From plugging holes to relaunching the Ship
‘We are challenging our role as business leaders, not only to inspire our people, but in the wider messages we put out to help rebuild consumer confidence.’
Moon Executive Search has an excellent relationship with the Grant Thornton UK LLP team locally.
This week, their Growth 365 team hosted a virtual round table with CEO’s to discuss how the leaders are planning to transfer back to the office and how to motivate their staff effectively.
This article is a collection of two releases by Megan Gibson-Jones who leads the Growth 365 team across the South West & Wales. The idea was to create connections and bring innovative thinkers together to solve problems and find opportunities.
Maintaining fairness, whilst recognising contribution
•It has been important to identify the different groups and sub-cultures operating throughout our businesses.
•This is especially prevalent where portions of the workforce are working on-site to ‘normal’ hours, while others are working reduced or flexible hours from home and some are furloughed.
•Each group needs to hear slightly different messages. A ‘one size fits all’ approach to company-wide communications may not always be appropriate.
•We are considering the fairest ways to recognise and reward our people for outstanding contributions, without undermining and demotivating other sections of the workforce.
•It is a difficult balance when we feel strongly that those who have ‘stepped up’ should be rewarded accordingly but remuneration and bonus decisions will likely be affected or delayed for a period of time.
Which conversations require a collaboration or video platform and which would be just as effective over a voice call or email?
All ‘zoomed’ out?
•As leaders we are chairing and hosting multiple internal and external video calls per day, which can become tiresome and feel more of a performance than a conversation.
•It can be especially challenging to understand how messaging is being received with recipients whose body language is difficult to interpret virtually.
•We are beginning to challenge which conversations require a collaboration or video platform and which would be just as effective over a voice call or email, in order to avoid overload from any one communication tool.
The role of business leaders in rebuilding consumer confidence
•We are challenging our role as business leaders, not only to inspire our people, but in the wider messages we put out to help rebuild consumer confidence.
•What should we say, do and communicate to help not just our own business, but the wider economy too?
We are optimistic that we can recover.
Balancing responsiveness with setting boundaries
•For home workers, we have encouraged our staff to work flexibly and in a way that accommodates wider priorities. This has meant phone calls and emails over a wider time period during the day than ‘usual’.
•In supporting our people, our own boundaries can be stretched, with pressure to appear constantly available to employees (or customers) who may be working adjusted hours.
•We believe we will not return to a (new) normal office environment until at least the autumn and standard hours may become a thing of the past. We are considering how to remain supportive and present, without being ‘on’ for all hours of the day.
Timelines to exit disrupted
•For those of us who have been building equity value towards an exit in the near future, these timelines may have been pushed back, which can feel frustrating.
•We are optimistic that we can recover, grow and realise fair value for our businesses.
The road to recovery – long and winding? Our predictions…
•We expect our initial recovery to come from existing channels but new opportunities will appear. We are diversifying our channels, offerings and messaging to strengthen our business for the future.
•The recovery will be as hard if not harder than the pandemic itself. Maintaining both leadership and employee energy and motivation will be key and purpose can play an important part.
•Easy to use and scale systems are more important than ever, and we’re willing to invest to find the right solution.
•Actions speak louder than words. No longer will we pay lip service to planning, measurement of strategy or budgetary detail. We, and our people, must take this seriously if we’re to recover and thrive.