As an employee, it’s in your interests – right now, today – to help your employer survive the current and ongoing impacts of the pandemic and lockdown number three.
You may feel worried, out of control, or even aggrieved as an employee at the current time.
The best way to manage this is to consider what you can do to help your employer get ‘back to business’. In this way, you’ll help to build a robust business for the future, and be in prime position for when the good times roll round again, as they will.
Now is a time for collaboration
I recently did a short burst video about why employers and employees need to be collaborating to degrees greater than ever before. All too often, employers and employees sit in separate camps.
As an employee, this is highly problematic right now. Things have changed for your employer, and they may well have to change direction or make tough decisions. If you’re in the ‘them’ camp, not the ‘us’ camp, then it’s easy to see how you may end up at top of the list for redundancy.
If we flip this on its head, we can see how you can become invaluable to your employer, in their hour of need. By being flexible and considering things from your employer’s perspective, you can consider how your role and actions can change to support their need to do things differently.
This isn’t about altruism. It’s also about what’s best for you. Not only will this help to ensure your job is more viable and secure right now, it will also help you to develop your skills for the future.
How can you help your employer survive and build forward?
Your employer has a responsibility here too. It’s in their interests to develop a survival culture built on collaboration. But you can play your part.
The single biggest thing you can focus on right now is communication. If you’re working from home, that’s even more important. Keep the lines of communication open with your managers and leaders so that you’re firstly visible, and secondly, able to understand their pressure points.
Through open communication you can begin to identify how you can offer additional or different support in the way that it is needed. This will also deliver the by-product of helping you feel more in control and connected to the ultimate outcome of your job, in terms of survival of the business.
Be willing to share and contribute to suggestions and innovations. Whilst leaders are preoccupied with financial management and the pressures of Covid restrictions, you may actually be in a better position to see where opportunities lie. If you’re the one managing supplier relationships, or you are the one with your ear to the ground on social media, for example, then you are in a position to be the solution before your employer even identifies the problem.
Post-pandemic staffing plans
Businesses are beginning to properly turn their attention to their post-pandemic staffing plans. They are no longer flying by the seat of their pants.
Make sure that your position in those plans is as secure as it can be through how you choose to work today.
We’re here to help, if the worst comes to the worst. But it’s worth doing everything you can to prevent that happening.
