In a post-pandemic world where remote and hybrid working is the new norm,  your team might be struggling to stay motivated, mentally healthy, and connected.

Communication is the key to success, and learning new ways of practicing it through effective and robust internal communications can make all the difference in positively connecting with your employees and keeping them engaged with your company’s purpose. 

In a post-pandemic world where working remotely has completely transformed how we work, we see a significant rise in employees experiencing symptoms of isolation, disconnection, and other adverse emotional effects. Thus, business leaders must find ways to support and motivate employees, strengthen team collaboration, and maximize productivity while keeping their workforce happy, healthy, and engaged.

With over 4.5 million employees leaving their jobs these past few months, companies are faced with the challenge of retaining talent and consolidating the disparities caused by employee burn-out due to the pandemic’s effect on people’s work-life balance.

According to Paychex, since the pandemic, over 48% of employees reported an issue to their human resources department. In addition, more than half of human resources managers reported an increase in issues related to employee stress, employee disputes, workplace safety, and technology issues. The list goes on and on. With stress levels increasing by 38.6%, the importance of work-life balance has increased by 12%. While bullying and productivity by has increased by 16%.

Inspiring motivation and productivity in the workplace are easier said than done and call for constant upkeep and instilling new habits in your workforce’s structure and processes. 

Here are a few strategies and tips that can help you navigate this new working environment:

1. Setting clear expectations about your worker’s time management, schedules, breaks, and meetings sets the foundation for their expectations.
2. Regular checkups with your employees are vital to ensuring they are comfortable and manage your expectations. In addition, informal chats, offering support when needed, and phone calls can help reduce feelings of isolation and help our teams feel cared for.
3. Management tools can highlight your employees’ accomplishments, keep tasks on track, and even help with productivity. 
4. Video meetings and socializing in-person or virtually can help reduce the feeling of isolation. According to Gallup, isolation leads to a 21% drop in productivity. Therefore, offering a space for employees to talk and socialize is essential. 
5. Celebrate your employees! Make them feel appreciated by celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, milestones, and project highlights, among other internal milestones. Make appreciation meaningful and frequent. 
6. Your office or work environment goes hand in hand with motivation and can impact your workers’ moods. Creating a homey work environment will keep your employees happy and looking forward to going to work daily. 

The benefits of a motivated workforce

There are endless benefits to having a motivated and happy team, such as increased productivity, lower levels of stress and sick days, more quality work, higher engagement, and work passion plus connectivity. Ultimately, all these benefits result in employee retention because employees no longer want to stay in companies that don’t value them. 

Your company culture matters! Showing recognition and appreciation for your employees motivates them and makes them happy and proud to work for you. Creating the right work environment for all employees starts with solid communication, positive actions, and giving employees the right tools that strengthen team collaboration, improve morale, and increase productivity. 

At DuartePino, our licensed advisors help your business design and manage an effective internal and external communications strategy aligned with your overall brand and reputation management strategies—two areas of our expertise. Contact us to learn more about what we can do for your comms and public relations strategies. 

*This blog post was written by Alfredo Velez, Junior Operations Advisor at DuartePino.