Dear Readers,

Once again thank you for taking the time to read my weekly article. I know many of my 1st circle “LinkedInners” are out there reading and liking, sharing and commenting my articles. Thank you. To those of you reading and enjoying the read please let me know by liking, sharing and commenting.

When I posted my first Covid-19 article named COVID-19: The Confinement Roller Coaster Wave, my fantastic business partner Cyrille Gay chose an amazing picture of a roller coaster in black and white. I did not know at the time, that this image would become our trademark image throughout the Covid-19 crisis.

Where we live, summer is in the air and we would like to think it is vacation time.

We would like to be able to just enjoy the nice warm weather and relax. However, our minds are still focused on the work that needs to be done.

TransitionKit takes care of companies and their employees. Our interactive webinars focus on understanding the psychological impact Covid-19 has on employees and organisations. They are designed to accompany staff and management.

Our PNKR© (see post about PNKR here) tool has proven to be of great support to individuals and companies alike in these troubled confinement, deconfinement, reconfinement times. We use it in our webinars and the compounded results can be shared with management teams.

The results show that companies have managed Covid-19 very differently.

The more trust (see link trust vs mistrust) there is in a company, the better the company has been able to manage the Pandemic crisis.

 PNKR© has given us insight to how employees experienced confinement. Keywords such as trust, work from home or relationship with colleagues came up often, illness and accident rates, etc. seamed less important and generated less complaints.

 In our experience work from home resulted in closer relationships between employees with more empathy for example which came as a surprise for many of us. What also surprised our participants is that in the vast majority of cases, the list of positives was much longer than the list of negatives.

Positives most often cited are: more time at home, no commuting, better performance for those with good networks and no child care issues. For those with small children obviously the work/life balance was more difficult to cope with, realising the job was right, the environment was not (that could also be under negatives.)

Negatives most often named are: too many video conferences and too long (in one company six-hour video conference without breaks, unfair monitoring in companies lacking trust in their employees), companies not prepared for the work at home transition.

Keep, most wishes from the confinement period are the fact that many enjoyed the working from home experience and would want to be able to continue working from home for part of their time. They often mentioned the fact that spending more time with family and namely with children was a positive experience.

What employees say about the life they would like to Return to the most in post Covid-19 at work, is being physically at work (balanced with teleworking), spending time with colleagues and clients. They often mentioned how much they missed the social side of their lives.

 Conclusions:

Those unhappy at work noted for example how much they became aware that the job they are doing is great, but the environment is wrong. Several of our candidates are now looking for new jobs. They came to realise that their health and mental health problems had to do with their job. Several candidates said “when I go back to the office I come home with a headache” or “my stomach problems flared up again”, one HR professional could not cope with how her company was treating and firing staff during the Pandemic. She accelerated her own job search with our assistance and has just signed a new contract. Several of our candidates transitioned during Covid-19 with interviews via video conferencing for which we specifically trained them.

In our most recent webinars caring employees used PNKR© to pinpoint what if re-confinement hit in the fall. They are concerned for their company: In their analysis, these employees suggest a number of actions and precautions the company should consider putting in place.

As Matthieu Poirot argues, to manage efficiently companies should consider their employees experience to co-create viable, efficient, productive and healthy work environments.

If you have concluded that your job is ok but the company philosophy is not, it may be the right time to act and consider a program with TransitionKit to plan your move. Be proactive, get ready to move. Know your options. Don’t stick your head in the sand but rather take a long view. Life is too short and valuable to spend up to 40 or more of your working hours per week with people whose values and philosophy you do not share. Should your company be planning a downsizing you should be preparing yourself proactively.

 Let us support you to avoid being taken by surprise.

As always, take care of yourselves,

Marion