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3 Ways You Can Make Employees Feel Comfortable Enough To Return To The Workplace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 3 Ways You Can Make Employees Feel Comfortable Enough To Return To The WorkplaceThe pandemic has altered people’s lives in many ways, including forcing most employees to work from home. In some ways, this has immensely changed the dynamics of company culture, which hasn’t been to every business’ liking.

If you miss having your staff around, or you’re worried that remote working is damaging employee performance and productivity, you’re probably eager to get everyone back to the workplace ASAP. How do you do this, though, without harming people’s safety and ensuring that they all feel comfortable?

These three suggestions ought to help.

Have Consistent And Open Communication

If you want to have a successful business, it’s important to understand why employee communication is essential. The more you talk to your employees and understand their feelings about work, the likelier they are to be honest with you and become dedicated to the business.

Of course, trying to do this in big team meetings isn’t the way to go about things. Instead, you want to focus on one-to-one conversations so that employees can voice concerns without potential judgement from their colleagues. Admittedly, some people may still be nervous about sharing their struggles with you, but they’re more likely to open up this way.

In terms of COVID-19, regular communication can let you know who’s uncomfortable about returning to the workplace and find ways to ease their minds. That way, no-one has to do anything that they’re not comfortable doing.

Make The Workplace Exceptionally Hygienic

One of the biggest concerns that employees are likely to have about returning to the workplace is hygiene. After all, the reason they’ve been stuck at home for so long is that there’s a virus going around.

While you might not be able to give your employees absolute certainty that they won’t get sick, you can still provide them with an exceptional level of hygiene. This can be achieved in several ways, including using a COVID-19 fogging machine.

Capable of killing all but 0.0001% of germs, a disinfectant fogger could help your UK workplace to be as free of contaminants as possible. You’ll find such a solution at Ideal Cleaning, who promise that the process will only keep you away from work for as little as two hours. If you combine their fogging capabilities with social distancing and good employee hygiene, there’s a good chance that COVID-19 will never infiltrate your workplace.

Establish A Detailed Work Plan

If employees are still hesitant after opening communication and cleaning the office, it may be worth presenting them with a return-to-work plan. In this, you can detail exactly how you’ll ensure everyone stays safe, so the risk of the virus spreading is as low as possible.

In this detailed plan, you’ll probably want to include these protocols, as well as outlining how you’ll monitor and respond to employee behaviour. After all, there’s no point telling people to do x, y, and z if you’re not going to check that everyone follows your orders.

Your staff who are reluctant to return to the workplace need to know that you’ll do everything to keep them safe. Otherwise, they’re just going to continue working from home.

If your business is struggling with the remote working setup, then it’s understandable why you’d want everyone back as soon as possible. Just make sure you take all the necessary steps to acknowledge and protect your employees so that this move benefits, rather than hurts, your business.

What Makes Customers Walk Away in Frustration

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Frustration is a feeling we can all relate to. It’s a sense of anger that feels hopeless because you can’t solve the issue. We’ve all been stuck in a traffic queue, nervously looking at the time while knowing that there is no other way to escape the traffic jam.

Frustration makes us feel powerless. There is nothing we can do but wait until the problem has resolved itself. Yet when a customer feels frustrated, it’s a strong indication that there’s room for improvement within your organization. A frustrated customer experiences a mixture of anger and hopelessness. They are in a heightened emotional state, which makes it tricky to win them over. You are more likely to lose customers who walk away in frustration. Here are 4 avoidable situations that could lead to negative emotions.

StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article | What Makes Customers Walk Away in Frustration

No transparent communication

Transparency is a business buzzword when it comes to communication. But what does it mean? Business experts recommend thinking of transparency in relation to what your customers want to hear. Ideally, your customers want to know what to expect. They do not want nasty surprises, such as a vague pricing system or inaccurate promises. Maintaining a transport approach to your communication will significantly boost your brand reputation. In an open and honest communication, customers are more likely to forgive unavoidable errors and mishaps.

