Business Continuity: How C-suite Can Build Human Resilience?

By Veritis

How C-suite Can Build Human Resilience?

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the business world, with far-reaching impact.

Business leaders are striving to implement new strategies and processes to operate amidst the ongoing global crisis.

However, many companies are unprepared to align and support their employees properly.

44% of business leaders admitted that their current crisis communications plan had failed to address the impacts of coronavirus. Meanwhile, 10% did not have a crisis communications plan at all.

Moreover, the new way of working, collaborating and communicating has drastically impacted the employees’ wellbeing and mental health.

According to the survey by Josh Bersin, the top 4 concerns of employees are as follows

Financial Security – 81%
Personal Health and Wellbeing – 56%
Family – 25%
Productivity and Work – 24%

What Employees Need From You?

As the uncertainty continues to unfold, employees are looking to leaders for trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

Employees are looking for these leadership traits to believe that the organization cares for each individual, team and humanity as a whole.

According to the Deloitte Advisory poll, 30% of respondents believe that employees are the most overlooked stakeholders during the crisis.

63% of employees don’t trust their leader, reveals the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer.

Effective leadership in the current crisis requires addressing employees’ physical, mental and relationship concerns to build trust.

Physical Concerns: C-suite executives should ensure that employees are feeling safe and secure while working. For an on-premise workforce, the organization should provide adequate health precautions.
Mental Concerns: The organization should strive to build psychological resilience among the workforce. During this stressful time, uninterrupted work may not be feasible as many employees should deal with individual needs, potential health issues and family priorities. C-suite executives should come up with more flexible work rules to support employees’ productivity and mental health.
Relationship Concerns: Leaders should be proactive, authentic, and honest to build employees’ sense of connection and belonging to the organization.

ALSO READ: How C-Suite Level Executives Look at DevOps?

How to Help Employee Develop Human Resilience?

Every organization has its priorities, preferences, and work culture, so every company has no specific approach to dealing with the crisis.

However, we bring you some shared principles and actions to help your employees lead the way.

8 Recommendations for C-suite to Build Resilience:

1) Gather Feedback

Before you develop and execute a plan, ensure to gather feedback from teams of all levels and all types of employees.

2) Avoid Unnecessary Work

When employees are concerned about their health and personal needs, unnecessary work and activities can further create a burden. Ensure to focus employees on essential priorities of the company.

3) Educate Leaders

Educate your team leaders, managers and C-suite executives on the essential elements of responsible leaderships to help guide their words and actions.

The key elements include

Stakeholder inclusion
Emotion and intuition
Mission and purpose
Technology and innovation
Intellect and insight

4) Choose Compassionate, Caring Leaders

Ensure to empower the most compassionate and caring executives to take charge as they can bring a sense of calm to the chaos while driving employees to a healthier, more productive environment.

5) Break the Hierarchy

The functional silo approach is believed to impact operations, reduce employee morale and lead to the overall failure of a company. If you are not yet familiar with the cross-functional or agile team culture, now is the best time to leverage them.

6) Build a Sense of Connection

Ensure transparent, clear and consistent communication with every employee, customer, supplier, and stakeholder to give them a sense of belonging and connection. Hold regular, short briefings to share important messages and take feedback.

7) Enhance Remote Work Capabilities

This is the ultimate time to invest in remote work capabilities for business continuity. Implement training programs for team leaders and managers on leading a remote workforce. Mobilize a digital team to help those who are new to remote working.

8) Prepare for the Future

The C-suite executives should ensure to invest their time every day for work focused on preparing the organization and the workforce for the future ahead. Don’t let this challenging time to impede your organization from moving towards the future.

In Conclusion
C-suite executives should look ahead proactively to help their employees to develop human resilience. However, you must prioritize your wellbeing to be better able to help the workforce.