Taking care of teams in times of crisis

“People first, economics second.” That was the advice HR guru Josh Bersin had for talent management professionals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In these uncertain times, it’s helpful to remember that as HR professionals, people are at the heart of what we do. 

HR isn’t just about filling skills gaps, building bench strength, upskilling employees or contingency planning to improve an organisationorganization’s bottom line. It’s about connecting people to great careers, ensuring they have opportunities to grow and are supported in the work they do. This is especially important in times like these. 

It’s now up to HR professionals to support teams as we transition to remote and new ways of working. Right now, many of your people may be scared. To help them during this time, it’s crucial to create trust, safety and shared responsibility. It’s also important to keep the business running as smoothly as possible – which means adapting to accommodate social distancing measures when hiring, ensuring teams are set up to work remotely, and nurturing talent pools to keep them warm and ready for when you do start hiring again.  

We’ve developed a list of ideas for HR professionals to mobilisemobilize teams during these difficult times. These tips can aid the work from home transition while ensuring organisationsorganizations and their people are supported.

Provide guidance to employees

People trust their employers and businesses more than NGOs, the media, and even the government. That’s what the PageUp team learnt when we attended the presentation of the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer research earlier this year. An additional COVID-19 Edelman report found that 74% of people are worried that fake news and false information is being spread about the COVID-19 virus. 45% say it has been difficult to find reliable and trustworthy information. 

Unsurprisingly, the report also found people believe the most credible source of information is employer communications. It has never been more important for HR to take a leadership role in addressing these worries and guiding employees in what they should do. 

So how can HR teams take the lead? 

As this situation evolves by the hour, HR teams should communicate simply, early and often, using credible sources. People want regular information regarding COVID-19, with 63% asking for daily updates and 20% wanting communications several times a day. Employees want to be informed beyond the direct business effects, including advice on travel and what can be done to stop the spread of the virus. 48% want to get the information via email or newsletter, 33% want posts on the company website, and 23% want phone/video conferences. During this time, regular and reliable communication led by HR teams is key.  

Help leaders adjust to new ways of work 

It’s likely you’ve made decisions in the past few weeks to help people feel safe and protected. You may have instructed people to work from home, to practice social distancing, provided financial assistance for testing or educated people on the virus. 

The challenge is now to adjust to these new ways of remote and dispersed working, and provide guidance from the top-down. 

68% of Australian employers offer some form of remote work, but this doesn’t mean leaders are taught how to manage staff that are working remotely. Aaron McEwan, Vice President, research and advisory at Gartner, says managers are primarily trained on how to conduct face-to-face meetings, but lack expertiseexpertize on managing employees virtually. 

Unlike in-person conversations, virtual feedback can be easily misconstrued. Without facial expressions or tone to provide context, a short answer, the lack of an emoji, even a full stop can make a message come off as blunt or aggressive. Navigating this communication minefield as a manager takes expertiseexpertize, practice and finesse, and organisationsorganizations should be supporting managers with resources to upskill them. 

“The advice we give to HR here is that we can expect employees will continue to have to work remotely for some time. So, HR should be looking at how they can support their managers to manage remotely effectively. [Managers] need to communicate more and in different ways, such as holding regular virtual meetings,” McEwan said in an interview with HRM Australia. 

Chelsie Hastings, Head of HR at PageUp, agrees that HR plays a key supporting role in this time. Beyond simply checking off procedural boxes when employees work from home (is their desk ergonomically set up? Is their home office in a quiet, safe location?) HR should be supporting leaders with best-practice advice and information. 

“As HR professionals we are very good at thinking about processes and what we need to do to cover our bases, but during a time like this the biggest checklist item is making sure our team members have support mechanisms in place,” Hastings says. “This support will vary across the different levels of leadership. With People Leaders acting as a big support to their team members, they are going to need more support from us. It’s important we are thinking about this and anticipating their needs.” 

Touch base with teams regularly 

Keeping teams connected when working remotely is also vital. Hastings recommends people leaders check in with their teams at least twice a day to outline focus areas, address roadblocks, or even just catch up for a cup of tea. 

