BY Nigel Allsop
Every business in the world is currently going through uncharted territory. The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of them to shut their doors, some even permanently.
When your business is in a crisis like this, it’s paramount to maintain business continuity and keep resilience high. It’s the only way to continue operating, making revenue, surviving, if not even thriving.
While crisis communication, risk management, and many other teams play a part, HR plays the most significant role in crisis responses. HR teams are there to ensure business continuity, human resilience, smart decision-making, and business agility.
They put a business continuity plan into practice, which they should have at the ready long before a crisis takes place. Here are the most crucial steps for enforcing that plan.
Making Arrangements for Remote Work
HR professionals should launch a remote-work initiative for all employees who can effectively work from home. In the case of the coronavirus, that literally means saving lives.
Managing remote workers may seem daunting at first, but it’s more than feasible with the right remote-work policies.
HR managers should make the transition seamless by providing their workers with the best home-office strategies for efficiency and productivity.
Leveraging Technology
Remote work means adopting various digital tools for staying connected with everyone in an organization.
HR professionals need to coordinate with their IT department to provide the staff with the right technology for business continuity.
They need to provide cloud-based tools for completing all the daily tasks, including having meetings, conferences, and other events. They also need to provide communication tools for informing and collaborating with employees.
Training courses to furloughed workers are also a great choice, as they can help employees enhance their skills while they’re on leave.
Protecting the Office Environment
If some workers need to stay in the office in a time of crisis, ensuring they work in absolutely safe conditions must be the top priority.
In this case, HR must make sure all offices are disinfected to protect office employees from the coronavirus. They should also educate all the workers on staying safe both at work and at home so that they can prevent the further spread of the virus.
They also need to improve field service management to ensure field workers (if there are any) always safely complete their tasks.
Keeping Employee Records Safe and Secure
Employee records contain lots of personal and sensitive information about an organization’s staff. When offices are empty, that data is ripe for the taking.
HR should secure all the employee records (and other confidential business data too) to prevent a potential loss of data. Whether it’s a pandemic like now, a flood, fire, or any other unexpected situation, those records must be secure, preferably in the cloud.
Addressing Employees’ Concerns
HR managers need to practice outstanding leadership in a crisis that will reassure employees and provide them with clarity and hope during uncertain times.
Crises can negatively affect morale and productivity, so HR should be there to answer any questions and provide counsel and support. They need to maintain open and honest communication, practice empathy, and address all employees’ concerns.
Achieving business continuity and enhancing human resilience may seem quite challenging in a crisis, but it really doesn’t have to be. With these simple practices, you can keep the business going, while encouraging and empowering all the employees, even in an unprecedented crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.
