In The Eye of the Storm: Managing and Supporting your Team During Crisis

When a crisis of any type hits, it forces businesses to adjust and change up the way operations are run. It’s a tough challenge to take on and it takes its toll on everyone in the company, which is why in this article we’re going to talk about how you can manage and support your staff during tough times.

Everyday life as we know it has drastically changed in just a matter of weeks. Businesses have been greatly affected as the environment changed. Some even had to come to the difficult decision to close down for an unforeseeable time while others had to maximize their opportunity to continue operations whether that’s in the regular office setting or from home.

In trying times like these, every business owner’s concern is not just about how to keep their business afloat, but more importantly how to manage, support, and connect with their staff.

In this article, we want to give you some effective tips on how to handle difficult situations like these.

Connect Regularly

Connecting with your staff is quite different when they’re working at home versus in the office, but this is exactly the time where you should keep the human connection. Thankfully, we have the power of technology to help us out with staying in contact.

Utilize messaging tools such as Google Hangouts so your teams can easily communicate with each other. In addition to that, schedule regular video conferences with your teams to give them updates, receive progress reports, and most importantly to see how they are all doing, providing them with words of affirmations.

In addition, make sure that your leaders give their team members specific targets that will be tracked daily. Require team members to give regular, even daily if needed, reports for progress transparency.

Assistance

Taking into consideration that most likely some of your staff aren’t able to work from home due to slow internet connection or lack the right equipment or software to perform their tasks, it’s wise to consider providing them means to be able to report to the office. Arrange carpools for the safe transportation of your staff from their homes to the office. Some staff whose homes are too far from the office, so some companies keep them in-house for the meantime.

Other businesses have taken the initiative to temporarily send the staff’s office equipment such as their laptop or computer to their homes to set up and work from.

Be Proactive

Being proactive doesn’t solely apply before a crisis but also when you’re already in the midst of one. You always need to keep anticipating what could happen next and what your next step is going to be and how you can prepare your leaders and staff for it.

Be very specific with the steps you want to take. Don’t directly assume that your teams know exactly what you expect, especially for unexpected situations.

Depending on the crisis or calamity, you have to anticipate how your company and your staff are going to fare. Be sure to regularly update them and build a sense of normalcy so their tension will be lessened and productivity heightened.

Road to Recovery

In the end, businesses can’t wait to recover from a large-scale crisis, but remember that the road to recovery takes time. Sometimes weeks, months, or even years, and it can get overwhelming. Hence, why it’s important to pace yourself and your whole company.

Everyone in your company has been greatly affected by it, so while you are doing everything to get everything back to normal, be sure to check on your team’s well-being and remind them that the company is always willing and ready to help and assist them.

Takeaway

Every business handles crisis situations differently but everything boils down to making sure that your staff keeps their trust in you, in the company, and in each other.

It can be quite a challenge shifting operations from the comfortable and safe space of your office to a remote setting, but we hope that these simple tips will help you keep your business running smoothly and efficiently even through difficult times.