How to Leverage a Cloud Digital Workspace During a Pandemic:
Cloud digital tools allow businesses to embrace new and improved ways of working to increase collaboration and employee engagement. These tools have now become essential during this pandemic that the world is currently facing. Organisations that have already adopted such technologies are arguably better equipped to cope with a pandemic.
Cloud collaboration to allow online collaboration when colleagues cannot meet face-to-face and means that workers can safely access their work anywhere, anytime. In these difficult times, having the ability to find and share information is paramount.
For your office employees, it allows them to work as usual and collaborate with colleagues using a variety of communication tools if needed (Microsoft Teams).
The platform you use to communicate will largely be your best asset during these difficult times to keep employees performing together as well as enabling companies to streamline the internal communication and have one version of the truth.
At the beginning of a pandemic: Prepare the strategy and stick to it.
We feel that an Intranet is the most appropriate and effective way to communicate organisations official information and to inform employees quickly as decisions and updates are being made, especially for emergency planning. Push alerts and notifications can also be used to reach employees quickly.
If panic, understandable, begins to set in employees may challenge an organisations stance on the situation or what direction an organisation will be taking. Employees will be expecting a clear and formal response from their managers and senior team.
During a Pandemic: An Intranet acts as a single point of contact for employees.
Once you have defined the direction, you can focus on getting the business back on track. During this time, trusting your employees is paramount. These are new and worrying times for everyone and something that has not happened in our lifetime before. So, remote working doesn’t make employees lazy or mean that people will be in bed all day doing nothing. If they have the correct tools available, they should be able to manage their working day as close to their normal day in the office as possible. Having your intranet as a central point of navigation allows a central point of engagement for all corporate communication including new stories (News Centre) and blogs.
As these are new circumstances for all organisations, widespread guidelines, alerts and push alerts / notifications can be sent to everyone so they have access to the latest news!
After a pandemic: Back to normal
We don’t know how long this pandemic will last for but for organisations, it’s amazing employees that will keep any business going. That’s why it’s important that once this is over, to make an official announcement to congratulate employees for their hard work, dedication and loyalty during such turbulent times. It may also be a good idea to make a more public announcement that can be shared on social media and promote employee advocacy.
Also, don’t forget to ask employees for their feedback on how the situation was handled and how they felt working during this period. We don’t know when another crisis could happen so being prepared and confident in your approach is so important when running a business.
Finally, remember that ‘preparation is 90% of the success’. Make sure everyone has a device they can receive information on from an intranet. Don’t forget to get their opinion on the situation and let their voices feel heard. Regularly ask employees how they feel, what they need to be successful and what you can do as a business to help them. Encourage them to share the experiences they are having so that the internal togetherness remains, even when working from home.
If your business is faced with business impacts, be transparent about it and don’t try to hide the truth as this can be disconcerting for employees.
Now is the time you will need them more than ever.
How to Leverage a Cloud Digital Workspace During a Pandemic: