Effective crisis management: How Do You Keep Remote Workers Engaged and Productive?

Guido Heezen

Effectory offers pulse measurements to organizations: Effectory COVID-19 Workforce Pulse. Now that a substantial number of your employees and managers may be working from home, the big question is how your organization can remain optimally productive.

Effective crisis management

In my previous blog, I shared nine management lessons from other crises which are also important during the Corona crisis.

Collaborate effectively

A big challenge for organizations effective crisis management in the coming days and weeks is to remain optimally productive. To continue to work well together, technical resources and emergency lines of communication are indispensable. You want to avoid unnecessary delays caused by clogged lines of communication or staff waiting for a delayed response from their team members.

So find out if everyone has the right tools, devices, and digital access rights. Check if employees have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Can they adequately collaborate with colleagues? Does their home situation enable remote work?

Effective crisis communication

Many employees are currently likely to be concerned about their health, their job security, the future of your organization, and about the way they should do their job in this new context.

Do you address these concerns adequately in your crisis management communication? Do your employees feel your organization manages the COVID-19 situation in a satisfactory manner? Do they receive sufficient information about new policies and updates?

Security is a fundamental human need. The current situation may be such an energy drain for employees that they become totally unproductive, or cause them to go into overdrive and overwork themselves. No one is invincible. Take the human element into account.

Join our upcoming webinar!

Free webinars with Effectory’s HRLab series. Sign up and we’ll keep you updated on upcoming events.

Register

Monitoring productivity

It is very important to have a clear picture in your crisis management plan of whether your employees can serve their customers well and whether they can work efficiently.

It may be good to know that, in close collaboration with a few of our international clients, we have developed specific sets of questions for the current Corona crisis. These are short pulse surveys that we offer for free to all organizations in order to support them during these trying times.

The scans quickly reveal the current morale amongst your employees and whether they can work productively. You will also learn where new opportunities might lie. So far, most of our clients use these scans once a week.

Available themes in the scans are:

  • The (crisis) communication from the company
  • Personal well-being of the employee (physical, job security, future at organization)
  • Remote work (communication structure, contact with customers and team, technology)
  • Work pressure and work experience
  • New opportunities for the organization

Employees with vital functions in healthcare

Additionally to the Effectory COVID-19 Workforce Pulse, we developed a customized question set aimed at employees in vital sectors, such as healthcare. It is a pulse instrument: an ultra-short questionnaire that employees can fill in on their smartphone. You can use it to retrieve essential feedback from your employees. At the same time, you convey a strong message that you are really listening to their needs and feelings.

Keep the lines open

Research has shown that there is no correlation between team cohesion and performance on good times. But in stormy weather, the difference is exorbitant.

So keep all lines of communication wide open. Also with us. We’ll do everything in our power to support you.

Effectory COVID-19 Workforce Pulse

Use our COVID-19 Workforce Pulses to gain insights in employees’ wellbeing, enablement & communication to bounce back faster and stronger.

Request information