How to take the pressure off HR during COVID-19
The COVID-19 situation has forced us all to step into completely unknown territory, both in our personal and in our working lives. For HR, at the forefront of people management in their respective industries and organisations, supporting their workforce through this crisis has been quite a mantle to bear.
Though fortunately, in the modern-day of transformative technology and communication tools, there are plenty of ways to make life as an HR professional a little easier at this time.
We look at some of the key challenges HR departments may currently be facing, and how technology can better support them during a period when senior leaders and the wider workforce are looking to them to sustain the welfare of both their people and the business.
Challenge #1: You need to stay informed about your employees’ health and wellbeing
As anxieties and risks to health continue to mount in the current climate, HR must stay abreast of changes to staff wellbeing so that they can continue to give that much-needed support in these exceedingly difficult times.
Pulse surveys can serve as a useful aid to obtain feedback from employees regarding how they are coping, as can daily check-in tools, where employees can quickly report on not just their physical but also their mental wellbeing. With simple workflows, this information can then be easily accessed by both managers and HR for a team- or company-wide view, and individuals who may need additional help can be effectively identified.
Challenge #2: You need to report on COVID-19 symptoms or absence
Absence is currently running at an all-time high across the nation, with many people either experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, self-isolating or caring for others with the virus. This is on top of the absence levels that businesses would normally expect to see from unrelated causes.
To assist HR in minimising disruption to the business from coronavirus-related absence, enable your workforce to give their leaders and the HR department a short update on how they’re doing. This may be a verbal discussion between managers and their teams for a ‘register-style’ round-up, or you could utilise an interactive online survey to facilitate this. The feedback from this can again be easily shared with HR, giving an overview of employees’ answers to questions such as whether they have symptoms, when they became ill, if they are well enough to work or whether they need to reduce their hours.
Challenge #3: You need to minimise your departments’ admin burden
Aside from their leaders, the number one port of call for the majority of the workforce to get support, guidance and information is their HR department. Which has been the case long before the coronavirus pandemic began.
Right now, however, HR departments are not only inundated with employee queries related to remote working, job security, payroll, holidays, business continuity and more; but they’re also trying to carry out their ‘business as usual’ to keep everything running smoothly.
A great way to help reduce some of the queries coming into the department, whilst better supporting the workforce, is for HR to collate the most commonly asked questions from employees. These could then be shared through company-wide online noticeboards, helping to put employees’ minds at rest, and can be amended or added to as the landscape changes. Alternatively, an internal company newsletter disseminated through email can also be used as a tool to answer some of the frequently asked HR questions, as well as providing key information to employees.
Challenge #4: You need to improve communication to keep productivity levels high
With your workforce now more widely dispersed than ever and settling into these unfamiliar ways of working, HR must ensure that leaders and their teams have the right tools and processes in place to maintain a high output. This, of course, can only be achieved by effective communication.
In lieu of face-to-face catch-ups and team meetings in the office, consider encouraging regular conversations through video conferencing software to help align your employees’ focus and reduce the risk of duplication or missed deadlines. You could even get your employees to try providing online activity logs, where they give their managers a quick run-down of their daily activity, providing details of any outstanding work or tasks where they need additional support or escalation.
Without a doubt, HR teams are facing challenges they’ve never had to deal with before, and at this uncertain time, HR is able to step up and provide the support its people need; as well as lead the wider business in the right course of action to ensure the welfare and sustainability of its workforce in the longer-term.
Technology has always been an essential part of HR’s toolkit and key to driving efficiencies, minimise the admin load and freeing up time to better support its employees. Now more than ever this is needed.
You can find out more about how to stay informed about your employees’ wellbeing, report on COVID-19 absence, minimise HR’s admin burden and maintain high productivity levels through utilising HR technology such as Access Workspace HomeWork, which is simple for your entire workforce to use - download a brochure to discover more.
