Managing Employees in a Post-COVID World: What Am I Missing?

Now that we seem to have COVID “under control”, the dilemma for employees and employers continues regarding how best to balance remote work, returning to the office, and career management.   

As employers we must ask ourselves – is our work culture built on a foundation of trust, or will it require enhanced workday monitoring that will lead to employee resentment?  Will things ever return to the way we worked in the past, or is this an opportunity to pivot, grow, and embrace change?   

In the end, and where possible, the corporate world may need to evaluate policy revisions and evaluate numerous alternative work schedules - including the possibility of a four-day workweek and “no contact” after hours commitments to proactively find the right resolution to labor challenges and expectations.   

As you may have read over the last couple of weeks, Legislators in California are attempting to change and redefine the workweek by taking steps toward enacting a four-day workweek into law.  The new bill introduced in the state assembly, known as AB 2932, intends to lower the maximum threshold for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours.  This change would apply to companies with 500 or more employees.  The new law is not expected to pass the statehouse, yet serves as an indicator of how employee and legislative demands collide with business needs as the California Chamber of Commerce added the proposed legislation to its “job killer” list (Fortune April 12, 2022). 

To compound matters, I think we can all agree that the influence of social media is astounding and pervasive.   We see individuals, and some families, trading in an apartment or home for a van or motorhome.  This new trend injects a whole new dimension of possibilities and challenges.  The concept itself sounds fun and interesting, but how will this impact commitment, engagement and loyalty with the employee/employer relationship over the long haul.  How do employers compete or compliment this ongoing trend?  I think time will tell if there has been a rebalance that meets everyone’s needs. 

Leading teams in hybrid work structures has also changed - but is it effective?  As COVID made its way around the globe and ultimately became a weekly or monthly board room discussion, remote team management and collaboration was digitally hatched and enacted at the enterprise level.   While everyone worked to adopt the technology, not everyone was prepared or skilled in the practice of remote team management.  More senior level employees seemed to “accept” and work hard at grasping and utilizing the tools, while the next generation of leadership fully engaged, and in many cases, excelled and are thriving in this environment.  It became quite clear that further utilization of this technology and method of management is here to stay.  However, figuring out how to maximize it given the complexities of talent management, business needs, and culture are yet to be fully understood. 

I realize I may have left you with more questions versus solutions.  However, these are the sort of things each company should be discussing at all levels of the organization and building into their five-year strategic business plans.  You should be conducting focus group studies across the age and skill bands within your organization, conducting employee surveys, and then balancing the results and actions against your values, culture and ultimately the expectations of your investors and customer base.   

In the end, it will play out like the most challenging match of three-dimensional chess. Check mate!