3 strategies to beat burnout and hire effectively post-COVID

Time for a workplace audit: 3 policies and practices for a post-COVID culture

March 24, 2022 3:59 PM

As we enter the third year of the pandemic, most operations have gotten so accustomed to remote and hybrid work that the average day can feel like business as usual. But it’s worth remembering that for employees, the pandemic is still having a disorienting impact, leaving workers feeling exhausted and disenchanted.

A recent survey from Workhuman, a human capital management software company, offered up some troubling insights on the state of the workforce. Fifty-four percent of workers feel mentally drained after every workday; 58% said they’re working on autopilot; and 44% have trouble staying focused.

“Everybody says that they can do their work from home, but the reality is, those people have the lowest psychological safety and have historical levels of isolation and mental illness in the workplace,” says Chris French, EVP of customer strategy at Workhuman. “At the same time, workers are demanding workplace flexibility — and they have a right to, as it’s a job seeker’s market right now. But it’s making it challenging to tie workers to the culture of an organization.”

Addressing those feelings of isolation while maintaining flexibility for workers is a key challenge that employers will need to solve to remain competitive and attractive to job seekers, French says. He outlined three key ways businesses will need to adjust their business and culture strategies to meet employees’ post-COVID expectations.

Make work a community, not a destination.

Workhuman’s survey found that 50% of workers hired during the pandemic plan to look for a new job in the next 12 months, a significantly higher rate than employees that predate COVID-19. The reason, as French sees it, stems from joining a company in a virtual setting, which often made company culture feel out of reach.

“The reality of remote onboarding was something we could call a subset of optimal,” he says. “[When existing employees transitioned to remote work during the pandemic], they still had their memories of the office and friendships at work — but new hires had none of those things,” he says.

Now, as those remote workers struggle to see the value in returning to an office, they’re still not building any true connection to their workplace.

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“Why do people go into Starbucks when they could get a coffee from a drive-thru?” French says. “It’s because it’s a social experience. Create a culture that people want to join, not just an office that they have to report to.”

This can be as simple as making sure to acknowledge and celebrate employees’ life events and milestones, from welcoming new babies to running a marathon. It’s a simple way to start building a connection to company culture — even for folks still working from home. The survey found that remote employees feel more appreciated (75% as compared to 44%) at companies that celebrate these moments.

Give workers what they want: wellness, and convenience.

French sees companies hustling to appeal to workers with two promises: wellness and convenience. “There’s a group of companies thinking their value proposition is, if you work here you’ll love longer and be happier — they’re investing in mental health, financial planning, all those things that multinational organizations can provide,” he says.

For less resourced companies, he notes, new benefits can play a role in rebuilding company culture, and can even lure folks back to the office.

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“If you want workers to come to the office or even to physical gatherings, they’re going to ask you: Can you make my life easier?” he says. Whether through a stipend for daycare or a dog walker, or providing a fitness center at work, people want to know that their time is being used efficiently.

“If people are going to spend time commuting — time they previously had to themselves — they want their life to get simpler,” he says.

Change your approach to performance management and annual reviews.

After two years of remote and hybrid work, checking in with employees to discuss their performance once a year is no longer going to cut it.

“All of the practices that organizations have for managing employees, whether performance management or how they work with managers to set goals for the year, those have to change,” French says. “You have to create more real-time interaction with employees, and these annual processes for reviews and compensation just don’t support that. Employees expect to be treated like human beings, not workers in a spreadsheet. They want communication. If you don’t create that in the workplace, you’re not going to win the talent swap.”

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Taking the formality out of performance reviews, French says, can be simple: just boost communication and check-ins with team members. Weekly check-ins to discuss short-term priorities will help teams better collaborate and stay agile. Plus, a regular opportunity to discuss problems and feel recognized at work can be the difference between an employee who stays and one who resigns. Workhuman’s survey found, in fact, that employees who were thanked for their work in the last month were half as likely to look for a new job.

“When someone notices your work,” French says, “you know that the work you’re doing is good, and that it matters — and why it matters — to both the company and to people.”