Get Inputs From Your People

We have said before that you should try to hold onto your people during the pandemic. Why does this matter? In part, because their corporate knowledge is vakuable, and you don’t want to lose that by sending them out the door.

So if you’re going to keep them, you might as well use that knowledge. Consider getting inputs from your employees about how things should change (or not) as you go forward.

You want your employees to be working as effectively as possible. Very often they are in a position to know what works best, so make use of that perspective. You will also find that when people have a say in how they work, they tend to be more engaged, which improves performance. While a “top-down” style of leadership may seem faster, remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint. You are likely to get better performance over the long run if you take a “bottom-up” approach to finding the best ways to work.

First, ask your team, “What has been working and should be continued?” Are there things you started doing during the pandemic that worked well and you should keep doing? If you have ways of working that are efficient during the pandemic, could they continue to be efficient as the situation changes?

What practices did you put into place that need to be dropped? What processes were okay as temporary measures, but will create problems if they are permanent? If there are things your employees have been tolerating, but they want to see them change, you need to know that.

Finally, are there things you did before the pandemic that you should NOT go back to? If there are things you stopped doing during the pandemic, and there was no negative impact, then maybe you should not restart them.

Processes that look good from up above often have a different impact at the employee level. Rather than deciding for yourself how things should be, reach out to your employees and get their insights.