Guest post by: Career Karma
Top talent is those workers that give their best every month no matter what, that are always providing new ideas, and know how to tackle any problem. In regular times you don’t want to let go of these employees, but less so now with the uncertain times the Covid-19 pandemic has created. Here is how you can retain your top talent during the pandemic.
Be Honest
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a challenging situation for everyone. Your employers are probably worrying constantly about being laid off. They may think they can lose their job at any moment, so it is crucial to be honest when talking about the situation and whether the company has been affected by the economic crisis.
The company also should be honest about how they are managing the Covid-19 pandemic and how they plan to protect their workers. They have to be clear about what measures they will take and the risks that workers will have by going to the office. That way, employees can make an informed decision.
Allow Flexibility
These are times in which companies should be somewhat flexible with their own rules and regulations. This doesn’t mean you should let your employees do whatever they like and forget about their responsibilities. But, you should understand that some of them may be going through a difficult time, especially if they lost a loved one, and you have to be a little flexible.
Maybe you can give employees the option to keep working from home if they want to or letting them take time off to care for a parent or spouse. Maybe they have family members with previous conditions that make them vulnerable to the virus, and that’s why they prefer to work from home. Whatever the reason, it is time to offer support to your best employees.
Even if the company doesn’t usually allow these things, it will be something to consider if you want to retain top talent. You can also modify a little bit of the PTO and sick leave to help your employees cope with the pandemic.
Offer Remote Team Tools
The company should provide management tools for employees who are and will continue to work remotely if it hasn’t already. This can be chat rooms, video calling software, remote team management tools, and any other platforms that could make their job easier.
Many companies didn’t have these things before because they never consider working remotely, but the situation has proved that we may still need to keep the distancing measures for a few years. So, maybe it’s time to buy that subscription to G Suite or Skype to allow your team members to communicate flawlessly.
Encourage Video Calling
Employees that are new to remote work may be feeling lonely or isolated. An excellent way to help them is by encouraging them to do video calling. It makes a significant difference to talk with someone while looking at them instead of just hearing their voice. You can make it mandatory to do at least one video call a day.
You can also create team events every week where everyone can talk about their experiences with the pandemic and working from home. It can be meetings of only one hour or longer where they can do different activities to interact. You can also create support groups between three or four employees for them to reach out to the others and see how they are doing.
Focus Benefits on Employees’ Wellbeing
Because the situation could be causing added stress, frustration, anxiety, and other negative feelings, employees could possibly be suffering from it. Changing some benefits to include ones that will help employees with their mental health will be a great way to retain top talent.
These benefits can include things like therapy sessions, yoga, meditation classes, and even online courses to learn about emotional intelligence and resilience. Any idea that you can think of and that the company can afford to help the employees keep a level head through all this will be the right choice.
Revisit Performance Goals
Many companies offer performance goals to their employees to give an extra incentive to be productive. It can be anything from bonuses to some other kind of reward. But you may need to revisit the terms of these goals to adapt them better to the situation.
For example, if you have a sales team and the revenue has been low, you could give each worker a commission for every sale they made or increase the percentage if you already give commissions. Or if the company can afford to give money rewards, you can maybe offer an extra week of vacation for the employees that have better performances.
Offer Long-Term Development
As mentioned before, your employees may be worried about losing their job. So, they may start looking for a new job to have options available before that happens. You can begin offering long-term development programs that show your commitment to your employees in the long run.
Offering to pay for a coding bootcamp if they sign a contract to stay on the company for two more years is an example. This is only a little example, but you get the idea that it has to be something that shows you aren’t thinking of letting them go any time soon.
In Summary
Many companies face uncertain times, and trying to retain top talent should be their main priority. Being honest about the situation, offering flexibility, and giving them the right online tools are some of the things you can offer them.
You can also offer long-term development opportunities, benefits to improve their overall wellbeing, and better performance goals to keep them going and able to concentrate on doing their best.
