7 Tips to Motivate Employees During the Lockdown Crisis

As an entrepreneur you need to engage and motivate employees and team members to show your passion and commitment to do everything in your power to help the business. When the team sees your dedication they’ll be much more likely to be energized and get inspired.

Create New Remote Work Guidelines NOW!

It doesn’t matter if you change these guidelines, just put out some basics. Is there a daily meeting? Will teams need to check in every day? What tools should they use? Should all meeting participants turn on their video? Whatever you decide—put out some guidelines so people have a place to start. You can modify this tomorrow and completely rewrite them when the crisis passes.

Keep Communicating

In times like this, people don’t like to be in the dark. Entrepreneurs must rise to the challenge to motivate employees and proper communications is the first lever. Keep your employees informed. Keep your customers in the know. Also keep your vendors and your partners in the loop of what your company is contemplating.

Read More : 4 Golden Strategies to Motivate your Workforce

If you can be counted on to deliver consistent, recurring information flow, others can act and respond accordingly. Show empathy, acknowledge you don’t have all the answers, and share what you individually will be doing. The mode of the communications, written or verbal, doesn’t matter.

Let Go of Perfection

It’s better to send out a revised set of rules everyday rather than being silent for days while businesses try to land on the perfect policy and ideal language. Modify standard policies and make exceptions to long-held rules. Be transparent—it’s OK not to have all the answers because there are few definitive answers. Be transparent and say what you know and admit what you don’t know.

Loosen Company Policies

Don’t let a company manual stand in the way of making the necessary changes to help your team. Most day-care facilities and schools are closed, and it’s disrupting the daily lives of employees who have families. Businesses must be empathetic to the changes affecting their team members, which may mean allowing more flexible work schedules. These small gestures helps inspire and motivates the employees.

It Won’t Be Business as Usual

You are going to want to reassure employees, and that may be an important part of your job as a business. Tell employees it will be OK—because it will. But be careful: don’t make any promises, because “OK” may not mean what it used to mean.

Learn More : How Protected Is Your Business to Deal with Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak?

Companies will likely make changes during the crisis or as things begin to recover. And, this may be an opportunity to change how your organization works. You are going to learn things about how your team learns, adapt, and improvise that will inform the new future.

Educate your Employees

Your employees are searching for ways to cope with the growing anxiety around the coronavirus. You, as the entrepreneur, need to be the voice of reason and hope. Provide employees with the latest healthcare advice from trusted sources on how they can protect themselves and loved ones. Share updates from federal, local, and state governments on lockdown and rules that affect how businesses can operate. Explain what your company is doing to help them, as well as clients and the community.

Take Care of Yourself

This is a marathon not a sprint. And, to carry that metaphor forward, we don’t know the course of the marathon. We know some of you have been working around the clock—that’s not going to end tomorrow. If you aren’t healthy and grounded, you can’t see your team through this. Ground yourself; whatever gives you peace and contentment you need that now, for you, for your family, and for the demands of your work.