One of the benefits that has emerged from the lockdown period at Logicalis followed on from our decision to accelerate the move from a more traditional group-wide employee engagement survey, to a continuous listening “Pulse” platform (partnering with Peakon) so that we had a way of gaining real time feedback as to how our employees were coping and feeling during the lockdown, whilst we could not physically connect with them in our offices.
This has been really well received by leaders and employees alike across the group, particularly with the phenomenal analytics available for leadership to quickly understand the response from our employees to changes being made in the business through these highly disruptive times. Also with the capability of the platform for managers and HR to respond to anonymous comments from our employees, it reinforces that someone is listening to their feedback which is often not possible with traditional surveys, which can then lead to employees
becoming frustrated that they have given some feedback but it is not acted upon or even acknowledged. I’m convinced that this platform is going to be a game changer for Logicalis as we can listen and act far quicker now with the Peakon platform.
Building on the new team dynamics:
An unforeseen positive outcome from the lockdown has been the way that it has enabled teams to learn so much more about the people they work with, from pets walking past the screen, insights into people’s choices of home decor and furnishings, or young children playing alongside the multi-tasking professional, parent-come teacher. The previously defined boundaries between work and home, usually separated by the daily commute, have been blurred possibly forever, as we have all got to know so much more about the whole person that we used to only see in the workplace, in far more frequent virtual meetings to stay connected with each other during the lockdown.
Across the Logicalis group, I have seen such a wide range of engaging ideas to keep virtual meetings as fresh and fun as possible, from CEO story time (with employees’ children I should add!), dressing up for different country themed meetings, meet the pets, to discovering the hidden singing talents of many of our Indonesian team singing their rendition of “Let it Be” to keep spirits up, which has been shared around the group.
The benefits of creating more of a community and closer camaraderie within and between teams through the pandemic in my view needs to be built upon once parts of the work force start returning to the office environment again and with the inevitable shift for employers planning on significant parts of their teams continuing to work remotely going forward, there should be plenty of opportunity for this higher level of team engagement to be maintained.
As Winston Churchill famously said “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Businesses need to embrace the opportunities for change for the better that have been forced upon us by the pandemic. Learn more about Logicalis here.