They bounce off the site

Your customers live in the 21st century. They are experienced users of digital technologies. Therefore, they expect your website to meet their expectations. An old-fashion design could slow down the experience and distract from the messaging. Additionally, unresponsive web design that isn’t mobile-friendly can affect navigation. It can be a good idea to reach out to a professional website design company to consider improving your online presence. The company can help identify some of the core issues, such as lack of accessibility or excessive popups and distractions on the page. Ultimately, your customers are digitally savvy. So they are not wasting time on websites that don’t deliver the performance they need.

StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article | What Makes Customers Walk Away in Frustration

They don’t find your added value

Your added value is the differentiation your business delivers to customers. Buyers are willing to pay more if they feel the added value is worth the expense. For instance, Apple users argue that devices are expensive, but they are high-end designs that establish a sense of community within the audience group. What do you give to your customers that is unique to your brand, and more importantly, how can you make it more desirable? Failure to understand your audience group can backfire dramatically, as customers feel cheated by services or items whose price seems unjustifiable.

They find the VIP treatment unfair

What is your policy toward VIPs? Traditional organizations tend to be selective about their VIP customers, while others will treat every customer with the same respect and attention. Moving forward, the traditional model is less effective, especially in an environment where any user can damage a brand online. It can be helpful to transform your customer relationship strategy accordingly.

Are customers left frustrated by their interactions with your company? Whether they feel your communication lacks transparency or your website isn’t user-friendly, annoyed customers are quick to switch brands for a competitor. Therefore, every business needs to put their customers’ happiness first!

3 Tips to Avoid Wasting Money As a New Entrepreneur

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | 3 Tips to Avoid Wasting Money As a New Entrepreneur

Most new entrepreneurs are at several particular and distinct disadvantages to the established players in their fields.

Perhaps first and foremost, giant established companies will have vast financial resources at their disposal, which can be used to pursue all manner of different innovations and campaigns, while also allowing them to more easily and effectively absorb losses.

For a new entrepreneur, there are all sorts of different things that should be taken into account when it comes to following the most productive path forward. Figuring out how best to avoid wasting money is a key priority.

Here are some tips on how to avoid wasting money as a new entrepreneur

Don’t invest in countless training materials, but learn “on-the-job”

There is a very large industry out there focused on selling books, instructional DVDs, motivational speeches, and more technically-focused “training materials” and “mentorship programs,” for entrepreneurs in general.

While some of these may certainly be helpful in particular contexts, the truth is that, in the majority of cases, these training courses, books, and so on, are unlikely to make much of a difference to your professional life. What they likely will do, though, is to drain your bank balance.

For the most part, the best way to learn how to do things as an entrepreneur is through “on-the-job experience.” Both your successes and your missteps and mistakes will give you a lot of insight about where you need to make adjustments versus staying on the current path.

Invest extra where it counts, but don’t fall for the idea that higher prices always reflect superior outcomes

In a professional context, there are always going to be areas where investing extra money results in a higher overall quality of service, and superior outcomes overall, that can significantly enhance the experience of your customers and improve the prospects of your business.

At the same time, however, there are also going to be many areas where spending a lot of money will not make much difference in outcome compared to spending a more moderate amount of money.

An important art to master is figuring out where that extra investment of money will really count, and where it won’t. The cheapest UPS domestic shipping rates are likely to get the job done well, in many cases.

Work on a focused number of things at a time, instead of trying to cover all the bases

The more you try to “do it all” as an entrepreneur, and to “cover all bases,” the less progress you are likely to make on any one thing at a time, and the less efficient you are likely to be with your money, as well.

By focusing on a limited number of things at a time, you can make more impact with your money, and can also keep your business moving in a more coherent direction.

While you can certainly branch out and add new features to your business over time, trying to do too much at once is often a road to self sabotage.

How to Create a Healthy Workplace for Your Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Healthy Workplace|How to Create a Healthy Workplace for Your EmployeesWith Coronavirus dominating news headlines across the world and people everywhere impacted by the global pandemic, it is little wonder that health is a subject at the forefront of many people’s minds right now.

