Lockdown has been a very strange time for all of us, both personally and professionally. We have missed our friends and colleagues, and as far as work goes, it has been difficult to stay in touch with only video calls.
Now that we are living in a post-lockdown world, it is time to get your team back on track. Whether you are keeping things largely remote, heading back to the office, or operating under a hybrid model, it is important to make sure everyone is as connected as they can be.
Start small
Rather than rushing back to an environment that might make people feel uneasy, you should try with small steps. Allow employees to start with a day, or even just a half-day, in the office. If your plan is to return to the office full time, people will need a little patience.
Similarly, if you want to get your team together socially, maybe start with a meetup in a local park for a picnic or a meal outdoors at a restaurant. This is a good way to gauge how happy your team is, and can help new members who joined over lockdown to connect in person.
Make sure everyone is comfortable
Whatever your plans, both for daily office life and for social events, you need to keep checking in with everyone to make sure they are comfortable. People will be understandably nervous about going back to the office and socialising with colleagues.
Lay out your plans ahead of time and let your employees have a say in what comes next. It will help to keep them feeling included and safe.
Maintain cleanliness and hygiene
Post lockdown, it is the employer’s duty to provide their employees with sanitized and hygienic space to work in. You need to make sure that your workplace is deep cleaned on a weekly basis, including sanitizing office furniture, equipment, floors, and carpets.
While you may have a janitor to take care of basic tasks like floor sweeping and mopping, you can also consider hiring special cleaning services for particular tasks. For instance, hiring commercial carpet cleaners (learn more about such services here) could be one way to ensure dust, dirt, and germs won’t fester in the carpets and rugs used in the office. Other cleaning services you can explore are window cleaners, upholstery cleaning, pest control, washroom maintenance, and more. Moreover, since COVID is an airborne disease, it becomes essential to keep the workspace pristine to cut down on the virus’s potential pathways to spreading.
Engage in some team building
Remember the team-building exercises you used to be able to book in with no problem? Well, if you have been enjoying remote team-building activities, now is the perfect time to go back to the in-person model.
Providers like Team Tactics have amazing team-building activities that can take place outside and be fully socially distanced to cater to the comfort levels of your teams. This could be the ideal way to get back together with a common goal after over a year of feeling isolated from one another.
Stay in touch
Even once everything has settled down, it is important for you to carry on keeping in touch with everyone. If you are back to a full-time office environment, or if some are still working from home, checking in with your team on an ongoing basis is a great idea. You should also encourage your team to keep heading out for meals and social events, to ensure that everyone is happy and well connected. Remember that socialising is as important as working to build a strong team!
Provided by Cascade building services, that provide commercial building cleaning
