega Raceway but didn’t have a finely tuned, experienced pit crew. The time Martin or Kevin would lose on pit stops could cost them the race.
Or even worse, imagine if the crew chief of one of their pit crews had an emergency and couldn’t perform his/her duties and there was no alternate plan to put in place. The only person available to step into the role would be one of the tire catchers. What happens then? The driver may continue the race but what would the results be? Disastrous.
Now picture yourself as a business owner with a great product and a well thought out business plan but no people strategy that maps to the growth of your company. As your business grows, it needs some higher skilled employees or those with entirely different experience. Employees currently in positions may be high performing but not exactly what’s best for your business or ultimately your customers if they don’t have the appropriate experience or skills for future growth. A People Strategy helps your employee base evolve as your company grows.
What is a People Strategy?
A People Strategy is a plan to assure that a business has “the right people, in the right jobs, at the right time, for the right reasons.” It’s a plan that is reviewed regularly alongside the business plan and has action items after each review. The plan has short, mid and long-term goals that may change or need to be adjusted as the business evolves. The management team is involved in the development and review of the strategy and committed to the resulting action plans that will ultimately help attract, develop and retain the right people for the business.
Just as important to defining a people strategy, is to identify what it isn’t; it is not a human resources department solution. Every supervisor or manager in an organization is responsible for owning the people strategy because they are closest to the needs of the business in their areas.
Elements of a People Strategy
A good People Strategy consists of three major components. I’ll call the first one a “People Schematic”. The second factor is the People Planning and the third one is the People Metrics and Performance.
Continued success of your business
Most successful companies, new or well-established, have a strategic or business plan that has helped guide the direction of the business’s actions and activities. Often overlooked, the People Strategy is one of the most important derivatives of a company’s Business Plan.
Just as an experienced NASCAR pit crew and back up plan is vital to the success of the driver and the rest of the team, your People Strategy is crucial to the continued success of your business.
In future articles, I will be breaking down each of these three key elements to show how and what needs to be done to assure a successful People Strategy.
Contact Paradise Workplace Solutions to get more information on People Strategy.