Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 15 about sharing their own concerns, says Gibson. "I've noticed with my team if I'm willing to be vulnerable and share how I'm doing, it enables people to open up a little bit more and they feel OK to share because there's a lot of concern in the workplace right now that people feel like they always have to demonstrate they're being productive and that they're doing OK." New education could be implemented immediately so that leaders are better able to recognize and react to the new normal, says Turnill. "Training around appreciating the different circumstances that people find themselves in now [and] situational leadership where you're really adapting your leadership style based on the particular individuals on your team and what they need, and empathy for self and empathy for others, would be a really important training to focus on now." Connecting the silos The shift to remote also shrunk networks, according to Microsoft. At the start of the pandemic, interactions with close networks at work increased, while inter- actions with distant networks diminished. And while 73 per cent of employees say they value the option of working from home, 67 per cent also want more in-person time, found Microsoft. Encouragingly, two-thirds (66 per cent of ) leaders reported they are willing to redesign the workplace to address these concerns. These findings were matched by the Dialectic and Jostle survey as 54 per cent of respondents reported their leaders were not providing them with enough support while remote. Failing to give employees enough choice in how they complete their work also creates a potential disconnect, says Turnill. "[It's about] engaging people — it doesn' t mean that employees will ultimately get the final decision, but certainly, at least, understanding people's preferences and, where possible, being able to cater to those preferences and trying to set up your work structures that suit people's lifestyles will be a major source of helping people." And letting others know that it's perfectly acceptable to report feelings of isolation and anxiety will go a long way toward employees feeling comfortable "Put simply, companies became more siloed than they were before the pandemic." The siloed teams' effect must be tackled before it contributes to a further sense of isolation, says Baynton. "Organizations need to see this as cascading down that frontline supervisors should be working with their team but then they have to cascade back up. [It's about understanding] how can those frontline employees feel connected? Because that's what helps support engagement and loyalty and motivation. Any organization [that] is still working in silos is failing to optimize the creativity and innovation of their own teams." The effect can be mitigated by employing older ideas, says Turnill. "There is a real role for leaders to be able to share coffee with the CEO, where they might invite six people in from different departments and they would just talk and hear what was going on in their departments and form those connections, even if we can't do that face to face." It's also up to leaders to participate in purposeful actions to alleviate the isolation, says Gibson. "Being deliberate, making sure you are still engaging [teams] on a regular basis "We don't really listen to what our bodies need and that's more complicated when you're juggling family responsibilities as well as work." Mary Ann Baynton, Workplace Strategies for Mental Health to bring people together, who might not otherwise work together is pretty critical. Whether you do that to solve a business challenge or whether you're just doing that for a creative brainstorm, that's certainly a way to get people connecting." CHRR

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