The Post-Pandemic Boom: Is Your Remote Work Policy Ready?

A rapid economic recovery may not mean a return to the pre-pandemic status quo when it comes to work and managing employees. Remote-work plans will be key to navigating the new professional realities.

The world seems poised for a broad economic recovery—and perhaps a boom—as COVID-19 vaccines gain wide distribution. Despite some concerns about vaccine supply and new virus variants, an end to the worst of the pandemic seems to be in sight.

Economists from institutions including Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Oxford Economics, Goldman Sachs, and the United Nations have projected  significant economic growth for 2021. Unemployment has already fallen from its 14.8% high in April 2020 to just over 6%, suggesting America is, by and large, getting back to work.

Is your business ready to prosper and expand in the post-pandemic environment?

The durable shift to remote work and the need to adapt

Before COVID-19, about 43% of employees had the option to work from home some of the time, a number that more than doubled during the peak of COVID-19 lockdowns. Many organizations learned that there was little drop-off in productivity, and employees were exposed to a flexible benefit.

This has created a durable shift to more remote work. Companies have the opportunity to revise their workforce model in ways that reduce physical space and other overhead. And more workers will demand some sort of flexibility at their current jobs or when seeking new ones.

That said, remote work also presented unique challenges and novel problems. Often, home Wi-Fi and personal devices were not ready to support bandwidth-intensive work programs like VoIP and video conferencing. Many leaders found it challenging to keep employees engaged and hold them accountable from afar.

Employees found it harder to maintain work-life balance when an “always-on” culture blended with working from home. And a report issued by Buffer and AngelList found that 20% of remote workers “struggle with loneliness.” Nevertheless, the model is here to stay at most companies, in some form.

Fully remote, entirely onsite, or hybrid work?

Some companies will demand that workers return to the office full-time as the pandemic and lockdowns abate. Others, led by high-profile announcements from Facebook and Twitter, allow many or all positions to work from home permanently. But the majority of businesses are choosing a hybrid model, enabling them to attract and keep employees with a flexible benefit while reducing their physical footprint.

Hybrid models vary significantly by organization and present specific challenges, however.

For example, Adobe intends to “allow employees to work from home up to two to three days a week, with staffers able to make reservations for office desks.” In contrast, Citrix isn’t mandating any policy at the corporate level, instead permitting managers and their teams to iterate arrangements based on individual roles.

The planning required to implement a hybrid model is also unique. Whereas always onsite or fully remote arrangements have consistent needs, a mix of the two can be challenging to implement.

Managers must learn to assess offsite workers’ performance accurately and avoid a bias against those who aren’t usually in the office. There are also concerns about training and meetings—namely, how to make sure that remote workers can easily join and be as engaged as those in a conference room. And redesigning physical space to accommodate fewer individuals for a variable portion of time is complicated.

The value of collaboration fostered by face-to-face brainstorming and spontaneous interactions has spurred employers to go hybrid. To meet that challenge, Prudential, which has adopted an arrangement where workers are in-office half the time, is “redesigning its office space floor by floor and repurposing most of it for meeting rooms, collaboration and open space so people will be more likely to interact.”

Office layouts are only one aspect of creating an inclusive, productive, and sometimes-remote-work policy that works, however.

Some essential elements of a smart post-pandemic remote-work policy

1. Sufficient equipment and tech support

The remote shift has placed new demands on employees attempting to use home networks and personal devices for resource-intensive applications. And companies face increased security risks to sensitive data on diverse networks, along with greater difficulty troubleshooting tech issues. Thus, a comprehensive technology and equipment audit is the first step in preparing the workforce for a fully remote or hybrid model.

Organizations must supplement or provide secured, high-performing equipment, along with access to platforms—workflow, sharing, videoconferencing, and more—that are essential to productivity.

New security policies should be designed, communicated, and enforced, such as the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) on public Wi-Fi and training on how to avoid phishing, vishing, malware, and other cyberthreats. Companies may want to consider purchasing device-level wireless network monitoring solutions that allow IT staff to troubleshoot offsite network connections. And all onsite meeting spaces must have the tools to integrate digital and onsite meetings and training sessions.

2. Prioritizing employee wellbeing

Research by Total Brain and the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions found that employee mental health worsened during the pandemic, with survey respondents reporting a “48% increase for risk of depression” and a 62% decline in focus at the end of last year.

Many of these issues are tied to the stress and uncertainty of living through a pandemic, of course. But some of them are a result of working from home, either alone or while dealing with family distractions, such as parents overseeing their children’s digital education. Addressing employee wellbeing isn’t just the right thing to do—it also has an immense impact on productivity, engagement, and retention.

Employers can prioritize employee wellbeing by providing mental health resources that are integral parts of a benefits package and encouraging their use. Leaders should also model wellness behaviors, check-in frequently with teammates, and give team members the flexibility to deal with challenges that may impact wellness.

Note that wellness benefits aren’t strictly geared toward physical or mental health. Financial stressors have a serious impact on employee wellbeing, and this source of pressure only increased last year. Thus, consider becoming one of the over 80% of companies that offer financial wellness programs as part of their benefits packages.

3. Adapting paid-leave policies

Sick days, personal days, and vacation time may seem to have less meaning as remote-work arrangements spur flexible hours and a focus on results rather than hours worked. In reality, offsite workers need even more explicit policies to make sense of when and how to take time off.

Employers should craft an explicit policy, communicate it, obtain a signed agreement, enforce it consistently, and implement a tracking method. Numerous software solutions automate this tracking and enable individuals to submit PTO requests, receive verification, and integrate days off with scheduling platforms.

One crucial consideration ties into the next step: as work-life balance becomes more difficult for remote workers, it may benefit companies to ensure that employees use their PTO.

4. Learning to lead teams in a new way

Productive remote work calls for effective remote leadership. And the crucial characteristics of the latter include flexibility, consistency, and communication.

Leaders must clearly communicate objectives and expectations while devising ways to hold individuals accountable for results instead of time worked. They must establish consistent communications, usually in the form of a meeting rhythm, that provide structure for employees while enabling managers to assess them and keep them engaged. Pivotal aspects of this communication are performance reviews (formal and informal) as well as scheduled check-ins that maintain a strong rapport.

Hybrid models will allow more face-time with team members, but knowing when in-person is required and how to adapt management styles for that need becomes a new leadership skill.

Is your remote work policy ready for a post-pandemic boom hiring spree?

An end to the pandemic may be in sight, but many workers will remain hesitant to set foot in the office because of safety concerns. And far more employees will simply demand some sort of flexible work arrangement now that they’ve experienced its benefits. Companies must adapt to this reality to retain employees in a new working context, as well as to attract top talent as hiring ramps up and becomes competitive.

Karp HR solutions stands ready to assist your company in adapting to this new environment—helping you implement remote policies and customized benefits that attract and retain quality employees.  Contact Karp HR Solutions today for a free consultation.