Do you REALLY know how your people are coping this week?

By James Garriock, Executive Director

A fortnight ago you could see everyone; you could see their faces, whether they were walking around the office with confidence. You could hear the chit chat and see the smiles or the frowns, the tone of voice of various phone calls around the room.

Now you’re partially blind to all that. You see typed reports, updated forecasts and have great one on one conversations. But in truth you don’t know as much as you used to, except that you’re not likely to receive any resignation letters this week.

As a leader you need to provide many avenues for your people to speak up. You’re going to have to spend even more of your time being the glue that holds the team together. There are also lots of reasons why people won’t be quick to put their hand up and ask for help. Maybe they don’t feel comfortable, maybe they think they’ll be judged, or maybe they don’t even realise that they need help in the first place.

At Insync, we’re thinking about what you need to be asking. Starting an employee In-Touch pulse survey right now is the best idea – what the lockdown is teaching us is that you shouldn’t wait until you’ve actually got a problem before you take action. Our psychologists have put together lists of questions about wellbeing, connectedness, anxiety, resilience, confidence, focus, clarity, manager support and more. Things that you think into things that you know. In addition, they give everyone an extra channel to speak up that they might feel more comfortable using.

There has never been a more important time to make it easy for staff to speak up. I hope you can find the courage to be the leader your people are looking for this week.