Crafting Employee Performance and Engagement Programs During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The world is battling with anxiety and uncertainty, and it’s a period of intense stress for businesses across the globe. Working from home has been the game-changer for the corporate world.  But now the major task of the HR team is to know how to keep their employees engaged during this stressful period? 

There is indeed a significant impact of the pandemic on employee’s personal and work lives. The uncertainty in the economy leading to employee anxiety and frustration, not addressing these issues can negatively impact employee’s productivity and engagement, leading to poor work quality, errors and eventually influencing an organization’s ability to survive in these difficult times.

Employees look up to their leaders especially during times of crisis. Therefore, it’s important that leaders stay calm and manage their emotions. Employers should keep employees updated on the situation and invite them to engage in the discussion.

Most of the organizations have started to address these concerns and have taken some reasonable actions to ensure business continuity. 

Can remote working build the level of engagement in the employees?
Yes, Technology can play a very active role in building a human touch to address employee concerns and make them engaged in the business.

Few tips and tricks that can help the HR team to build a Panic free and productive environment:

Identify and Address Employee Needs:

 Facilitate regular conversations between managers, employees and HR to address the sensitive issues concerning not only to work but also at the personal level and how they are keeping safe from the COVID-19 pandemic, Job security, impact to staffing, and tension has been seen as the most concerning issues in the employees, so addressing those would make things transparent between employees and organization. 

This guidance can include discussion guides, training, or email reminders with the latest updates on the situation and general principles for how to deal with it.

Promote interaction between teams:

A medium like a Social media feed can be interactive and help listen to the concerns of employees, make announcements on relevant topics have song dedications and contests to ease the environment between the teams.

These types of two-way communication with peers and cross-functional teams can provide employees with information and allow them to express and process negative emotions. HR leaders should ensure that managers create opportunities for two-way communication on a realistic picture of both the positive and negative implications of the current COVID-19 outbreak.

One tool which can be leveraged during this crisis is Zaggle propel, an employee reward, recognition, and engagement tool. This can help build social interactions in a playful way.

Custom-made Reward & Recognition programs:

Rewarding employees for their efforts has been a custom in the organization, but no more than ever this pandemic has made it essential for the organizations to reward the employee efforts.

Effective reward and recognition programs not only motivate the recipient but can also improve the working performance and have a positive impact on employee behavior. Recognition can be done in many forms of Reward points, monetary rewards, tokens of appreciation, Gift cards, etc. This reinforces the organization’s commitment to the long-term success of the employee.

Zaggle propel is an innate tool which enables HR teams to create a customized reward and recognition programs. Our point-based rewards can build competitive spirit among employees leading to better productivity and performance.