It would be the understatement of the century to say that the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the flow of information in the workplace. It hasn’t simply disrupted communication in the workplace; it has rewritten the landscape of how managers and employees interact daily and how employees do their work. When it comes to a productive, efficient and effective workplace, nothing can replace robust communication between everyone. It builds trust, sets realistic expectations and gives everyone a sense of orientation, even—and perhaps even most importantly—when times are tough.
That is why it’s more important than ever to not only maintain communication with employees but improve it, as much as possible. HR departments, managers and employees all play a critical role in making sure that the lines of communication stay open and are used often. How do you do that? Consider this.
The pandemic has left people detached, distracted, and hopeless beyond belief. The unpredictable layoffs, dismissals, lack of income security, and compromised productivity have created an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear. One report suggests that about 655 million full-time jobs worldwide were lost in the first two quarters of 2020 alone.
This lingering fear of losing a job or business, or negative changes in monthly income has affected the psychological well-being of employees and employers alike. Adjusting to the new form of work while maintaining one’s sanity and staying safe from the virus is a huge challenge that has negatively affected communication within most organizations.
If you are experiencing some or all of these same difficulties and need some winning tips, we can help. This article brings valuable insight to help employers learn communication development ideas from a Christian perspective as well as effective tips for employees to acquire the support they need from their employers.
Acquiring Support the Right Way
Since the start of the Covid pandemic, employees worldwide have experienced a lack of support from their employers in the area of communication. This has greatly affected employees’ mental framework and productivity.
Many employees and managers alike have chosen to keep communication to a minimum, assuming it would prevent unnecessary conflict. But keeping concerns bottled up inside is an exhausting way to handle a situation. Speaking one’s mind will help relieve stress and also reveal unrealistic assumptions. But concerns must be appropriately voiced for effective results. To avoid a negative impact, follow these 5 strategies:
1. Voice Your Concern in a Timely Way
The first thing for workplace harmony is choosing the perfect time to share a concern. Discussing issues during a meeting or when leadership is interacting with others may be a big no-no at your organization. The most effective way in ensuring non-confrontation is to schedule a time with your leader and have an honest one-on-one discussion with them. Make sure the time is right, as it will set the course for productive conversation, allowing your employer to listen to you attentively and respond. Many leaders are more receptive in an individual setting vs. a group format when an employee goes out of their way to communicate.
2. Avoid Being Vague
If you are intent on finding a solution or you have concerns, be specific to avoid sounding negative or unserious. Instead of generalizing the problem, discuss the details, as generalizing diminishes the seriousness of your case. The more specific and clear you are, the more benefits you will likely achieve.
3. Keep Solutions Ready
The most effective employees are those who see a problem come up, identify a solution, and seek approval to implement. Employees who repeatedly raise problems without suggesting solutions tend to diminish their reputation, so try to be solution oriented. Suggesting a solution along with the problem will make you look like a problem solver and helps leaders be more receptive to considering your point.
On the other hand, those who perpetually complain hurt only themselves. Complaints are not limited to employees; leaders can be negative as well, especially given the pressures and restrictions of Covid-19. So you need to know when best to present something as a problem and when to visit your superior to seek their opinion and advice before you work on something.
4. Let the Employer Decide
You cannot force an idea or a solution upon your organization. Voice your concerns in the form of a request vs. a demand, present some suggestions, and leave the final decision to senior leadership. Even if you do not get your request approved quickly, it will be on the record for future concerns. Most employers want to hear concerns, and presenting them respectfully creates a greater chance of implementation.
5. Ask Others to Voice Their Opinion
If it’s an issue that affects others, encourage them in a respectful way to speak up for maximum results. When more people are affected by a problem, the chance of leadership taking action also increases. Together, all can help leadership understand the totality of workplace obstacles.
Communication Ideas for Employers
To make sure the organization is operating well and heading towards its intended goals, employers need to pay attention to the communication within their organization as it relates to the development, care and support of its employees. This is most important during this difficult Covid-19 pandemic period.
Below are 9 critical takeaways for leaders and human resource management to ensure added productivity and development, even in times of crisis.
1. Communicate Often, More Than You Think Is Necessary
Over-communication is rarely the problem in any organization. That is why is it important to communicate frequently. According to the Harvard Business Review, those who work remotely don’t feel like they are being treated equally. This is where consistent communication can make a dramatic difference.
