3 minute read 8 May 2020
How to adopt and sustain the new way of working with a returning workforce post health crisis

How to adopt and sustain the new way of working with a returning workforce post health crisis

Remote working in response to the COVID-19 pandemic can initiate a long-term transition towards a new way of working, but this requires a cultural shift within the organization

The initial focus of companies after the government’s lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was to ensure that employees continue to work safely. For many, the solution was working remotely. However, working from home, or even social distancing in the office space, requires, besides using the right technology, also the right behaviors and practices to be activated and sustained. With remote working being the new normal, how do we enable a progressive return of the workforce while everyone keeps working efficiently?

Our four-stage offering

To facilitate the move towards the new way of working accelerated by the health crisis, as well as to ensure that their benefits extend beyond the point where government restrictions are lifted, we have introduced a four-stage offering:

  1. Scan
    Our first step is to undertake a rapid scan of the IT landscape. This includes reviewing the technological infrastructure, but also assessing cybersecurity, identifying areas that need attention, scanning employee engagement, monitoring and embedding a strategy to accommodate new features, etc.

  2. Activate
    The next step is to enable a remote working team with the right procedures and tools that will define the new way of working. This involves the activation of the technology itself within the organization and asking questions such as ‘what is the fastest route to providing colleagues with both a productivity and collaboration enhancing solution?’ and ‘how should the company policy change to accommodate for these changes?’

  3. Adopt
    The third step is to facilitate the adoption of the new way of working. It is all about translating the business operations in the system and defining best practices and train the teams with curated workshops. Planning is crucial in this regard. Plan not just what your colleagues need to learn now, but what they will need to learn next week, next month and beyond. Governance and leadership will become all the more important in sustaining a healthy corporate culture, while processing feedback from end users will be vital as well.

  4. Sustain
    The last step focusses on the future. What ways of working will you go back to and what changes will be permanent? Lessons learned, training and data-driven analysis take the spotlight in this stage.

With this four-stage offering, we aim to accompany clients through the process of reopening offices, while retaining the advantages that flexible working methods have introduced.

Taking a people-centered approach to work

Even though the benefits of remote working are less questioned, especially for people who started working remotely even before COVID-19, there are some disadvantages if remote working is not enabled with the right approach in the organization. We came to that conclusion by actively discussing with organizations in both the public and private sector on how their workforces were experiencing working remotely. Successful organizations that started to adopt a people-centered approach, benefit greatly from their increased attention for workforce well-being and engagement. To maintain these advantages and sustain productivity, EY proposes a people-centered approach where employee feedback is vital and used as a way to steer the new way of working. Our clients have been moving fast, acquiring the tools and technology, but now is the time to sustain a changed culture by design rather than by default. Employee engagement will be essential to accomplish this.

Sustaining a cultural shift

The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to introduce a lasting change in organizations, bringing an HR mindset to work processes. Our four-staged strategy responds to this recommended change. Companies are not taking full advantage of their IT infrastructure and are unaware of the capacity of some of the products that they have been using or paying for. For example, common video-conferencing tools are also a means of sharing documents and organizing meetings. Our team of around 150 trained professionals help clients leverage the use of those technologies. In a four-week flexible program, we upscale their leaders’ skillsets, creating remote-working champions who can guide the different stages of the transition in your organization.

Understanding the need for people-driven change

Before the health crisis, some organizations struggled to make this transition as some employees might not fully understand the need for change, but because the COVID-19 outbreak forced them into it, the benefits of working remotely are made more clear to them. Clients from various industries ask us to support their leaders and workforce not only on the use of technology but also on enabling a remote working culture throughout the organization.

Management will not be the same

Leaders must understand management principles will not be the same after the crisis. Processes should no longer be pre-defined and then proposed to the workforce; people should be the source and the actors of structural change.

Newsletters EY Belgium

Subscribe to one of our newsletters and stay up to date of our latest news, insights, events or more. 

Subscribe

Summary

In the context of a returning workforce in the post-COVID-19 era, how ready are organizations to support and implement a solution that allows its staff to work differently after the crisis? To maintain workforce efficiency, while allowing employees to focus on their jobs and not on technologies, organizations need to leverage collaborative tools to share, connect, and sustain the change.