At-Home Prep for the SHRM-CP & SHRM SCP Exam

Maintaining a Positive Work-From Home Culture

More than ever, it’s essential to keep employees engaged and make sure they know they are not on an island.

By TIFFANIE ROSS

When organizations shifted to working remotely because of COVID-19, everyone's immediate focus was on establishing work-from-home infrastructure: ensuring your employees had the technology and processes they needed to be effective.

As organizations continue to evolve to meet the needs of new and existing employees balancing multi-generational households, remote work and the desire for location independence, it's important to ensure your leaders are prepared. Providing managers guidance on effective hiring, onboarding, interviewing and other talent essentials is crucial to ensuring engagement, growth, satisfaction and retention of employees.

From a recent Gallup poll, "three in five U.S. workers who have been doing their jobs remotely from home during the coronavirus pandemic would prefer to work remotely as much as possible…" Indicating that the employers should consider embracing a remote workforce as a long-term model.

Driving engagement from day one

For years, new and existing employees have asked to work remotely. Among other factors, they value the flexibility, autonomy, work-life balance, location independence and relief from commute stress and they gain by not working in a centralized office. But there is a potential downside to remote working: Employees can feel isolated and lonely. Employees who don't feel connected with their team, manager or organization are less likely to be engaged and are more likely to leave.

What's more, between 27% and 31% of employees reported a decline in their ability to perform their job in a given week following the pandemic-related shift in work, according the ADP Research Institute® study A Post-Pandemic Workforce: Tracking Perspectives Amid COVID-19. Engagement and productivity go hand-in-hand and can be impacted by workplace culture.

Leaders must create an environment where remote employees can thrive, feel valued and know that they matter.

How to intentionally develop a positive remote work culture

Just like in the office, a culture can develop on its own, but creating a positive culture requires intention. Three strategies to keep in mind to ensure a positive remote work culture are setting expectations, promoting flexibility and committing to communication.

• Set expectations. It's important to outline expectations for employees who work remotely. For example, how will teams communicate about a project? Will they primarily use a, text, email or video chat? How quickly are they expected to respond to a text? To an email? Are there core hours during the workday when everyone is expected to be available?

There aren't right or wrong answers. What matters is establishing the parameters of behavior, which will make communication easier and decrease confusion and anxiety.

• Provide flexibility. While it is important to have a remote working policy, flexibility is key to success, especially in current pandemic conditions. Be open (that is, be flexible) to the idea that you still may need to adjust your remote policy. Focus on performance and productivity goals for each employee with clear expectations and check-ins to ensure alignment. Your policy may have required that remote employees keep the same hours as they would if they were in the office, powering up the laptop at 8 a.m. But these days, as many employees also balance other family responsibilities, that 8 a.m. start may conflict with a child's online school call for math class. By focusing on the employee completing the work versus which hours the employee works on it, you give them much-needed and appreciated autonomy.

• Increase communication. When employees start a conference call or video meeting, it makes sense to be efficient and jump into the discussion. When you're working remotely, however, it's also necessary to connect on a personal level. Some managers have coffee breaks during their longer meetings.

For example, my team meets weekly, and during that time, we check in on how everything is going. We might talk about some business items, but we also talk about fun things, such as what we're cooking, reading or watching lately. It might sound simple, but making that personal connection can be enough to drive engagement and let employees know you understand and you care.

More than ever, it's essential to keep employees engaged and make sure they know they are not on an island. Creating a positive remote work culture benefits the organization because it makes it easier to engage and retain employees as well as attract new ones. However, developing this type of environment when a significant part of your workforce is working from home needs to be done purposefully. Investing this time now can yield long-term rewards.

Tiffanie Ross

BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS

– A CRUCIAL COMPONENT TO BUSINESS SURVIVAL

By JIM TRUJILLO

Ayear after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, the spectrum for how American companies are doing is as wide as ever. On one hand, there’s the thousands of businesses pummeled by the impact of the pandemic, and on the other hand there’s companies who have sustained through the challenges, and the lucky ones have even thrived.

One thing is certain, businesses had to reevaluate their individual practices, processes, and procedures to meet the needs of this challenging time. In addition to the ever-evolving pandemic landscape, new legislation and regulations surrounding COVID left many businesses with questions unanswered and feelings of isolation in how to deal with new requirements and expectations.