Communication is key to success, especially during tough times. Constant reminders, motivation, and communication reduce employees’ concerns and help them stay on top of their tasks. The way communication is maintained with employees can have a dramatic impact on an organization during tough times. So, keep it transparent and regular. Consider developing a communication strategy that allows your HR team to take the lead to communicate key information on a regular basis. Doing so can help reduce the stress your employees may have of the unknown.
2. Have One-on-One Discussions With Your Staff
Having one-on-one discussions with your staff allows you to put your Christian values to work. Being tolerant and treating employees with grace shows that you value their growth and are willing to helping them develop to their full potential, regardless of circumstances in the outside world. Your staff grows, your company grows.
3. Be Empathetic
Empathy goes a long way and can buy you a lot of goodwill. Remember, everyone is working and building their careers, and concerned for their future and stability. People will continue to make mistakes in their work. This is where empathy can show that you care and are worthy of their trust. This leads to more honest and open communication.
4. Watch for Nonverbal Cues
The signs of stress or impending problems are often more easily seen than heard. In the age of video calls, watching for nonverbal clues can give you an edge when anticipating challenges. By being alert to and addressing these clues, not only are you being proactive but you show that you care enough to pay attention. That can go a long way toward bolstering communication between employees, managers and HR.
5. Give Employees Options to Have Their Concerns Addressed
Communication is a two-way street and by making it easy for employees to have their concerns heard and addressed, you are proving with your actions that you care. One-on-one conversations, suggestions boxes, easy access to HR and an open-door policy to managers are ways to show that employees matter. When people believe their voices matter, they speak.
6. Develop Feedback Mechanisms
Create a secure channel to communicate and encourage feedback from employees. To gain organizational feedback, allow employees to utilize several means of communication, such as reaching out to HR, talking to a senior or manager (open-door communication), or providing anonymous suggestion channels. Offering various methods allows the concerns to reach the right authorities and encourages the employees to give feedback, which helps immensely in professional development. For more intense leadership development feedback, consider HR Impact 360, a program where leaders are assessed by their direct reports, peers and superiors.
7. Ease the Work-from-Home (WFH) Experience
As we all know, maintaining productivity is challenging while working from home. Therefore, employers who can arrange for equipment to support working at home will help employees succeed. By now, most organizations have implemented software and tools (Zoom, Slack, etc.) to help employees perform without much hindrance. On the other hand, holding meetings and discussions on time that limit the effect on their family can ease the WFH experience. Opting for audio vs. video calls when few people are needed can also speed up things.
8. Provide Job Security
One of employees’ greatest fears, based on our conversations with them, is the possibility they might lose their jobs and have their careers derailed. Being a leader, it is difficult to navigate this territory. Many states are “employment at will,” which means employers and employees can part company at any time for very little reason. And employers must be careful not to insinuate job security in precarious times. Be cautious about assuring employees that their jobs are secure. And if you know it not to be the case, let them know in advance to give them enough time to prepare.
9. Keep Plans Transparent
These unprecedented times call for leaders to be extra composed as their subordinates look to them for cues often timed for strength and inspiration. When appropriate, share strategies and planning with employees and communicate the organization’s performance focus so that employees can, if need be, modify their work accordingly.
10. Encourage Participation in Group Conversations
A study done by Baylor University, a private Christian school, found that younger staff were less likely to offer an opinion or participate in a discussion if the more senior staff remained silent. Due to the perceived hierarchy and their “place” in the organization, people didn’t feel free to speak. By making it clear that participation is encouraged and expected, you can improve the quality of your group discussions.
Need Specialized Guidance?
The pandemic has transformed the way organizations operate, and for these changing times, you need better and more specialized strategies. In HIS Name HR helps implement effective HR plans and programs for organizational success. Our experienced HR leaders ensure that your organization enjoys improved productivity and better employee relations in just a short period of time.
If the pandemic has you stressed out, let our 10 years of serving clients nationwide benefit you. We are the leaders in human resource consulting and outsourcing services from a Christian perspective. Let our experts assist you in these hard times and save yourself from unnecessary pain and stress!
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Mark A. Griffin is founder and Chief Consultant at In HIS Name HR LLC. He has over 25 years of HR experience. Follow him on Facebook, Twitterand LinkedIn.