If you manage a workforce, it is imperative to focus on protecting your employees from the threat of the virus and other health risks. Protecting the health of your employees is essential for many reasons. Firstly, from an ethical standpoint, you should be concerned about the health and safety of staff in your workplace. Secondly, having employees off sick can cost your business heavily, especially if you provide sick pay. Lastly, productivity will be severely affected by staff absenteeism; this puts additional pressure on your remaining employees to cover the workload. With this in mind, here is how you can ensure that your workplace is a healthy environment for your employees:

Keep it Clean

Having a clean workplace is essential to keep it looking good and protect your staff’s health. In a busy workspace, germs can travel fast. It does not take long for viruses to spread between employees, especially if they touch the same surfaces or are unable to socially distance. To minimize the risk of infection, you will need to keep your work environment as clean and hygienic as possible. This can be achieved using industrial cleaning services with the skills and experience necessary to clean industrial workspaces such as yours thoroughly. Stringent cleaning should help to mitigate the risk of viruses traveling between staff and allow everyone to stay healthy at work.

Improve Air Quality

Air quality plays a vital role in creating a healthy workplace. The impact of low air quality at work can be surprising, as it can affect your employees in more ways than you might think. Low indoor air quality can cause a range of problems for the occupants of the building. Depending on the cause of the low indoor air quality, symptoms could include allergic responses such as a sore, irritated throat, through to fatigue, headaches, and even cancer.

Monitoring the air quality in your building is essential to ensure that it is a healthy place for your employees to work. Regular cleaning can help to prevent allergies caused by dust mites. Scheduling regular maintenance of your building’s ventilation will play a significant role in keeping the air quality high. You should frequently maintain your air conditioning filters along with the air ducts, as this can significantly improve air quality.

Increase Safety Awareness

Workplace health and safety are serious issues. Safety is a subject that all business owners need to take seriously. Without appropriate health and safety precautions, employees’ risk of becoming injured at work is high. To prevent safety issues at work it is crucial that you provide your team with health and safety training regularly, and supply the equipment that they need to perform their job in the safest way possible.

Addressing each of these areas should help to create a healthy workplace for your employees.

Key Office Trends in the New Normal

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StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |New Normal|Key Office Trends in the New NormalBefore the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were used to having employees commute to work every day and spending all day long within office premises. The coming of the pandemic toppled many age-old workplace institutions and norms as companies shifted to remote working. Businesses and employees had to adapt to new ways of working as the old norms vanished, ushering in a new age of novel technologies like Zoom.

Before the pandemic, only 12 percent of American workers were working remotely full-time. This figure is even higher than the six percent in the UK. Even with the vaccines’ distribution spurring some optimism of returning to normal business, experts have indicated that traditional office life and the pre-pandemic working station may no longer be attainable.

Flexible Working Solution

The working environment and culture, how we know it is changing every day, and many people are still figuring out the perfect set up. Remote working has seen workers set up serviced offices in their homes, while others share space with the rest of the family. Employees at major tech companies like Google and Twitter are already working from home as long as they wish, with an option of switching to remote working permanently.

In addition to protecting their employees, companies will have to rethink the office space and arrangement to maintain comfort and flexibility. Companies will also have to contend with some employees juggling between remote working and commuting to the office.

Wellbeing and Human-Centric Design

Another significant shift in the new normal will be creating office designs emphasizing employee safety and empowerment. The pandemic has shown the value of minding others’ health and wellbeing, and companies will be paying attention to this as they reset the office.

The post-pandemic office design will consider things like handwashing facilities, built-in social distancing, flow management, readily available PPEs, and hand sanitizer points. This will not only protect employees but will also boost employees’ confidence and alleviate anxieties.

The use of Technology

Office design will prioritize smart buildings that collect and share information on when and how to use different spaces. This is very important in the context of social distancing, contact tracing, and space rationalization.

Companies are installing touchless technologies and thermal imaging systems to safeguard employees from the transmission and allow easy movements around within the office premises. There are also desk booking apps that ensure only one person touches an individual desk each day.

Connectivity and Community

The new normal will see an upraise of design models that emphasize hospitality and leisure. There is a focus on amenities and communal experience to attract and retain the best talents. The pandemic highlighted the importance of interpersonal relationships and how interactions are essential both at work and in personal life.

Reassessing Company Values

The pandemic has forced companies to rethink and reassess their values and principles. The lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic will cause companies to execute necessary internal shifts to adapt to the new normal.