Come Back to Better Work

 Let's face it, life at work over the past six weeks has been challenging for most of us. Whether you've been working from home, not working, or are considered an essential business, you've had to make many changes in your day-to-day role. Many of us have engaged in virtual meetings to lead our teams, to connect with current and prospective customers, and to engage in training programs. Meanwhile, the freedom of attire, time and commute savings are appealing too, especially to introverts. As a result, about 40 percent of our team members probably don't want to come back to the office, even to better work. Now, you're thrilled to bring people back to work amidst this, right? We're here to help you make this picture brighter by leveraging five key areas of opportunity for a better work environment upon return. Check these off before you re-open the door, and your customers and team members will thank you.

Take Inventory

Every change in your business impacts your work team, your customers, and your business model to some level. Take inventory on what changes have actually transpired that have helped you deliver your services or products to your customers, and which ones are practices that you had to do in the short term, that should naturally end. It sounds obvious, but get your team involved in this as well. This is the first part of successful change management - realize what has changed, and evaluate the impact. We recommend that you use a simple and proven tool: Start - Continue - Stop. Take a sheet of paper, and write on the top Start; in the middle write Continue; and at the bottom write Stop. Jot your thoughts on which practices should you start upon return, which new practices should continue, and which ones should stop. Then send it to some or all of your team. Get their input to what should be kept, tweaked or dropped. This is a huge benefit to not miss insights that are not under your radar, and it builds incredible buy-in and respect from your team. Even better, share your findings with the team for validation and modification before proceeding to make the changes. Creating better work also saves time and stress. 

Evaluate the Impact

Next, consider the impact of each identified change to your customers, stakeholders and team members. First, start with an impact to measures of importance to your customers, like time to respond, the quality rating of a service, and perhaps new sales or repeat sales. Then consider the impact to your stakeholders, or those that have a vested interest in your ongoing success as a business. These may include things like your financial position, support to the community, brand reputation, and other key measures. We include in this item an impact to your mission and vision. Lastly, consider the measurable impact to your team. Have you seen increases in employee engagement, retention, productivity, or volunteerism? If so, it's critically important to evaluate the practices that contributed to those changes, and preserve some of them for continued benefit. We recommend using an objective weighted matrix, like a Pugh Matrix to limit the inherent bias. If you're new to these tools, and would like to get more information, reach out to us below.  

Design the New Reality

Now it's time to revisit your business strategy or plan, and consider both a short and long-term new reality. What is substantially different both in your business and in your industry because of economic or market changes? Chances are you will need to revisit your business strategy at least in the short term. Perhaps, you will need to reduce your product or service offerings, adjust your pricing structure, or adjust the structure of your organization with different roles or a more flattened leadership. Perhaps you'll need to dial back on the proposed expansion to another site. We recommend creating a few different scenarios for short term modifications that each support the long-term strategy for sustainability, on track to your mission and vision. Once you're comfortable with the right short-term changes, then consider the impact on your long-term strategy. For many of us, it's tempting to think we know these pieces from our gut. Take the time to consider, plan, and project the impact of each change to business results. It will benefit the next steps.

Develop the Plan

You've designed a short and long-term return to your business. Now, how will you make that happen smoothly and effectively? In this step, you'll need to break down each change into implementation steps, to ensure a smooth progression. For example, if you're reducing the product or service options, how will you ensure that you have the right talent in place for the ones that you keep and promote? Do you need to shift your marketing materials to promote this service? Do you need to make any changes in your delivery or pricing? Does your team need additional training to achieve higher performance levels as you promote this service at a higher level? Is your competition in this space? What is your unique value proposition? All of the steps of evaluating a new product or service should be considered when promoting or changing an offering. This step ensures that you've planned for that successful implementation. 

Execute the Plan

Once you've reached this step, you have confidence in your analysis of the change, and have a clear plan to proceed toward a return to operations. As a leader, a key facet of executing any plan is a communication to those involved and affected. Translate your plan into key messages for the different groups affected, in language that is easily understood, and that matches their experience through the change. Be respectful, authentic, and transparent, as much as possible. Some messages will be in writing. Others that are more sensitive need to be in person, and still others may be in video to key stakeholders. Map each change to a communication strategy, and then determine the content and timing. We recommend developing this communication with your key leaders, to ensure sensitivity and alignment of the message across the organization. We also recommend that you use a tiered communication process to provide the most sensitive communications personally and first, and then systematically deploy the more general communication of the changes. Remind your team members of your social media policy. Reinforce messages in several different forms to reduce the potential for misinterpretation, recognizing that any sensitive message may get to the media. Build and reinforce trusted relationships through your communications. 

The second key aspect of execution is leadership alignment, support and accountability. Ensure that the plan is clearly understood by leadership, and that lines of accountability to specific activities and groups are known and accepted. Recognize that the work of leaders in this shift will be harder, and some will not be able to make the transition. While this should have been a consideration in developing the plan, if there are unforeseen impacts, recognize that this aspect is probably the greatest risk to your revised plan, and your employee retention and productivity. We recommend a high level engagement of your leaders to their teams, whether virtual or in person, with at least biweekly group check-ins, and weekly check-ins for key individuals. Depending on the span of control, there may be challenges to implement this level of support and engagement, however high level interaction is key to a successful transition. 

Evaluation - Talent Challenges? 

You may identify as you complete your plan, and return to a better new reality in your business, that you have some significant talent gaps. That's not uncommon, especially when you're creating conscious changes from former roles, with new competencies, skills and behaviors. As a senior or company leader, your role is to evaluate where your mid-level leaders are well-positioned, and where there may need to be additional training, or even a shift of roles to maximize natural wiring and preferences. It's much better to recognize this early in the process, to retain the team working with that leader. We recommend having weekly connections with your leaders, and to also connect with their teams informally to keep the lines of feedback open, boosting early awareness. 

If you find issues of leader misfit to the role, we recommend using a data-analytic tool to evaluate objectively the needs, drives and behaviors of the leader, to move them to a better fit, and to find a replacement that is better suited to the role required. The difference in performance results from this process is incredible, and worth the process to save key talent! If you'd like to discover more, select the link below to get more information.

Dawn Garcia is Principal and Founder of Pursuit of Excellence LLC, an independent business management consulting firm specializing in service-based businesses; delivering leadership, business and talent strategy, and execution expertise. Experience the Excellence Driven® System and The Predictive Index® for your business, and achieve the results you need! Every business needs help at some point; great business leaders actually get help when needed, realizing greater returns. See the difference in your business, when you work with a trusted business advisor, delivering just what you need.

When you need help, consult the experts. Our success is your success!