In His Name HR helps organizations build high-performance human resource programs. E-mail us here.
Post-Covid-19, workplaces are now settling into a new reality.
For nearly 80 years, Wycliffe has helped people around the world translate the Bible into their own languages. Wycliffe believes that the Bible is God’s Word to us, and something that everyone should be granted the opportunity to understand in a language and format that speaks clearly to their hearts. Nearly 2,000 languages around the world are still awaiting a translation project to start. Once people receive Scripture in their own language, lives often change in amazing ways. People are transformed as they discover Jesus Christ and enter into a right relationship with God. That’s why Wycliffe Bible Translators exists: to help speakers of these remaining languages experience the Bible for themselves.
Finding organizations with professionals who are doing an excellent job in this area can be difficult. But with God, divine appointments happen to me often. I had the opportunity to meet with Jennifer Holloran, Chief Operating Officer for Wycliffe Bible Translators. During our discussion it became very apparent that Jennifer’s leadership, as it relates to employee development and engagement, would benefit us all if it were shared.
Mark: Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I think what strikes me upon reading the culture of Wycliffe is how intentionally you are working to integrate your MVVs into your HR practices. As you know, we have built our firm, In HIS Name HR, on this practice. That’s because an organization with a well-crafted MVV always seems to keep its employees focused. Can you tell me how you have ensured your employees remained energized and focused in the face of this chaos we call Covid-19?
Jennifer: Thanks for asking, Mark. In many ways, Wycliffe was particularly blessed in the timing of the start of Covid-19 regarding this issue. We had completed an update to our mission, vision, and core values in March 2020, a process that involved gathering feedback from our global staff and working with our Board to craft wording that would serve us for this next season of ministry. So, as we entered the Covid-19 pandemic, we had already developed these guiding statements before finding ourselves in lockdown.
However, even that good timing would not have been enough to keep people engaged over 2020 and into 2021, especially given the many dividing issues that have come up on top of the pandemic. While we consider all of our guiding statements important, we have given particular attention to our core value of Loving God and Loving Others in response to this difficult time. We put out regular content to our staff through a spiritual formation series we call Deeply Rooted, we talk about this value frequently in our staff meetings, and we bring our staff back to the core of who we are and what we do, regularly.
While we would not say that we have done this perfectly, and the hybrid work environment makes alignment more challenging, we strive to help our staff stay unified and focused on what matters most.
Mark: We know that some of the ways in which we now do our work in our organizations, given the pandemic, have persisted and become normalized. What types of changes do you see to what we might call the “new normal?”
Jennifer: I think we have all realized that the hybrid work model is here to stay. Similarly, for organizations like ours that work in a global space, many questions remain about the future of work travel for face-to-face relationship building and problem solving. We have all found ourselves stretched by finding ways to build and maintain relationships, and to grow and strengthen our community and culture with our staff, in this season. We all have to become better at clearly defining our organizational culture in this kind of environment, because we can no longer rely on some of the methods we have used in the past.
I also believe that we will continue to wrestle with the challenge of staff engagement and staff retention. I recently had the opportunity to attend an HR conference where much of the discussion was about “The Great Resignation,” as the impact of the pandemic is causing people to think about how they want to spend their lives. This reality creates both a challenge and an opportunity for us. It means we need to become even more intentional about building trust and instilling purpose in our staff.
For nonprofits and Christian organizations, we have the opportunity to attract and retain staff in this environment because we offer meaningful work that makes an impact on the world. We can do this much more effectively when we have clarity about our mission, vision, and values. When we know who we are, and what we do as an organization, and we can articulate that clearly, it helps people to opt in and stay committed.
There’s one other aspect I want to mention here: The last 18 months has taken a real toll on people. Burnout, stress, anxiety, and depression are realities for many people, including ours, as they adapted to a changing work environment and shouldered concern for their families, friends, and churches. We have an opportunity to shine here by showing care for our staff above and beyond what they do for our organization. Let’s remember that our staff are more than just their work. If we can get into that habit now, it will serve us well today, and into the future, beyond the pandemic.
Mark: Were you able to establish new work patterns that promote engagement to help employees effectively deal with and overcome feeling isolated?
Jennifer: For many years, Wycliffe has had a combination of staff who have worked remotely from headquarters and staff who have worked completely in-office. So, we had some patterns established before the start of the pandemic to help people stay connected. Instead, what the pandemic has taught us is that we had a lot of work to do in the area of staff experience. We have always had staff who participated in events virtually, served on virtual or hybrid teams, and primarily stayed connected with organizational information through digital means. However, it was humbling and beneficial for those of us accustomed to an in-person experience to discover what it felt like to participate in the organization remotely.
Today, we talk more about how to make sure that any organizational event or activity has the virtual experience in mind. We see the work of connectedness as a two-way street. As leaders, we have a responsibility to make accessible pathways for virtual connection and make those pathways as inviting and inclusive as possible. At the same time, we need our staff’s commitment to show up, read the information that’s sent out, and participate, so we now talk about that with our staff more.
Mark: How are you building team cohesiveness when many employees work remotely?
Jennifer: One way we work on team cohesiveness is to emphasize the importance of teams with our managers. We see teams as one of our most important avenues for culture building. For us, that includes asking our managers to host weekly times of team prayer and devotions and encouraging our managers to attend and debrief organizational events together with their teams.
Team cohesiveness involves helping teams work effectively together and binding the team together, from top to bottom. We see that as a combination of top-down and bottom-up: cascading communication down through our layers of leadership and encouraging feedback up the supervisory chain to invite thoughts, ideas, and concerns from multiple levels of the organization. Now, I realize that accomplishing this always sounds easier than making it an ongoing reality. Still, we believe it is a goal worth striving toward to help us operate together effectively as a team.
Mark: Did you find it necessary to revamp most of your employment policies due to Covid-19? How were policies and procedures added or changed to reflect current practices?
Jennifer: The policies and procedures we have found most impacted by Covid-19 include those that have to do with workplace safety and flexible work arrangements. Immediately upon the initial lockdown, we instituted many safety practices to help our essential workers come into the office safely. In addition, we have continued to adjust our policies and procedures around workplace and public safety as needed, based on CDC guidelines, local Covid-19 community transmission numbers, and the advice of medical professionals keeping an eye on the latest research findings.
On the flexible work arrangement side, we have found that Covid-19 has served as a catalyst for good conversations about what matters most to us regarding in-person vs. remote participation. For now, we have settled on a 60/40 policy for staff at the headquarters (60% of their FTE in-office and 40% remote). Alongside that policy comes new expectations for managers as they learn to measure productivity and hold people accountable while creating a sense of community in a hybrid setting with their direct reports. We still have much to learn as we see how these policies and practices work in real life.
Mark: How have you been able to develop programs to support leadership in its ability to manage a distributed workforce?
Jennifer: Like many organizations, this area is heavily a work in progress for us as we continue to learn more about effectively managing remotely. We have tried to provide support through technology like Zoom, Slack, Google Workspace, and other connectivity options. Additionally, we have encouraged healthy rhythms in the life of managers with their teams—regular one-on-one check-ins, team meetings, etc.
Our leaders oversee very different kinds of teams—some have entirely in-person teams because of the type of work they do, some have hybrid teams, and others work with globally situated teams that have to manage significant time-zone and connectivity differences along with the everyday challenges of remote teaming. Rather than establish one kind of program to fit those different scenarios, we have worked toward guidelines within which managers have a lot of flexibility to address their unique situations. We want managers to be part of the creative problem solving needed to create workable solutions for the future.
At the same time, we also see the need for a stronger focus on leadership development. We cannot expect leaders to thrive in increasing complexity if we have not helped them build a solid foundation in leading themselves and leading others, and, for senior leaders, leading the organization. So, we give attention to developing a leadership development program that will ensure our leaders have a solid platform of leadership principles on which to stand.
Mark: I meet with many executive leaders who, in private, admit they are really worn down, losing steam. All of the divisiveness and emotions that have permeated the world in the past 18 months are a lot for many of us to take. What one piece of advice would you share that has helped you motivate key leaders as we try to navigate toward what may become our “new normal?”
Jennifer: Mark, I wish more executive leaders would admit this openly! It shows that executive leaders are human too. But, seriously, my advice is: Don’t feel alone. I believe most executive leaders are feeling the fatigue of the past 18 months. We have been called to lead during a very challenging season.
Two pieces of advice have been beneficial as I have worked with leaders during this time. First, give yourself grace. Take the steps you need to take to lead from a healthy place, not just for you but also as an example to your organization. That could mean examining your energy level and your priorities and applying what you learn to your calendar.
