Managing when work has been turned upside down.

COVID-19 has disrupted so much in our lives, overnight the way we do work and manage our staff has been turned upside down. The lucky ones keep working, albeit in a different format. Businesses had to make major pivots and quickly without time to analyze the potential outcomes of those quick changes.

There may be some unintended consequences from those quick pivots. For example, if the company did not have telework options before, but had to quickly move everyone to working from home. There are a lot of practicalities to work through, like what software to we own, and does it allow for remote work, or do we need to have a smooth telework process? How will work be done if no one or only one person is in the office at a time? Who should be assigned to come into the office to sort through the mail? You can be sure that if the team was already dysfunctional, those dysfunctions will be magnified during a crisis.

Now is NOT the time to ignore those issues, just hoping that they will go away. Address any behavior or productivity issues immediately as they arise. A crisis does not give employees a pass to bad behavior. I had someone say to me recently, “I know it’s a problem, but we’re in the middle of a crisis, now is not the time to address it. When things get back to normal, we’ll start addressing Sally or Joe’s behavior.” It is wishful thinking to hope the problem will work itself out on its own. A more likely scenario is that morale will spiral downward and then there will be a slow march of high performers walking out the door. Meanwhile the problem remains and likely gets worse.

Crisis or no crisis, expectations should be clearly communicated to staff and then hold employees accountable. In a crisis, more than ever, keep that line of communication open with your staff using all available avenues (video, IM, phone calls, texts, and emails). Remind your staff of the expectations and talk to someone when they fall below expectations. If you need to have that difficult conversation and an in-person meeting is not an option, then use a video chat to meet with that person. IM and email reprimands leave out the tone of voice and do not allow for an opportunity to engage in a real discussion, therefore should be avoided. Do not wait for when things get normal again, this may be the new normal and you need to adjust how you manage.