Conscious Culture’s COVID-19 Lessons: One Year Later
Conscious Culture’s COVID-19 Lessons: One Year Later
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, none of us knew what to expect or exactly how the pandemic would impact our work. The last year has required a new level of adaptability, resilience, and courage from individuals and teams alike. It has fundamentally shifted the way we work — from magnifying pressure on working parents to virtualizing operations and communications to opening up possibilities to work from anywhere. One year later, we are looking back to honor the lessons this year has taught us.
Where we work doesn’t matter much.
Before March 2020, many workplaces didn’t believe that a remote workforce could be just as effective as a centralized one. The pandemic challenged core assumptions as leaders (and employees) got to experience the benefits to remote work almost immediately — reinvesting cost savings from offices into more impactful employee benefits, offering flexible schedules, unlocking a wider talent pool across the country, and experiencing increased productivity and innovation.
Strong leadership and culture matter more than ever.
There’s a reason we focus so much on these two critical elements in our work. Strong leadership and culture help teams and organizations feel aligned, promote healthy problem-solving, and spur growth towards shared goals. This concept of “good culture” was put to the test when COVID-19 forced our workforce to go remote. Over the last year, we’ve watched great leaders navigate their teams through change and uncertainty, and we’ve watched companies with healthy culture support, value and engage their employees in the process. The organizations emerging stronger from the past year are those with leaders who are present with and connected to their teams, who create psychological safety, and provide equitable growth opportunities, compensation, and healthcare.
Employees value compensation & benefits more.
Taking care of your employees is always important, but it has become even more critical since facing this pandemic. We’ve seen workplaces step up with hazard pay for essential workers, home office stipends for those working remotely, and other supportive benefits like tele-health, insurance, mental health services, and flexible schedules. Overall, we have seen the shift toward supporting and even prioritizing individuals’ health and wellness at work. Companies investing in their compensation and benefit packages are building employee loyalty and helping their teams to show up to work at their best.
Old performance management systems don’t work.
Even though we know that a continuous performance management system that manages by objective is a better way to operate, some companies still struggle with it. When your team is remote, you have to clearly define and articulate what high performance means for each position. It’s no longer possible to judge performance based on subjective indicators like how many hours someone is working or on pre-COVID goals and KPIs (key performance indicators). Rather, companies who empower employees with clear roles, goals, and performance criteria are the ones who are seeing their employees thrive. Bonus points if you implement a performance management solution like Lattice or 15Five to streamline your performance management.
There have been some major challenges, as well as silver linings to this past year under quarantine, and certainly an abundance of lessons learned. As we start to come out of the pandemic, be sure that your company consciously retains the core components of the remote work culture that your team has come to appreciate and value the most. And if you need help with any of the points listed above, get in touch with us for a free 45-minute consultation. We’d love to support!