Businesses who have found a way to adapt to the change in circumstances, and have staff working remotely, or on-site with appropriate health and safety measures, face a new set of challenges. These may include things like how to lead from a distance, and how to help staff who may be struggling with new work arrangements, reduced pay, stresses at home etc.
It is tough on everyone to have so many restrictions suddenly imposed, and our typical ways of living and working, socializing and networking, drastically changed. There wasn’t much time to prepare, causing stress for both leaders and employees.
In a recent webinar on Building Resilience offered by Rotman School of Management, Julie McCarthy, Professor in Organizational Behaviour at U of T, reported that pre-Covid 19 research indicated that everyday stress at work was 58%, and would now definitely be higher due to the sense of ongoing uncertainty and lack of control.
The overall message from the webinar was control what you can, to the degree you can. Areas covered included time, energy, autonomy, and interruptions. Here were some examples:
- Keep up healthy habits – e.g., sleep, nutrition, exercise routines.
- Interpersonal connections – e.g., chat times, help family and neighbours, discuss shared experience.
- Care and concern for self and others builds energy, immunity and speeds recovery.
- Engage in activities you enjoy. Clear your mind. Relax. Minimize news. Mentally detach every day.
Some cautions:
- Be aware of “emotional contagion”. Happy or negative messages or energy can spread quickly. As a leader, set the tone at the start of the meeting. Stay calm and positive to minimize your and others’ stress. Let others voice their concerns and challenges, one to one or in a group setting. Be empathetic, but try to stem any continued focus on the negative. That becomes rumination which can be detrimental. Some may benefit from speaking to a professional counsellor for additional support.*
- Videoconferencing has emerged as a popular mode of communication for team calls. A challenge here is additional pressure to manage expressions and emotions. Be careful not to overburden people with too many videoconferences. Mix in phone calls etc.
Co-presenter, Professor John Trougakos, gave shared research and suggestions on controlling time to reduce anxiety, increase productivity and feel more motivated to work when faced with different circumstances, distractions, feelings etc.:
- Focus on autonomy. Make choices, plan for the day/week. Create boundaries around space (e.g. tape, signs on door, baby gate!) and optimal times and ways to work.
- Do your best, and be patient with it not being perfect.
- Try to minimize interruptions. Consider “re-start cost” – it takes 15-20 mins to get back to where you were when concentrating.
- Do one task at a time. Most are not good at multi-tasking, and don’t get better with practice…
- Schedule and take breaks when needed – micro (get up and stretch) to longer breaks. The average amount of high productivity is 90 minutes. Then a 15-20 minute break is ideal. Top performers work in 52-minute bursts, then break for 17 minutes, on average.
- Do high value tasks at your peak time, which is morning for most. Take a lunch break. Do more routine tasks after lunch.
- Leaders should create a supportive culture for breaks and recovery. Think of the Raptors “load management” strategy for peak effectiveness when needed.
- Manage expectations, celebrate wins and successes a team. Share creative ideas.
These are excellent coping strategies for leaders and employees to get through this period of disruption and uncertainty.
It is essential for leaders to recognize that most of their staff, admittedly or not, are having moments of fear and uncertainty, and dealing with new personal and professional demands during this time, some more than others. It may be valuable as well for leaders to be transparent about their own concerns, but empathy and support for staff, on both a broad and one to one scale, are characteristics needed now more than ever. That should, in turn, be rewarded by higher degrees of trust and productivity.
The good news is we are all going through this together, and can learn from each other and grow our businesses and individually in new and unexpected directions. Hope you’re keeping well and finding some silver linings in the clouds.
* Regarding counselling services, if your company does not offer an Employee Assistance Program, the Ontario Government recently announced an increased investment in mental health services. Here is a link to some of the services available for individuals to access: http://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2020/04/ontario-increasing-mental-health-support-during-covid-19.html?utm_source=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p