Calling All Employers! It’s Time for a COVID Clean-Up

For most of us, 2020 is not a year likely to fade into obscurity.

From the initial announcement of one country’s encounter with the virus to the reality of a global lockdown, the pandemic certainly made its mark in modern history. Five years later, in many areas, we continue to see ripple effects from this world-wide experience.

When it comes to the workplace, however, it may be time to officially close the chapter on COVID.

The pandemic affected the world of work in a massive and far-reaching way. Employers were forced to think on their feet and find a way to protect onsite workers as best they could or make work usually done in the office achievable from the home. And there were some truly unique circumstances to consider. Do you remember when gym teachers were having to deliver their lessons – which required physical activity – from home?

The point is, when COVID came, employers adapted to survive.

The challenge some employers may be facing now is that the COVID hangover continues to affect their organization.  The dust has settled, COVID has become an issue of the past and yet it may still be lurking in the background of your policies and documentation, or echoing in your work language and thought processes.

This is where a COVID clean-up can prove effective. Consider reviewing three key areas to ensure your organization is up-to-date and looking towards sustainability and future growth rather than looking back:

• Guidance Documents and Policies – this is the more administrative side of the COVID-clean up. Do you still have policies centred around COVID? Are there forms taking up space that are now, in a post-COVID world, no longer needed? For example, an employee form recording a positive COVID test and a request to work remotely, is likely no longer relevant for today. It’s time to discard the outdated policies, procedures, and forms. Making the effort to polish guidance documentation so that it’s up to date and relevant can improve business efficiency and eliminate unnecessary work.
• Mindset – in the early days post-COVID, the world of work saw significant changes in the way people viewed work as well as their role in it – consider the carpe diem mindset prevalent during the Great Resignation. Fast forward to now and this outlook may not be as applicable as it was a few years ago. This forward movement applies to many ways of working (and ways of being) that emerged during the pandemic. The mindsets that leaders and employees had to adopt during the pandemic years were vastly different to how they were previously thinking about and approaching tasks. Mindsets have continued to evolve post-COVID and while being responsive, adaptive, and flexible can be seen as positive biproducts of this forced mindset shift, it’s important that employers are not still making decisions based on what happened with COVID.
• Language and Communication Styles –it’s time for us to stop talking about COVID. Terms like ‘pre-pandemic’ and ‘post-pandemic’ should be used rarely, if at all. Instead, we might say, ‘moving forward, here’s where we want to be’ or ‘let’s focus on today’s most pressing challenges.’ Employers can refrain from using language that calls back to COVID and the pandemic because it no longer serves the purpose it once did. For example, when faced with a work disruption, the first question shouldn’t be about what we did before, after, or during the pandemic. It’s time to take COVID out of the buzzword box to make room for more applicable terminology.

Once this clean-up is completed, employers will likely see that moving away from the association of any disruptions with the pandemic can have significant benefits for their organization. Greater value can be realized by shifting efforts towards how to manage and mitigate all types of disruptions as and when they occur. By conducting this shift in language and mindset, and ensuring it is reflected in policies and processes, employers will be better equipped to manage the onslaught of change fatigue that has arisen in the working world over the past few years.

If you would like to discuss how we can help you conduct a COVID clean-up and build resilience into your workplace policies and practices, please get in touch with me at amanda@orgshakers.com