Despite the rise of automation, most workplaces are human-centric, social environments.
With few exceptions, the immediate response of business leaders worldwide to the COVID-19 crisis was to protect their people. A recent meeting of UK CFOs hosted by Andrew Harding, chief executive, Management Accounting, highlighted this priority.
A leading brewer had reconfigured its factory space to protect the workforce through social distancing. With the main customer sector — pubs and restaurants — out of business, production was refocused on the domestic market, supplying cans and bottles to supermarkets rather than kegs to pubs. In this way, production operations could continue, simultaneously protecting the workforce and future business revenues.
Industries identified as critical have no option but to continue operations as best they can. The finance directors of an organisation providing essential technical support and services to the energy industry described the lengths they have gone to “keep the lights on,” switching 90% of the workforce to home working and retaining a skeleton staff on-site to maintain operations.
But keeping the factory open is challenging. A supplier of components to the transport industry highlighted the complex nature of maintaining operations, from both supply chain and human resource perspectives. Securing PPE for workers and finding alternate suppliers for components from inoperable factories were major problems, while keeping their factory running required a complete rework of shift patterns to schedule work around deep cleaning and ensure separation between worker groups.
Unsurprisingly, the technology sector has transitioned smoothly into distance working. Facebook employees have been told they can work from home for the remainder of 2020, and Twitter has publicly stated that employees can telecommute permanently. Yet remote working, which has become a daily reality for many, brings its problems. Despite the initial challenges of getting the right equipment to the right people, the technical aspects of lockdown — equipment and connectivity — are, in the most part, relatively simple to overcome. The psychological aspects of being alone, or — for those juggling work and child care — not alone enough, are more difficult to manage. 'Zoom fatigue', the exhaustion of never-ending conference calls, has been a stress factor for many. We are yet to see the physical impact of this sudden switch to remote working. Workplace health and safety guidelines go out of the window when sharing the kitchen table with partners, children and volatile sourdough starters.
Whatever the current working situation, leaders must maintain effective channels of communication with employees. Importantly, they must trust in them to make the right decisions. This has proved challenging in the past — CGMA research into managing the open workforcei found that almost two-thirds of organisations found it difficult to strike the right balance between control and empowerment when employees are dispersed. But in times of crisis, there is no space, and little tolerance for micromanagement.
Trust is a two-way relationship. As identified in our recent report ‘Leadership in hard times’, leaders must be trusted if they are to be effective. Openness, empathy and honesty are key to building this trust.
i New ways of working - Managing the open workforce’, 2014
