Learning to Survive and Thrive throughout the Lockdown – Wellbeing and Covid 19

Undoubtedly the biggest threat to UK businesses for a very, very long time, is how they cope with the Covid 19 lockdown and whether it will enable them to thrive or if they will. Do your business leaders and managers have the knowledge and skills to adapt quickly and efficiently to new working practices that will be required?

To survive and thrive Covid 19 you need to ensure the wellbeing and effectiveness of your staff who will be battling with these new challenges as the days and weeks go by.

Where should your focus be? This depends to some extent on whether you are a business offering a key service or a business that is continuing to operate with extensive home working.   You may have members of your workforce furloughed – what a great opportunity for them to enhance their skills.

Whatever your particular situation, there are likely to be some key areas on which you need to think and consider the implications to your business and take action.  This will undoubtedly require some learning on your part and on the part of your staff.

The most pressing learning requirements are likely to include:

Coronavirus Awareness.

Make sure your staff understand the symptoms, spread and prevention of the current outbreak of coronavirus particularly the vulnerable areas of your business for transmitting the disease. You will need to explore how to protect yourself and prevent the spread of disease, both in the workplace and beyond.

Remote Working.

In some organisations, remote working is already a common practice, but many employees may have little or no experience of operating outside traditional office-based roles.  If you are enforcing a remote working policy, you need to optimise your management of remote workers to ensure they remain well, productive sufficiently disciplined to achieve results.

Remote Worker Health & Safety.

If you are managing people working remotely in order to reduce the impact of Coronavirus, you need to understand how to ensure health and safety standards can be maintained. You are required to ensure a safe system of work to comply with H&S Legislation.  It is squarely in your interests to find ways to reduce the risk of hazards for both employer and employee.

Managing Virtual Teams.

Virtual teams work independently towards a shared organisational purpose, using a range of technologies to communicate and collaborate. As remote working is increasingly enforced on many organisations, you should understand the benefits and challenges of working in a virtual team, the importance of a clear communication plan and the role of the manager in ensuring the teams’ success.

Planning for a Crisis.

We face the biggest crisis of modern times with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. You need to understand the crisis management process, look into how you prepare for the unexpected, who should form your crisis management team and your response can be communicated to both internal and external audiences should disaster strike.

How do I get ‘up to speed’ quickly? Well, you could be reactive and wait for information to appear in the media – not recommended as you would be significantly disadvantaged if you waste time.

You could do your own research via Institutes’ periodicals and the Internet etc – possibly effective but leaves much to chance.

Alternatively, you could enrol on one of many online eLearning programmes that will systematically take you through the information you need and help you devise a targeted action plan for your business – definitely recommended.

Can you really afford not to?

Developing your own skills and those of your staff and colleagues is an inherent part of growing a business – incorporating e-Learning as part of this can be extremely cost-effective and efficient.  Find a training partner who can provide you with a mix of learning options which include off-the-shelf courses and bespoke development to really boost your business growth.

Blunt advice – that would be Yorkshire Powerhouse

Have you any questions?

Here at Yorkshire Powerhouse, we’re happy to help as much as possible – is there anything else we can do to help you, do you have any further questions or can we help introduce you to an expert – please let us know: