With COVID-19 entering our lives, businesses had to face a lot of changes. Now that things have somehow been stabilized, business managers and owners would not like to lose these new practices they were forced to implement due to the current circumstances and would like to keep on using them even after the pandemic is gone. But, how can this happen? The pandemic has made everyone more adaptive to change, even if people’s nature is to resist change when they are dealing with it. Although, people are curious by nature and want to explore all the possibilities.
You need to understand if your company is surviving or thriving in change. The survival feeling causes stress, anxiety, and fear to people and, on the other hand, the thriving situation activates people so as to be more excited, passionate, and happy. If you want your company to grow, you need to diminish the survival feeling and put all your efforts into thriving. In order to achieve that, you need managers that will be extremely adaptable to change and will be able to help with that shifting situation. But, how will you turn survival into thriving?
Keep only the essentials
The amount of work and the entry of new information is increasing day by day. But, as the tasks increase, it is getting more and more difficult for employees to prioritize and make the right decisions and, ultimately, keep their stress levels low. In order to reduce the noise, you need to just keep the important stuff. As a manager, you need to think, which reports are useful and which ones should be eliminated? What actions are part of the company’s daily routine, just because things are used to function in a particular way? Thinking of those things, not only will diminish the survival feeling of the employees but will also make them much more productive.
Assuage their concerns
When you choose not to provide information about something happening in your firm, employees tend to see that as an uncertain threat. When this happens, people tend to make their own assumptions about a situation and, most of the time, these assumptions are linked with the worst-case scenarios. Transparency is very important if you want to have happy and anxiety-free employees, so try and remove uncertainty wherever this is necessary.
Provide incentives
When you reduce the survival feeling, you have more space to thrive. Do you want your company to thrive? All you have to do is to find what is done wrong or which practices could be improved? Ask your employees’ opinion, regarding what changes could be made. People like to be heard and, in that case, your team may know things about your company, that you have no idea about. This call-to-action situation will provide incentives to your team so as to find answers and solutions to the company’s problems, it will trigger their creativity and their leadership instincts.
Celebrate your accomplishments
Management systems are mainly focusing on assessing a person’s work and performance results and focus on finding gaps in their performance that could be improved. But, this tactic is lacking the celebration of one’s achievements. Do not just try to discipline your employees, acknowledge their achievements and all the important impact they are bringing in the team. Creating a rewarding environment will keep your employees more energetic, productive, and eager to seek opportunities.
A company is not just a lifeless organization, it is a living organism and this has to be showcased to your employees, in order to try harder and stay motivated and, ultimately, for your company to thrive.
