Boosting Employee Positivity During COVID-19 and Beyond

As a business owner, boosting employee positivity within a company is an important goal. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for small to mid-size business owners and managers as they try to balance the regular workload of their employees with new demands. How do they also maintain employee positivity?

A question facing these business owners is how to boost the positive during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Employee positivity is essential for ongoing success. Thus, what HR best practices can be instituted or emphasized to help employees feel secure and, ultimately, thrive beyond external fears and worries?

Ongoing Success and Employee Positivity

Given the extent of the changes taking place in the macrocosm of the greater world, how can managers and executives ensure their workplace microcosm’s safety and success? Since working together in the same office is not always possible, how can the workplace’s spirit be transferred to a virtual context and remote employment? By balancing flexibility with empathy, a manager recognizes their employees’ concerns and addresses them.

Being open to listening to the challenges that employees are facing is an excellent place to start. Many employees are dealing with more difficulties at home than ever before. Given the isolation of remote work, it’s challenging to process these hardships. At Strategic Contracting Services (SCS), we understand such challenges. From isolation and stress to anxiety and caregiving demands, employees are in need of support. As team leaders, managers and executives can achieve a lot by merely recognizing and paying attention to these concerns.

Three Approaches to Boosting Employee Positivity

Remote work and employee positivity do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Thus, managers and executives need to come up with new ways to boost employee positivity. By using the three approaches described below, a positive step in the right direction is taken for any small to mid-sized company.

Use Virtual Meetings to Connect to Employees

Virtual meetings and events where employees are free to express themselves can be meaningful and helpful. During such events that address problems experienced by employees, managers and executives can boost morale. After all, the simple recognition of difficulty is helps raise morale.

Rather than avoid the new virtual paradigm, embrace it by celebrating employee achievements and milestones with the whole company. For example, marking a new deal closed or a work milestone like twenty-five years at the company can generate positivity. SCS recommends weekly or bi-weekly virtual meetings where companies gather as a whole or in extended teams to emphasize the positive.

By being creative and taking advantage of the new technologies, small to mid-sized companies can boost employee positivity during COVID-19 and beyond. In other words, embrace the new normative by looking for opportunities to celebrate achievement.

Invest in Employee Wellness Programs

Today, there has never been a better time to invest in employee wellness programs. COVID-19 has fostered the kind of mental health struggles that employee wellness programs are designed to address. If a company shows its employees concern about health and safety during difficult times, it will result in a surge in employee positivity.

2020 is the year when small to mid-sized companies need to emphasize the creation of a company culture of belonging. From COVID-19 to Black Lives Matter, there have been so many national issues that have led to unrest and worry. By instituting virtual counseling options and creating virtual events for employees, business owners can boost employee positivity.

In an excellent investigation on the Glassdoor website, seven successful companies’ employee wellness programs are highlighted. From these descriptions and by contacting a team member at Strategic Contracting Services, a business owner can develop an employee wellness option that works for them.

Expand and Deepen Team Connectivity

When employees work remotely, they can lose connection with the team they work with in an office context. To refresh that connection and boost employee positivity, checking in with team members and conducting virtual meetings are essential tools. As a manager, keeping employee teams focused and engaged is a necessity.

Therefore, be willing to become more personal with employees and share challenges. By talking about both the positive and the negative, a real-world sensibility is brought into the virtual workplace. Indeed, employees feel that managers care about them and want them to succeed, both in and out of the office. Since the workplace is often virtual during this period, such a sensibility helps to deepen team connectivity.

Optimize Employee Positivity by Being Present

During the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, optimizing employee positivity often means being present for their concerns and challenges. By emphasizing presence, managers and executives let their employee team members know that they are recognized and seen even in a virtual context. In difficult times, being seen goes a long way to helping to take employee positivity to the next level of success.