12 ways organisations may be harming people in COVID-19

It is an understatement to say that everybody is under additional stress at present.  This includes managers and executives and boards.  In an age of unpredictable change, fear races to the front and may consume an otherwise healthy culture.

Certainly, in this age the more dysfunctional organisations will carry their people and teams to the brink.  What concerns me are the social factors on people’s mental health and the impacts on the family.

Here are just a dozen ways your organisation may be harming people in COVID-19:

1.             If you’re expecting as much as you normally expect out of them (and worse if you’re expecting more!), especially if you are overt about this, it is too much.  I say this because there are all sorts of other dynamics of change going on, and employers of choice recognise when their employees need to be cut some slack.  It’s time to be kinder than ever.

2.             If there is no way for people to give honest feedback about how they’re feeling, especially during an inherently stressful time such as this, you are forcing people to go underground.  Give them a way to be true to themselves and to honour you by making a way for them to communicate with you.

3.             If there is only one way communication flows, meaning downward, people feel less empowered, and possibly worse, hushed.

4.             If people would like to challenge the status quo — meaning they have worthwhile feedback — and feel they can’t, you have a situation on your hands that can only end badly if it’s not addressed.  It is the better people you have that will want to be honest with you.

5.             With the amount of change going on, one of the real risks is people are doing new things without training and support, and this causes an increase in anxiety where resentment easily rises, and mistakes are easily made — worse when the untrained and unsupported are blamed.  People need to be supported through change, not just have the changed arrangements thrown at them.

6.             If new procedures aren’t clear, don’t exist, or aren’t communicated clearly, how can people be held to account to them?  This is a management system basic that too many organisations get wrong.

7.             If you haven’t got the right gear for your people to wear or use, especially personal protective equipment, you aren’t just letting your people down, you could be in breach of the law.

8.             If you are not transparent about your relationships with the staff, including what’s not working, people will chat about it as a way to process it.  It would be better to be clear as well as to honour people as they leave.

9.             If people are working above and beyond, they deserve respect, recognition, and reward. If you are taking your people for granted it will backfire and everyone will lose as a result.

10.          If your people’s work is impacting on their family lives, especially at this time, the family will resent you, the employer.  More than ever this is your opportunity to be a family-friendly employer.

11.          If the changes that you have required have cost your people freedom within the ways they work, and the processes are awkward and cumbersome, there will be unintended consequences.  Don’t blame others for this.

12.          If you are not proactive in providing pastoral care support for your people, you may well be letting them down, when, of all times, you should be interested in the welfare of your people.

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