As lockdown restrictions slowly ease up all over the world, businesses across various industries are welcoming their employees back to the workplace. Managers, HR personnel, and team leaders are working to ensure new rules and guidelines are in place for a safe transition from work-from-home setup to workplace.
While some companies are keeping the work-from-home option open for employees, many are pining to return to the office and experience a new sense of normalcy in the new year. But how can managers, team leaders, and HR personnel prepare themselves and their employees for the fresh start?
Here are some best practices to improve employee relations for the coming transition.
What is Employee Relations?
Employee relations refers to an organisation’s initiatives to cultivate and maintain positive interrelations between employers and employees. A good employee relation management starts with employers treating their employees as contributors and stakeholders of the company, rather than simply paid workers. This notion aims to encourage the management to listen to employee opinions, value their input, and consider employees’ experiences when making decisions for the company.
Constructive and positive employee relations is important for businesses to have a better chance in keeping their dedicated and skilled employees.
So how do you improve employee relations during back-to-office transition?
Safety comes first
For the return-to-workplace transition, putting up new health and safety guidelines is the first step. The focus of the management must be in the health, safety, and welfare of the employees to ensure everyone continues to feel safe when they’re in the workplace.
Invest in health, hygiene, and safety tools and equipment. If necessary, commit to specific safety training measures. Uphold minimum health standards, such as wearing face masks and implementing social distancing.
Subsequently, the new guidelines should be empathetic and flexible for the needs and preferences of your employees.
Acknowledge outside stressors
Your employees’ fear extends outside your workplace. Many of them may find it difficult to commute, secure childcare, and manage various distractions in their lives during this tough time. These can reduce their productivity.
And if possible, provide ways to help your employees. You can, for example, secure a private carpool for your employees.
Promote a culture of open communication
Having a healthy culture of communication and dialog is the key to good employee relations. This will help you manage employees’ stress and anxiety, which is extremely crucial during this time.
Provide ways for your employees to ask questions, clarify new ideas, and express their health concerns and grievances without fear of retaliation. Make sure you’re prompt in resolving issues, as well. Having an internal communications process where people can send feedback anonymously is a huge plus.
Think like a public health expert
Communicate the risks to your employees. Should things go south (suppose you have an outbreak among your employees) address the problem from a public health perspective. Look for the potential factors that may have caused the problem. Are your employees ignoring minimum health protocols due to pandemic fatigue? Are they all able and willing to comply?
This is where the importance of having a “re-exit plan” gets into the picture. Establish this plan and evaluate (and re-evaluate) different scenarios regularly.
Make your employees feel they’re valued
2020 has been a stressful year for everyone; and you don’t know what your employees have been through during those times they have been working from home. Making them feel they are appreciated in the workplace will cultivate a positive employer-employee relationship.
Regardless of their experience, skill, and actual quality of work, it is your job as their leader to motivate them and appreciate their effort. While it’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of their work, it’s better to highlight the positive contributions they have made and encourage them to keep growing their skill set.
Understand that you are all in this together. You can only protect your business by protecting your employees. Understand that public health is about protecting others, not the individual.