You don’t need to look at government statistics for coronavirus infection levels to know what a massive impact COVID has had on everyone’s physical health, but what many businesses forget is the very real toll the pandemic has had on teams well-being.
With last week’s announcement that we should return to home-working if we can, we have started packing up our newly re-opened offices. Instead, we have returned to work from home. Of course, this is the last thing any of us wanted to do. However, we all understand the need to stop the acceleration of the virus. Therefore, we must all do our bit. So, it’s really important for all business owners to continue to support their teams. Most importantly, try to help them manage the isolation and difficulties of motivating yourself from home.
We used a number of tools when lockdown happened, and they helped our team to remain focused and engaged. We thought we would share these with you:
- Regular Team Building events such as quiz’s. May sound corny – but everyone was so competitive and we had lots of fun
- Regular 121s just to make sure everyone kept in touch! Not only with their manager, but with the rest of the team
- Incentives – just because we’re stuck at home, doesn’t mean everyone loves a target and a chance to win something
- Reward your team for their hard work! The rewards might be different to pre-lockdown, but they will be appreciated all the same
- Make sure everyone has proper down-time – when working from home, it’s easy to have the laptop to hand all the time – make sure they switch off and get a proper work/life balance
Of course this time it is possible to meet up in small groups of 6 or less. However, it’s really important to allow everyone to make their own decisions about whether they feel the benefit of physical interaction outweighs the slightly increased chance of coming into contact with the virus.
