Understanding and Supporting Employees During COVID-19

A 2020 Guide for Impactful Employee Surveying: Assess & Address the Needs of Your Employees During COVID-19

The Critical Role of Employee Surveys in 2020

2020 brought with it systemic, life-altering change to our personal and professional lives in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are dealing with an unimaginable quarter of a million deaths in the United States alone, which we will be reeling from for the years to come.

While the number of Covid cases is shocking, according to a recent survey by McKinsey, most companies effectively addressed “their employees’ basic needs of safety, stability, and security during the first phase of the Covid-19 crisis.” This is a great positive in this otherwise disruptive time, though the work is not done.

However, it is also apparent that the sweeping changes implemented, notably the switch to remote work, have affected people in widely diverging ways.   The impact on work-life, home-life, and mental health has been significant, with varying degrees of severity from person to person. This divergence has underscored the urgency for leaders to understand how their employees’ needs are shifting.

As teams continue to operate apart, there is a greater necessity to ensure formal and informal channels are in place to stay connected. During this remote age, employee surveys are the foremost solution.

How Are Your Employees Doing Right Now? 

Do you honestly know? It is understandably difficult to get the basics sorted in a newly remote setting, let alone during a global pandemic. By basics, I don’t just mean the functionality of transitioning to remote work, but also how it is impacting employee sentiment, commitment, and morale more generally.

Paving the way in this quest are HR leaders, who are taking on this tremendous challenge and selflessly bearing much of the responsibility. To help their organizations strategize and adapt, HR leaders must be regularly checking in with employees to establish touchpoints of empathetic compassion.

Know that your employees are actively watching to see what decisions you make and what you are changing to stay better connected with them and their needs.

Expecting the Unexpected | A Facebook Case Study 

Let’s look at the example of Facebook.

As a tech leader, it seemed primed for a transition to remote work. However, during the past few months, there was a surprising backlash from within about a lack of snacks (well, office perks, but snacks included), as this was considered part of employees' financial package. The importance of this case study lies in what it represents...

There is a more significant takeaway beyond the fact that 'Facebookers' love their snacks. This seemingly trivial finding demonstrates an important lesson: Companies, even industry leaders such as Facebook, are experiencing the unexpected when it comes to the needs of their employees. Simply intuiting or assuming what to focus on is like playing darts in the dark. You may hit your mark, but you might squander precious time and resources, focusing on the wrong improvement. 

The lesson to be learned is that employee feedback can be your biggest asset to help you navigate the pandemic.

No person or business was fully prepared for the disruption of Covid-19. Plans have been improvised, and leadership teams have unexpectedly been placed in a reactive role.  Companies need a tool to check-in on their employees in order to better understand and respond to their evolving priorities as the pandemic continues.

Employees are wanting, if not needing, to be heard and truly listened to. By giving employees a voice in the form of employee surveys, you will be better positioned to understand and address those very needs in the months ahead.

Surveying to Inform Your Priorities

The use of employee surveys has now become critical, especially for companies that were not offering extensive remote opportunities before the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a need for customized interventions to understand what measures are essential to keep your employees committed, productive, and in a positive state of mind. (see the chart below from the McKinsey team). 

Leveraging employee surveys will help to empower your company's leadership to take meaningful action. The intelligence acquired will enable your team to confidently enact improvements while demonstrating authentic compassion and interest in your employees and their needs. When you can provide relevant support and solutions based on survey results, employees will recognize that they are indeed being heard. 

It is a given that employees are navigating the pandemic differently from one another. Not taking the time to find out these differences could jeopardize your company's reputation, employees' commitment, morale, and consequently your ability to responsively adapt. 

Unleashing Employees' Organizational Commitment

Merely making sure employees stay engaged while working is no longer a sufficient purpose for an employee survey, especially in terms of understanding their sentiment. Instead, I encourage leaders to focus on employees’ Organizational Commitment, which at the core is the positive attitude and desire that an employee has to support the success of your company.

My employee surveying firm, New Wave Solutions, has developed a holistic approach to help "People Leaders" better assess and address their employees’ Organizational Commitment. We work with our clients to measure, understand, and ultimately improve their employees’ Organizational Commitment to bolster performance, retention, and morale.

Details on our employee survey can be found here: Further Information. You can also reach out to us directly at [email protected]

At scale, a hybrid future is anticipated, and your company will need a system in place to maintain a connection between your remote and in-person employees. Consider leveraging Organizational Commitment surveys in the months ahead to ensure you are prepared. My team is here to help. 

If your company measures Employee Engagement, here are 3 Research-Backed Reasons to Measure Commitment Instead of Engagement.

Thank you for reading!

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Written By Andrew Kitchner

CEO | New Wave Solutions

E: [email protected]

P: 714.496.2984 

New Wave Solutions’ Employee Surveys enable our clients to measure, track, and improve Organizational Commitment so they can better gain, train, and retain top-tier talent.