But throughout last year’s chaos, the determination and grit of many businesses provided in a spirit of collaboration and opportunities for unique partnerships that may not have happened otherwise.

There were some business decisions and partnerships that just made sense. In my state of Kentucky, home of the Bourbon Capital, distilleries used their resources to switch from bourbon production to making hand sanitizer. Some distilleries were even supplying hospitals, military, and other essential businesses during the peak of the pandemic, when PPE was scarce for essential workers.

Another great example of pandemic-induced business partnership happened in May of last year when DoorDash, the online food delivery company, partnered with United Way. Over the last year, DoorDash helped United Way deliver food and supplies to individuals and families at high risk of contracting COVID, experiencing food insecurity, or those in quarantine and can't leave their homes.

Now these are just a couple of the thousands of examples of how businesses teamed up and pivoted in the wake of hard times. But I want you to think back on your own experience. What ways did you adapt your processes? What steps did you take to find solutions during the last 365+ days? Over the last year, Kentucky adopted a phrase that stuck with me, “We will get through this, we will get through this together.” As a retirement plan advisor, I’m a partner to a variety of businesses and over the last year, we had to get through it together.

In previous years, my practice was extremely reliant on in-person communication. From providing one-on-one meetings to educational seminars and workshops, the lockdowns of last year required us to slightly modify our processes and procedures. Like many professional services companies, ours went completely online – a necessary adjustment that required trust and flexibility for both parties.

On top of the tactical changes of our service, there were an array of legislative changes, obligations, and topics that our business partners needed to be educated on. From the information regarding the CARES Act to the implications of extreme market volatility, companies were searching for answers, and we knew we had a job to do.

Businesses were making tough decisions and there was an abundance of information that seemed to change almost daily. In addition to the resources of our retirement plans team, we leveraged a variety of relationships to help our business owners make more informed decisions on the PPP, loans, outplacements, and a many other operational impacts. I’m telling you this, not to toot my own horn, but to share my experience. We chose, as a company, to go out of our way to help our clients and partners because we believed it was right.

Now that I’ve had time to reflect on the last year, it’s really made me consider why we choose the business partners and relationships we do. Could there be a better way to ensure a business relationship will be beneficial for both parties involved?

First, let’s start with defining a business partner. In the traditional sense, it could be someone you literally go into business with. But for many of us, the word partner and relationship are completely interchangeable. From vendors, to outsourced services, from customers to employees, there are many different types of relationships and partnerships that an organization can hold.

While the majority of us date before we ever think about getting married, business relationships don’t always go into it with the same mindset. Typically, when a business relationship is established, you assume it is just going to always work out – you put a ring on it, so to speak. You want the best for your business relationships, but how can you determine that this partnership will stand the test of time? From my experience, there are three essential elements to any successful business relationship.

1. RELIABILITY Any partnership or relationship you go into should be reliable. There’s a sense of peace when you know that someone has your back. A reliable partner will be consistent and trustworthy, delivering positive results during the good times and the bad. Most of us are already busy doing our own jobs, so the last thing you need is the burden of inconsistency or failing to meet expectations of the jobs delegated to them. That is one extra layer of unnecessary stress in an already stressful post pandemic era. 3.PASSION The last year presented many of us times where we could just give up and stop what we’re doing. But what I believe helped the majority of businesses stay the course was passion. Passion for your job, passion for your people, and passion to do the right thing. Passionate partners will go above and beyond for their relationships because it’s embedded not only in their psyche, but in their soul. A partner without passion will buckle under pressure or just not care enough to put in the extra work.

While companies are still searching for ways to stay afloat, reevaluating your current or future business relationships is a great way to ensure you’re setting your company up for success. As you reflect on 2020 and all of the challenges you endured, think about who was by your side, and possibly who wasn’t.

2.CREATIVITY As we saw over the last year, the status quo can change at any time. Adaptability and creativity have been key components for businesses trying to stay afloat throughout the pandemic, but these are also essential for business longevity. Innovative companies who embrace a new look at their operations or processes can have new opportunities to accommodate an ever-changing landscape. If your partner is unwilling, or worse can’t, recreate themselves to thrive in a new normal, then how are they going to serve you when you adapt?

Jim Trujillo, CFP®, PPC®

Financial Advisor JimTrujillo@argi.net www.ARGI.net