Caring in the workplace
There are many moments in our lives when we will look back and remember kindness shown towards us. These moments help define us. Being cared for has a profound effect on our emotional state, our mental health and our general motivation. We often think of caring as an affectionate emotion reserved for friends, families, partners. However, being cared for reaches further than our personal lives, we should also be caring in the workplace.
To what extent does caring affect our working life?
Your career circumstances may be somewhat different today than they were this time last year. That might not just be due to the coronavirus pandemic; you may be on maternity leave, having a career break, have been promoted, be in between opportunities, or serving your notice period. Whatever your circumstances are, most adults have a professional working sphere within their lives. We spend the majority of our week working, commuting to work, and thinking about work. Feeling cared for during this time has a huge effect on your life.
What are the benefits for organisations?
Smart employers will be doing everything they can to ensure their employees are cared for. Caring in the workplace for employees improves employee experience, brand reputation, retention of talent, organisational progress and employee productivity. Why? It is simple, employees are people; they are individuals powered by emotions. When we feel cared for, we give back, we are more invested, we also care more.
What role does HR play?
HR teams’ involvement in strategising and executing employee experience plans are key. There are simple ways in which HR teams can ensure employees are cared for. This might include ensuring management is checking in on their teams regularly (even if it is over Skype these days!) asking how their reports are – and then really listening to their answer. Such a simple, small act can result in huge positive consequences. Of course, more traditional ways in which employers show care, via their remuneration packages or benefits, their social events or access to further training. However, more can be done. A more holistic view on an employee’s life cycle will reveal further opportunities to support.
What do Career Star Group do?
We are privileged to work with employers who show they care about their employees not only whilst they are employed by them, but also afterwards. It is incredible to see employers ensuring their employees not only feel, but are well looked after, and genuinely want them to succeed, even when they are outside of their organisation. Our outplacement programmes ensure that HR teams organising and executing restructures are supported, and the employees affected and exiting the organisations are given the very best opportunity to land their next role.
The current worldview
Over the past few months, Coronavirus has hit the world. The way in which employers have reacted, prepared and supported their staff and customers will have long-lasting repercussions for them. The way in which many businesses will re-open or proceed, will be vastly different to their vision 6 months ago. There will be many businesses that will need to reshuffle their staff, make redundancies and/or redeploy staff within the organisation. As unfortunate as these circumstances may be, it is a good opportunity to really show your workforce that your organisation cares. Providing outplacement services to your exiting employees will support them and give them the tools they need to get back into work.
Applying our learnings
Even though most of the world has been in some form of lockdown, isolated from friends and family, we have in many ways been brought closer together. We have seen huge manufacturing competitors collaborate to make medical supplies. Scientists in multiple locations working together to find a vaccine and fundraising events to support people across the globe. Everyone has been through an experience on a global scale; one that has been fast paced and hasn’t held back. We have witnessed people caring for one another every day in our newsfeeds, on our social media, on our virtual calls with friends and family. As the world slowly starts to open again, we can apply some of our learnings from this experience into the workplace. The world needs time to heal and increasing caring in the workplace will make a huge difference.
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