The HR Roadmap
HR remains in the front lines to repay the employer’s responses during the Covid-19 situation. This Pandemic situation is forcing almost every business either it’s a smaller one or a larger one to immediately develop, adapt or improve remote work policies. As HR leaders struggle to keep employees safe and informed. It helps to think about what changes will be permanent and how you’ll guide employees and organizational leadership through those changes.
The mental and physical health of employees, office re-openings schedules, and flexible working arrangements are a few of the issues HR recruiters will need to address. Developing a roadmap for the coming months will help the leaders to determine their path forward with fewer complications.
The Role Of HR In The Post-COVID Workplace
HR plays an important role in planning and executing every change that will occur in the next few months. As slowly governments have started to reopen their economies and work to start what the ‘new normal’ will look like, but as we know that ‘back to work’ will not be the same anymore like before pandemics.
Social distancing protocols, fewer occupancy levels, infection control and cleaning, rotating shifts, and many other transmission risk are there.
Remote work as a Permanent Feature:
And that is a good thing because, in addition to workers moving to remote temporarily due to this crisis, many will continue working remotely even after re-open the workplace. But for now, HR’s role in monitoring and maintaining becomes even more crucial as compared to pre –covid situation. It is a better way to create a formal process for checking in with employees that are working from home to ask how they are dealing with the stress caused due to the crisis.
One best thing that comes from forced remote working has been evidence that flexibility does not come at the expense of productivity.
Employees can now work according to their flexible hours and this technique reduces a little bit of stress.
And researchers already make it clear that employees who feel that their physical and emotional wellbeing is a real priority for the organizations they work for are more engaged.
Investment In Digital HR Infrastructure
HR Leaders can also expect to see a change in their hiring process like how they hire and retain employees. Many processes have already been improved to change speed and efficiency.
It’s the right time to invest in Digital HR infrastructure as now the HR will be working virtually throughout the cycle, however, with new employees joining and working with colleagues without meeting anyone in person, possibly for months. With the help of digital infrastructure, it’s easy to work out things virtually as well as personally.
While a lot of time has been spent reacting to these pandemics – flexing and adapting to manage a rapidly changing environment – the Covid-19 pandemic has also created the opportunity for businesses.
Repeat The Onboarding Process To Support Their Return To Offices
HR leaders must use this technique for the employees to get them back into the workplace as an opportunity to repeat the onboarding process.
To get these successfully implemented, HR leaders should focus on these points:
1. To Work More On Flexibility:
HR leaders should focus on more flexibility on working hours so that employees can get relief from stress.
2. Communicate The Importance Of The Office:
Before this pandemic, organizations simply consider their office as the place where their employees work. The role of their workplace — a team or company meeting place, a secure workspace, a social gathering space to support the community — and communicate that to employees.
3. Start Training Sessions On Supporting Employees:
HR leaders must work with their teams on how to support employees who are working from different locations and at different times.
4. Reconsider Telework And Physical Space:
At the beginning of 2020, most organizations were not ready to operate the way they worked now but they started working after imagining the future of work to be. By reconsidering telework we can increase the benefits of both physical and virtual work to support teams. This offers the additional long-term benefit to hire the best talent.
The same workplace transformations that we have been looking for years, improve flexibility, social connection, and user experience, become even more valuable.
Communicate With Employees Before We Make A Plan To Return Employees To Work
Try to communicate with employees about the possibility of returning to work, well before employees are expected to be working in-person
Frankly talk with employees about returning to in-person work and try to figure out their concerns such as -increase in COVID-19 cases after returning the entire workforce into the office. Concerns by employees about their unvaccinated children to COVID-19. Childcare concerns while certain schools and summer care options have not reopened yet.
Special Concerns for employees who are or who live with individuals who are at a higher risk for suffering from a severe illness from COVID-19.
Encourage Feedback And Communication
Encourage employees to speak with HR leaders or other management-level employees about individual concerns for returning to in-person work. HR team members should always encourage the feedback of the employees. Sometimes small suggestions can change the entire idea.
Documentation-
- Well maintained documentation should be including:
- Sanitizing procedures and logs of cleaning activities should be properly maintained.
- Temperature testing of employees should be there.
- The vaccination certificate of every employee will be there.
- Dates of positive COVID-19 diagnoses and suspected positives.
- Negative Reports of RTPCR tests before 72 hours.
CONCLUSION:
During this stressful time, we need to understand how much the workplace is important to us. In this changing time, we will continue to share different strategies to guide return-to-office decisions. It is our prior responsibility to make our workplace a positive one by remaining positive during work.
