Employee experience in crisis. Leadership exam.

The job market was never pleasant. If we looks back 10 years ago, 5 years ago or more recently, candidates, employees and companies have all faced a number of challenges. Whether this is a significant change in the unemployment rate, or economic and social implications, a reduction in candidate engagement during the recruitment process is not helpful, as well as growing attrition in companies and a highly competitive work environment

Everyday, there are less available candidates caused by demographic decline. Organizations who have problems with employee experience, report an increase in turnover. Life expectancy growth can create professional re-training needs for employees in some age brackets. When we thought that we could control the reality, a new problem appeared. Crisis reinforced by epidemic.

When almost all companies and HR departments are now partnering together on crisis management, I would like to change perception to ask – what’s next?

As yet, we do not know how this current situation will impact each and every company and industry. When company income drops, the main focus will be to generate new profits, therefore organizations will need employees to service clients, as well as service provision or create a product. I truly believe the candidate experience will back on top of the agenda. When the dust settles and recruitment starts again, we will all face some challenges with lack of talents on the market (demographic decline), candidate engagement, strengthened by lost trust. We could expect higher unemployment rate however, will this be enough motivation for a prospect candidate?

The candidate will hold the employer accountable.

Companies will need to make hard decisions, they may be forced to face difficult choices. Nevertheless, how they operate, can prevent a risk of lost trust. No one is thinking about the organization’s culture nor employer branding. The most important topic, is how to survive. Let’s remember that this situation is temporary and in the near future, a workforce will be necessary.  In crisis we cannot count on intuition, experience or market knowledge, we are not able to predict what will happen next but both the employee and the employer are in unchartered territory. Now is the moment when we all need to trust each other.

Managing trust is a priority.

There is extremely easy to lose a trust. To avoid this we should start with verification and selection of information inextricably linked to transparency. An employee will always appreciate honest communication but also consequence of actions. Communication is a key. Leader’s role is on the new ground. Much more important than only managing the team. In the time of crisis the most important is to be in touch with your employees. Perform a conversations and sharing information even not everything is clear yet. Sometimes calming stressed team members. Don’t be scared that you “don’t know”, just say it. Ask your employees about their emotions and thoughts. It will help you understand their point of view and assess if strategy is clear. In company we should treat each other as adults.

Management of emotions.

Chaos exists particularly when we’re in crisis. It’s normal, when we talk about natural human behaviours – unawareness, fear, panic, sense of uselessness, anxiety, uncertainty, unpredictability. Sometime a go, I wrote about emotional intelligence and how to control emotions and stress at work? In that article, we talked about – fact first, not assumptions. Sharing only verified information, which we are sure about.  Be precise and calm. Emotions have never been a good advisor.

Big thank you to my amazing peer Scott for his support and proofreading! 🙂