Second, view the changes that have happened around us as an opportunity for creativity and innovation for the future, rather than as a temporary stopping place before going back to “the time before.” We cannot go back to the world as it was before. Instead, we have an opportunity to rethink some of our past norms and practices that have not have served us well—maybe upon reflection, those practices weren’t healthy or well-aligned with our mission and values. Instead, we can institute new ways of working that truly reflect who we want to be and how we want to reach our mission and vision.
Mark: We at IHN HR believe that the most successful organizations have their MVV integrated into their HR practices, ensure it is used in recruitment, build it into their annual goal and review process, and also make it a focus within career development. Can you tell us how you are accomplishing this?
Jennifer: I agree with you, Mark. I would take this statement broader, in that our mission, vision, and values must drive our strategic priorities and our supporting operations, with HR serving as a critical player in helping our people encounter our guiding statements repeatedly. Now, I can tell you—we don’t do this perfectly today, but we are currently in the process of reviewing all of our HR policies and practices to make sure we have designed them to support where Wycliffe needs to go in the future.
When I say “all HR policies and practices,” I would encourage HR practitioners and leaders to think beyond the obvious ones, like recruiting, onboarding, and performance management. We need to look for alignment in the less obvious aspects, too. For example, when we have to help our staff resolve conflict, do our methods reflect and reinforce our values? If we have to conduct a layoff, can we do it in a way that communicates our values in the process and potentially leads the former staff person to stay committed to our mission and vision, even if they no longer have the employment connection?
Mark: Thank you, Jennifer, for taking the time to meet with me today. We will pray for continued blessings over Wycliffe Bible Translators’ employees, their families, and all who meet the Lord through their efforts. May the Lord continue to bless you, so you prosper in all you do.
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Mark A. Griffin is founder and Chief Consultant at In HIS Name HR LLC. He has over 25 years of HR experience. In His Name HR helps organizations build high-performance human resource programs. Follow him on Facebook, Twitterand LinkedIn.
In His Name HR helps organizations build high-performance human resource programs. E-mail us here.
The Covid-19 pandemic caught many people off-guard, and has proven to be a hard time for nearly all of us in one form or another. Employers who were forced to close due to the lockdown and cannot afford to maintain staffing have laid off employees. Yet, opportunities have arisen to those with an eye to adapting. Many organizations, sensing a future that involves an expansion of telecommuting and the use of independent contractors, have begun hiring remote workers for routine tasks.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of jobs that can be performed offsite and at a distance are more readily available today.
If you are looking for places to start your job search, particularly with nonprofit and for-profit religious organizations that strive to maintain Christian ethics in the workplace, these resources should help.
Job Shepherd was created to meet the demand by Christian employers, including ministries, camps, churches, colleges, and Christian for-profit companies in their search for qualified job candidates.
Christian Remote Jobs
If you are looking for a job that is Christian influenced, these religious organizations offer Christian employment opportunities that can be fulfilled safely from home.
Universities
Concordia
Concordia, a nonprofit institution established by the Lutheran church, is one of the best providers of faith-based jobs, and are currently seeking remote faculty to teach their college courses online. Find Concordia’s job opportunities here.
Grand Canyon University
Want to work in a faith-based institution that weaves a Christian perspective through their curriculum? Then Grand Canyon University is an ideal choice. In light of the current global pandemic, the university is hiring both part-time and full-time adjunct faculty to teach online courses.
Northwest Christian University
Northwest Christian University is hiring faculty for a variety of subjects. All faculty positions are remote and selected persons will teach from offsite locations via online lectures.
Ohio Christian University
Ohio Christian University is also hiring remote-based faculty to teach a variety of subjects online.
Companies that match employers to remote employees and independent contractors
Belay
This company was created as a work-from-home company, and hires bookkeepers, executive assistants and web specialists. The vision of Belay is to “glorify God by rendering solutions that equip clients with the confidence to climb higher.” Check out Belay’s jobs here.
Christian Job Fair
This is a Christian-owned, privately held company that helps you find work that requires a degree, but also work you can do without any specific degree or skills. Virtual positions were on the rise before the pandemic, and in the current situation, the need has grown exponentially.