“The check-ins can take different forms but it is important to try and make at least one connection a day via virtual face-to-face means. In a remote setting you have to be a lot more purposeful and proactive in maintaining your relationships in the workplace,” Hastings says.

Beyond traditional emails, there are a huge range of video and messaging platforms that facilitate company-wide communication. Hastings suggests organisationsorganizations should offer a variety of ways for their employees to connect. 

“We have a number of different communication mediums, as some people are more engaged with different mediums. The one that keeps everyone connected is our weekly company update which we have now introduced as a fully virtual one.” 

Keep talent pools warm – even if you’re not recruiting

For some organisationsorganizations, recruitment is their last priority now – for others, like healthcare organisationsorganizations and supermarkets, they’re scrambling to redeploy resources and bring on extra hands to meet demand. 

Don’t forget to use your HR tech stack for things other than recruitment at this time. Look within your talent pools for redeployment opportunities – where can you deploy resources where they need to go? Recruitment technology can also help you recruit at scale while ensuring a consistently great candidate experience to preserve and reinforce your employer brand. 

If you’re not in a position to hire, you can still nurture and engage winning candidates to keep them warm. Recruitment marketing tactics and automated communications can allow you to have a continuing conversation with these people and stay connected. Now is the time to experiment with the possibilities of online content marketing and automated communications. Not only will it help you touch base with your talent communities, but it will also reinforce your employer brand in these difficult times. 

Recruitment marketing allows HR teams to quickly and easily update careers sites with important information, including resources on what candidates need to consider and how to protect themselves when continuing their job search. Video interviewing allows remote interviews to be conducted from anywhere in the world. 

Onboarding matters more than ever before

With many offices closing down over this period or moving to remote working, it can be a disorienting time for new starters. Without in-person onboarding, new hires can feel disengaged and distanced from the organisationorganization they’ve just joined. 

Here’s where onboarding software plays an important role in supporting remote onboarding to provide a seamless and positive employee experience in these challenging times. Where possible, organisationsorganizations should consider pre-onboarding activities (before day one) to introduce new starters to the organisationorganization’s culture and prepare them for what may be an uncertain few months ahead. Taking a proactive approach to onboarding will go a long way to keeping people engaged with your organisationorganization and introducing them to your culture – even if they’re not in the office. 

Don’t let learning fall off the radar 

‘Keeping the wheels in motion’ often comes at the expense of new learning and development opportunities. But with many offices now working remotely, keeping everyone engaged with your organisationorganization and connected to their own development will be key. Learning apps can help employees share content with their peers to encourage social, collaborative learning and connectedness. These apps can allow HR teams to push out new policies and regulations to employees on any device, keeping people up to date wherever they may be.

Re-assess performance goals and regularly check-in

It’s more important than ever for leaders to have regular check-ins with employees to see if they need support and reassess goals as needed. 

Performance management software like the PageUp Everyday Performance App can help drive engagement and make employees feel connected, even when they have to work remotely. Mobile functionality is important, because it allows employees to have performance conversations with their managers anywhere, anytime. 

It’s also a good idea to re-set benchmarks and KPIs during this time – especially for salespeople who rely on face to face meetings to secure deals. 

“They won’t necessarily get their bonuses. So we really have to re-think what performance looks like during a crisis. We need to redirect peoples’ efforts to high value activities,” McEwan said.  

In short, HR practitioners should support and encourage leaders to focus on the quality of work being done, rather than output alone. 

The same goes for engagement. Don’t expect employees to be going above and beyond in their roles during this time. They may be worried about their friends, families, their own career security. Try to be empathetic and remind people of the value and purpose of the work they are doing. 

Final thoughts 

Take things one day at a time. The best defence we can have is to keep a cool head and accept that we don’t have all the information right now.

Taking care of teams in these trying times calls for some ‘taking care of yourself’, too. Social distancing can create significant emotional distance between people, so it’s important for us to keep reaching out to our colleagues, friends, family and others for support. Distractions will be greater, communications more important – but if we support each other during this time, we will help our teams persevere and come back stronger than before.