Maintaining Employee Engagement and Employee Performance during Covid-19 Pandemic

The reality of the pandemic has forced companies to seek continuity plans to help run businesses and promote the wellbeing of their employees (Adhitama, & Riyanto, 2020). It has also brought to surface employee’s contributions towards the success of a business. Therefore, maintaining employee engagement and performance among those working from home is the key to business success during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article has two main objectives, to maintain employee engagement on those working remotely and maintain their overall productivity. Managers are often the closest to employees in a normal working setup due to their constant interactions. They organize schedules that help achieve the goals of the company while providing for the safety and the wellbeing of the employees. After the pandemic, employees had to work remotely thus distancing them from managers. To curb the gap, managers ought to be creative and come up with motivational strategies. These strategies should be tailored towards the needs of the employees.

Based on the roles of managers in the work environment, they should be in a position to understand the challenges that employees face by either communicating or by observing their behavior (Cichobłaziński, & Leszek, 2017). While working in the job environment, managers identify these challenges by observation, but when working remotely, they should embark on frequent communication. Secondly, managers should engage employees on vital duties even when working remotely to help them realize that their efforts are needed. These vital duties may include going to the office at least once in every week or taking turns to lead virtual meetings. This way, they can keep the employees engaged and motivated for work productivity. Finally, managers should be able to understand the challenges that employees go through while working remotely. In most cases, the employees might lack privacy when working from home. This means that managers should develop flexible working routines that are in line with the employees and help them achieve maximum productivity even when remotely.

Recommendations to Managers

Working from home is a work plan that might be adapted permanently by businesses (Mehta, Saxena, & Purohit, 2020). This is because it offers certain benefits that a business would not have enjoyed if it did not adapt the remote working strategy. Therefore, it is essential that managers develop and embrace strategies that ease the working from home process. The first method of achieving this is through creating schedules that are in line with resource availability of the company and that of the employees. Straining resources may lead to stress among employees thus demotivating them and may cause collapse of the company in case the resources are strained. Secondly, management ought to develop strategies that will promote communication among employees working remotely. The studies explained above have realized a common finding of employee’s social isolation among employees working from home. This makes them less engaged and less productive compared to how they would be when working from the office (Baker, 2020). Therefore, constant communication and frequent checking on the wellbeing of employees promotes employee productivity and their mental health during the pandemic.

Thirdly, managers should work collaboratively with the employees to ensure their involvement in running the company (Carnevale, & Hatak, 2020). Teamwork between managers and employees in remote working increases virtual interaction thus promoting business continuity. After the pandemic, managers can use managerial theories and skills to decide whether to continue with the remote work plan or go back to the traditional work plan where employees can report in the business premise. Finally, managers should embrace technological advancement that is necessary in facilitating remote work plan during the pandemic and years after the pandemic (Bailey, & Breslin, 2021). This will help develop a contingency plan for a business and ensure continuity even in the middle of a pandemic. In addition, technological advancement makes work easier for the employees and promotes efficiency. It also reduces operational costs for the business, thus promoting growth and development.

Conclusion

The findings of these report are based on the analysis of four reports concerning remote working and employee motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic. These reports arrive at similar conclusions that management of a company have the ability to enhance employee motivation through managerial theories and skills. The pandemic has complicated the business environment due to the new concepts of social distancing to reduce infection rates. Therefore, this will require managers who link the business to the employees, to develop strategic p