Christian Job Fair allows job seekers access to thousands of Christian ministry jobs, and positions with religious nonprofit ministries. Christian organizations and churches are provided with an easy and inexpensive way to hire for their Christian jobs, ministry jobs, and church openings. Christian employers can interview through chat, Skype, Zoom, email and phone. Website
Christian and Other Job Boards
In addition to the companies listed above, Christian job boards can also be of great help. For example, ChristianJobs.com is a job board that connects believers in the workplace. Here you can find jobs that exclusively promote Christian ethics in the workplace. They now feature a Work from Home category for any qualified candidates.
FlexJobs
This is a paid membership job board which promotes flexible and remote work, and they feature a specific section for Christian job seekers. They vet every job posting to avoid scams. Connect with FlexJobs here.
Hire My Mom
This website connects moms who are seeking work-from-home jobs with professionals. Its founder, Lesley Pyle, is a lover of Jesus and has strong faith in humanity. Visit Hire My Mom here.
Indeed
Indeed pulls the results from all major job board sites, including faith-based jobs, saving you considerable time and effort when searching for your next job.
Jobs In Christian Higher Education
The Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE)
ABHE is made of approximately 200 postsecondary institutions specializing in biblical ministry formation and professional leadership education. Visit ABHE’s Job Board.
The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities
CCCU is a higher education association of more than 180 Christian institutions around the world. With campuses across the globe, including more than 150 in the U.S. and Canada and more than 30 in another 18 countries, CCCU institutions are accredited, comprehensive colleges and universities whose missions are Christ-centered and rooted in the historic Christian faith. See CCCU’s Job Board here.
Association of Business Administrators of Christian Colleges (ABACC)
The mission of ABACC is to improve the standard of business management in schools of Christian Higher Education by providing professional development, networking and mutual support to their business leadership. Find ABACC’s Job Board here.
Christian University Jobs (CUJ)
CUJ provides access to career opportunities in more than 275 Christian universities, Bible colleges, seminaries, and vocational and theological schools in the US and Canada. Source CUJ’s Job Board here.
Secular Companies
In this Fox Business article, get tips and leads on identifying secular companies that are now seeking to hire remote workers, including Aetna, Adobe and Dell.
These are changing times for all of us. We pray that these resources will jumpstart your job search.
Your organization faces novel challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus has created turmoil for you and your most important resource, your employees. We want to help you. Now is the time to reset the old ways, decide how to restart, and move forward.
The first step is to reflect on why you exist as organization, what you stand for, and how you can best work with your employees to ensure mutual prosperity while advancing the ministries you support, the communities in which you live, and the families of the employees who make up your organization. Ensuring a workplace that promotes Christian values contributes to all of that.
This month celebrates the 8-year publication anniversary of the book How To Build “Kingdom-Minded” Organizations. In it, author, speaker and noted HR consultant Mark A. Griffin illustrates how leaders can build values-led organizations and maintain Christian workplace ethics designed to help weather difficult economic times.
Mark doesn’t just explain why establishing Christian values in the workplace is important—he shows you how to make it happen. Using a model he developed through years of organizational development experiences, Mark demonstrates how to weave your organization’s mission, vision and values into all of your HR practices. This ensures your Christ-centered culture is integrated into your organization and maintained, now and in the future.
Take advantage of this special anniversary discount to benefit from Mark’s guidance on how you might best build successful, lasting “Kingdom-minded” organizations in today’s politically correct business world. Mark will inspire you to be bold and brave in your faith, and ensure that Christ is in your workplace.
Special for the month of May 2020
1/2 off Retail Price
Kindle $4.49
Softcover $8.99
About the Author
Mark A. Griffin is the founder and chief consultant of In HIS Name HR LLC, a human resources outsourcing and career coaching firm created to help companies pilot the complex issues of managing HR.
As a human resource professional with 20-plus years of experience in both private and public companies (e.g., Quaker Oats, Kodak, Merck), Mark is passionate about building high-performance workplaces that utilize best practices and lead with strong values.
A veteran of the United States Air Force, Mark earned his MBA while interning for Congressmen Kanjorski as a military liaison during the first Gulf War. Mark has completed several executive education programs at the University of Michigan and is a certified practitioner of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, MBTI®. He has also coached leaders on “Business as Mission” onsite in Eastern Europe, India, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Times are scary, for sure. We are now in the middle of a pandemic, and for many of you reading this, you are understandably concerned that your organization may well not make it through. Many share those feelings. You’re not alone. And we’re here to help.
