Q&A: How to manage your staff post-lockdown

Recovering from having no revenue 

I’m making a loss. . . how do I keep my best staff?

First of all, don’t panic. To every problem, there is a solution. Secondly, there are a lot of resources out there that will give you practical ideas about how to approach this scenario. Important factors to remember include being honest and transparent with your staff, focusing on maintaining a strong organisational culture, offering increased flexibility, and potentially looking at other ways to compensate your staff’s efforts. 

In addition, make sure to check if your business qualifies for any government or industry-specific financial assistance. 

What’s the best way to let people go? 

While negative on the surface, economic shocks are an opportunity to assess the value of existing roles, and the structure of the organisation itself. For instance, if you’ve decided to reshuffle jobs within the company, depending on internal capacity, it could also mean that previous roles are no longer required.

However, this could leave you in the difficult position of having to let existing staff go. Nevertheless, for small organisations it’s crucial that every staff member and role is working towards the overarching business goals.

I’m certain that you don’t want to let your best staff go; a lot of business owners won’t want to let anyone go. However, sometimes dire situations provide no other alternative. If you do have to do this, ensure that you manage redundancies the right way. Here’s a practical guide to fulfilling your legal obligations through the redundancy process. 

Staff working from home 

My staff are still working from home. What’s the best way to monitor performance?

This depends a lot on your organisational culture. Are you a hands-on or a hands-off manager? Are staff used to a high degree of trust, or is their work consistently checked and monitored? In recent times, a number of digital workplace tools have become popular such as Slack and Workspace that make it easy to communicate with your staff remotely.

In addition, it’s also worthwhile to hold daily meetings via video call using Meetup, Zoom or something similar. This is to ensure that you still maintain effective communication channels, and that your staff have everything they need to do their jobs. 

Lastly, there are a number of productivity tools such as Trello, Accelo and Monday.com to assist with remote project management, assigning tasks and tracking timesheets etc. 

While they’re working at home, am I still responsible for their health and safety? 

Yes. The employer is responsible for ensuring that the employee has a safe and healthy working environment. If you are requiring your employee to work from home, you may need to provide suitable ‘tools of trade’, including equipment specific to their job, and suitable ergonomic office equipment if they do not already have it available. 

Where you allow (but do not require) the employee to work from home, you may not need to supply suitable equipment for them, but your responsibility to ensure a safe workplace remains. This may mean requiring that a self-assessment checklist is carried out by the employee before they are permitted to continue working from home.

One of my staff members might have COVID-19. What should I do? 

The New Zealand government has created a website dedicated to resources to help you manage these types of unfortunate situations. 

Increased anxiety and stress

My staff are demonstrating increased levels of stress. What are some strategies that I can use? 

At times such as this, it’s important to be both compassionate and understanding. Some staff may need more time off, some might not be as productive as usual, or other such anomalies. Generally, it’s best not to fight this. In the long-run, employees will perform better when they feel that their managers care for them. 

The individual needs of each employee will vary. So try to listen and understand each individual situation before coming up with an approach. 

In addition, the government has provided resources to cope with some of these pandemic-related stresses. You may also want to consider offering an EAP (Employee Assistance Programme), a confidential support service funded by your business to your workers.

How can I keep my staff’s morale high while everyone is working from home? 

While still in Level 2 of Lockdown, it’s important to acknowledge that things have not yet returned to normality. Staff will likely still be thinking of things outside of work, and may not be fully focused on the job at hand. In this way, it’s a good opportunity to slow down and focus on providing more reasons for your people to love working for you. 

Likewise, maintaining regular communication is crucial. It could also be an opportunity to bring more fun into the work day? You could try implementing a daily quiz or play games such as online trivia. Anything that breaks up the day a little and puts your staff in a positive mindset for the rest of the day. 

If you want guidance on anything related to remote working or managing your staff during the current pandemic, get in touch here.