Planning a for Return to the Workplace? Avoid this Costly Mistake

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First published: 8 Jan, 2021

Planning for return to work in the next few months is both an opportunity and a nightmare.

It’s a nightmare because there are still many restrictions in place and, as can be seen from the latest outbreaks in New South Wales and Victoria, things are still in flux and changing very quickly.

Every jurisdiction requires that you have plans for a Covid-safe workplace (for more information return-to-work restrictions Australia-wide see my earlier post).

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With all the changes it’s a little bit hard to keep up with your obligations as a leader and HR professional.

But developing a plan for a Covid safe workplace is the easy bit.  It might be a nightmare but it’s easy compared to cultural change.

The hard bit, the cultural change, is starting your team off right, setting a great standard for the year to follow, and using last 12 months to reset.

Contact me to see if you qualify for my free 30-minute “Roadmap to Return”

How will you maintain, energy, focus and productivity during this time?

Such questions as:

  • With some staff on-site and some off-site, how do you ensure your leaders are managing everybody fairly?

  • How do you encourage the introverts to return to the workplace?

  • How do you establish good workplace “norms” about working safely? (Is the kitchen out of bounds?  Whose cup is that?

  • Who should work from home and when?  Who comes into the office?

How we use the opportunity of ‘unprecedented’ disruption to reset yourself, your team and/or your organisation?

Habits are hard to break.

Habits take a long time to form, and a lot of effort to change.

Covid 19, lockdowns and working remotely have provided the perfect opportunity to break old, non-serving patterns and establish new and better ones.

  • It’s the perfect opportunity to change:

  • What worked for your team in 2020?  What didn't?

  • What are you going to do differently?

  • How will you start that off?

  • How could you get more time and energy for the things you need (and want) to do?

But for that to happen, you need to start right in your new way of working, embed the changes from day one.

Start thinking now about what you want to change, what you want to leave behind and what you want to improve for the coming year.

Get your team together and agree on some team norms - and develop a roadmap for return. 

For leaders with staff wanting to work better in 2021 (maybe you are still under restrictions?), I am offering a free 30-minute consultation, to develop a “Roadmap to Return”.  Just get in touch.

In the session we will develop a roadmap for you to return to the workplace keeping the best of what you learned from 2020, abandoning old non-serving habits, and finally creating the workplace you really want.

There are only two sessions per week, and priority will be given to workplaces that have suffered the severest restrictions in the most disruption. Check the link in the comments to see if you qualify.

Wishing you all the best for an awesome 2021 😊.