A number of organizations, on the other hand, are confident that they will continue to prosper. For organizations to be successful, they must face the pandemic crisis head on and at the same time focus on high-performance human resources (HR) practices. Now, more than ever, your employees need hope and a future, and they desire and require strong leadership to get them there. Now is not the time to falter and flounder.
In HIS Name HR is approaching its 10th year. We have a national presence and the technology to help implement high-performance HR programs from a distance. Using tools such as Skype, Zoom, and FaceTime, we continue to guide organizations to success.
These are unprecedented times, with considerable uncertainty, both now and in the future. Never before has supportive Christian leadership in the workplace been more important.
Thanks to our efforts, our clients realize considerable gains in productivity, employee satisfaction, and reduction in hiring time within weeks of our partnership. We are the leading company for human resources (HR) outsourcing & HR consulting services from a Christian perspective. We offer support in all aspects of HR compliance and program development.
Does your organization need HR help, whether due to COVID-19 or simply concerning normal business practices? If so, don’t panic. We are here. We can help.
If you’re struggling with the current pandemic crisis, and what it means for your organization and your employees, and need someone to listen to your concerns who can help, contact us today.
The past weeks have been unprecedented—truly historic—regarding the global human resources implications due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing COVID-19 disease. Typically, we address our articles to leadership professionals in the workplace. However, in light of the current situation, this article is for anyone, at any level of an organization, who has found themselves thrust, without warning, into working remotely.
Many such employees have contacted us, having been told by equally unprepared leadership, “It’s not safe to come into the office. Just do what you normally do, but do it from home.”
Organizations, some of our clients among them, have abruptly shifted into panic mode. You may be reading this article having found yourself also suddenly having to work from home instead of from your customary office or workplace.
Understandably, many organizations were caught unawares, and are not equipped to handle the logistics of managing people remotely. Regardless, organizations still need to operate, to serve their customers and remain solvent.
While it has caught nearly everyone, indeed the country, off guard, it is of utmost importance that you, as an employee who draws wages from your employer, come to grips with the fact that you must remain impactful if you and the organization is to survive. When organizations succeed, they can pay their employees who, in turn, can support their families and the communities in which they live.
So, let’s review some areas that will help make you successful while working remotely. These features are proven to work, and have been used successfully by individuals who were assigned remote work, not out of crisis but more often the result of being geographically distant from coworkers.
5 Pointers to Help You Succeed as a Remote Employee
Establish workspace boundaries – Ensure a good working environment, a dedicated space to do your work. Can you shut the door against distractions when you need to work and otherwise maintain a good work–life balance?
Ensure your ability to concentrate – Will children, friends, or other personal obligations regularly interrupt you?
Stay organized – Can you make a schedule and stick to it? Will you create checklists to keep you on track?
Promote and maintain productivity – Have you been provided expectations and goals? Can you obtain help quickly if you hit an obstacle?
Maintain your focus and fitness – Can you take short, regular breaks throughout the day to stay fresh and avoid fatigue or burnout?
What single safeguard makes telecommuting most effective? Ajob description!
There’s no question that it’s preferable to have done the groundwork and crafted a solid job description for yourself before telecommuting. When employees find themselves thrust into working remotely, without the necessary preparations, trouble often lies ahead.
A job description is not only important from an employee empowerment standpoint; it’s a strategic necessity. Both your and your organization’s productivity and growth can be stymied when skills and competencies are unknown or undefined variables. Be detailed and specific about the requirements placed on you, and make sure they are part of your job description.
Finally, if you are concerned about your longevity with your employer, help create a process to make it hard for them to dismiss you. As a human resources expert, I almost always find employee terminations or separations from organizations are the result of the employee being viewed as not contributing to the organization. But that’s not always the employee’s fault. Many times this is management’s fault, because they failed to furnish key guidance or measurable metrics designed to enable employees to perform successfully.
If your organization has failed in this area, make it a point to do it yourself. Develop key measurements and a daily schedule that you can share with your leadership that validates why they need you.
In our next article, we explore the above five tips further: workspace boundaries, the ability to concentrate, self-organization, productivity, and focus and fitness, in order to better help you to succeed as a remote employee. With the right approach, it can be done.
