At every level, leadership is tested in a different way like never before. Especially, leading a team is very different in times of crisis as compared to normal times. The first thing to accept is that our brains and bodies behave differently due to the crisis’ stress.
Self-quarantine, work from home, social distancing, and canceled sports events may be helpful in mitigating the spread of coronavirus but also threatens to devastate small businesses. The decrease in foot traffic and reluctance to go out will leave restaurants and shops empty.
Apart from small businesses, corona also affected the large organizations from Twitter to Facebook and Google to Amazon, the increasing spread of COVID-19 has compelled many companies (small and big) to let their employers work remotely.
For leaders, this step is a new challenge whose team usually share the same office. How can one effectively lead rather than shaking hands, greeting each other on messages? And when meetings are held on Zoom instead of face-to-face?
Nobody can predict how bad the corona outbreak will be or how long it will last. People are wondering how the coronavirus or the fear of this virus will affect a particular company or whole economy ultimately.
COVID-19 is playing additional stress in the background for businesses who are experiencing crises already. Furthermore, the uncertainty regarding coronavirus at the workplace doesn’t end.
It is a concern employees have 24/7 not only for themselves but also for their family, friends, and community.
Non-government organizations and businesses across the world are working quickly to come up with communication development plans to tackle job issues due to coronavirus. Here are a few things that must be kept in mind when developing work plans for the organization in this crisis.
CLARIFY ROLES AND DUTIES
The manager and leadership team must prioritize the clear guidelines and boundaries while transitioning to a remote team.
Most importantly, this involves helping employees in ensuring their availability while they will be working, how they can avail the solutions for their needs, and how employees can address different challenges from work home stations.
It will set some goals for every team member and will help ambitious employees from exhaustion caused due to prolonged and excessive stress. Being a manager, you have to share measurable and new success metrics as you will not be able to check the productivity of every worker.
Also, it is necessary to stay focused and manage expectations when embracing a remote workforce. Clarify and re-clarify the roles and goals to all employees and see how each team member contributes to the outcomes.
TAKE THIS CHANCE TO HIGHLIGHT PREPAREDNESS
As the world is busy seeing how COVID-19 is spreading its effects around the globe, you can take this to look at the continuity plan of the business. Communication with early employees highlights the main elements of the existing plan.
It will help to support the less tangible emotional and psychological needs of the organization. It takes off the pressures from leaders to act impromptu under load by providing task during chaotic times.
It will help to demonstrate competence and forethought. Also, it will help to convey ongoing care for the well-being of the workplace as well as the community.
DEVELOP A CENTRALIZED COMMUNICATION TEAM
In big and complex organizations, decentralized communication is plausible. But in fast-moving and emergencies, the need for crisis teams is high. We can see that this is happening with coronavirus at all levels.
As part of the business continuity plan, Intel has arranged a pandemic leadership team on stand-by, Dartmouth, and some other educational institutes have built task forces, and to head up the national effort, U.S. president has appointed Vice President Pence.
Ideally, keep the team small five to seven members. Each member belongs to different departments such as corporate communication, leadership, HR executive, health and safety, etc. The job of this team should be:
- Regularly meet to closely monitor the situation as it evolves continually.
- The team should be the primary information source about the crisis.
- Provide regular updates to key departments
- Transparent as much possible and explain the sources of information about what they know or told by others.
- Keep things brief. Long annoying messages written by health professional s will not be easily read or understood.
SET COMFORTABLE HOME WORK STATIONS
Being a team leader, you need a big screen to monitor different operations simultaneously. Go for ONKRON mobile TV Cart with a camera tray to set in your conference room.
Sudden changes in the work environment might not be beneficial in the productivity of many workers. Because not every person get used to every move. Thus it is essential to set a comfortable home work station.
If you can’t work in noise, then select a quiet place at home where no one can disturb you. Other than that, the work desk also plays a vital role in the comfort of doing work.
If your work involves using different accessories such as laptop, headsets, different file folders, stationery items, then select a table which has enough space to place everything. So you don’t need to pause your work and get up to find the desired thing.
ONKRON mobile stand up desk is an incredible choice for this purpose. It has an adjustable height option with a keyboard tray, or you can place anything you want. As it is movable so you can take it anywhere you want.
Other than a comfortable desk, you also need an adjustable desktop mount, which will help you set your screen angle accordingly. ONKRON has the best collection of desktop mounts and on sale. Check right now.
REASSURE SHAREHOLDERS
In the past few weeks, the pandemic COVID-19 has created intense volatility in the financial sector. As the earning season is just around the corner, it is the responsibility of companies listed publicly to share the virus’s impact on their operations.
Handle investor relations by becoming transparent in sharing near-term challenges. Use this COVID crisis as a chance to reinforce the long-term fundamentals of the corporation and communicate the action plans about the problem.