Working from Home
The first case of COVID-19 infection was recorded in a small town in China before it was announced as a world pandemic by the World Health Organization due to its devastating impact on the wellbeing of individuals globally. All countries were affected by the rapid spread of the virus, leading to the governments imposing lockdowns in the nations to control the spread of the disease. Canada was amongst the countries that experienced the devastating impacts of COVID-19 and was also among the nations that imposed early lockdowns and curfews (Canada Co, 2020). The indefinite lockdowns had a negative impact on the economies of most countries, which led to a significant drop in the world economy.
Most Canadian organizations that contribute to a country’s Gross Domestic Product were majorly affected, incurred losses, and opted to adopt the remote working approach to ensure their continuity and cut on operational costs.
The human resource management department within many organizations in Canada were the most affected by the negative impact of the outbreak of covid-19. Most organizations had to restructure their human resource and adapt to the new normal, which entailed remote working (Canada Co, 2020).
Most organizations had to adhere to the Canadian government’s directives and measures of containing the spread of the virus, such as imposing lockdowns. However, the sectors which provide essential services to the Canadian citizens, such as healthcare services, did not experience negative impacts of COVID-19 since their services were in high demand. Remote working is a new concept in most organizations in Canada, and many firms had challenges implementing the idea due to poor preparedness.
The human resource managers had to ensure that they acquired the required resources to finance the transition process. Employees of some firms in Canada also resisted the new approach due to the fear of losing their jobs. The adoption of remote working also marked the beginning of the technological revolution for many companies in Canada, where most firms embraced the use of technology in communication (Musheke & Phiri, 2021). The top management invested huge amounts of resources in ensuring that their employees have the required skills and gadgets to ensure service delivery to their clients. All communications between the employees and the management were done through online platforms.
Communication is one of the most significant aspects of an organization since it enables the smooth running of the entity. Poor communication leads to stunted service delivery to their clients, which makes the firm lose some clients (Musheke & Phiri, 2021). Organizational communication is most effective when the company decides to adopt the remote or online working platform (Kalogiannidis, 2020).
Due to poor preparedness by Canadian firms for the new normal, most employees were not skilled in various technological aspects regarding the online platform. The clients of various companies were also not ready for the great transition. The manager was responsible for ensuring that both the employees and the clients were well knowledgeable on the new virtual system for service delivery.
Some of the basic skills that a manager and other workers should possess to enable a productive working from home and online platform process include;
Ability to work independently without supervision
Individuals who are productive when working independently are characterized as individuals who know what the organization requires from them. Working from home and online platforms makes it impossible to supervise some employees; hence individual with the ability to work without supervision enhances a smooth workflow making it possible to achieve their goals effectively. Canadian organizational hire highly qualified individuals to enable them to acquire high-quality output to enhance customer satisfaction.
Good written communication skills
When utilizing the working-from-home approach, most communications between the top management and the employees majorly happen through emails and other text messages. Individuals working for such organizations should be highly skilled in written communications by using various testing tools to end clear and easily understandable language (Meister, 2020). Poor understanding between employees brings about; frustrations and poor working relations between employees. Most Canadian organizations have embraced diversity in their workforce and hence the use of English as their official language.
Ability to learn using new tools
Remote working also requires the employees to ensure various gadgets and tools to make work easier and service delivery effective. However, some employees are not well conversant with some of the tools used for communication, which results in poor workflow. The organization allocated huge amounts of resources towards the training of their employees to improve their productivity by gaining new technical skills.
Planning and organizing
The managers of a company are responsible for ensuring that all their employees are appropriately managed to ensure that the human resource is utilized for maximum benefits. Planning and organizing skills are essential capabilities required of a manager to enable them to successfully coordinate various activities remotely. Proper planning and organizing techniques also help an entity avoid losses that may arise due to poor planning processes
Collaboration and teamwork
Collaboration between different heads of departments within a company also contributes to the effective functioning of a firm. Collaboration was successfully implemented when the employees and the management offered services physically. Collaboration skills through the home working approach are an added advantage to a manager or an employee since it motivates them to work in unison to achieve their objectives. Teamwork and collaboration are also used to capture the trust of other individuals working to achieve the same goal.
Adaptability
The ability of an individual to adapt to a new environment working environment is also an important aspect since it makes it possible for an employee or a manager to deliver high-quality output regardless of the changes in the working environment. Adaptability also helps the entity avoid wasting resources that could have been used in other ventures to train their employees to help them adapt to the new system.
Strategies for effective virtual meeting
To ensure great and productive virtual meetings, various strategies should be implemented to ensure that there is a productive communication process between employers, employees, and major stakeholders such as customers. Some of the strategies and techniques for appropriate communication include;
Prior communication
All the managers and employees should be made aware of all the planned meetings, which are to be done virtually. This enables all the individuals scheduled to attend the meeting to plan for the meetings to avoid various uncertainties. Priori communications also enable an individual to find a favorable location to station and set up their communication tools. Prior communication is usually in an organization’s calendar that all the employees have to adhere to.
Concentrate on only important issues
An effective virtual meeting is more productive when the individuals in the meeting only concentrate on the major issues that may have a significant impact on the firm. This helps prevent the wastage of valuable time and resources such as internet charges used for virtual meetings.
Adopt friendly policies
Managers should ensure that all employees are treated equally during a virtual meeting. This can be done by ensuring that they implement the use of socially friendly policies (Canada Co, 2020). One of the most appropriate policies for an efficient virtual meeting process is the adoption of video-on-policy from all the individuals in the meeting.
References
Canada Co, A. (2020). Has COVID-19 Redefined the Role Of HR?. Web.
Hamouche, S. (2021). Human resource management and the COVID-19 crisis: Implications, challenges, opportunities, and future organizational directions. Journal of Management & Organization, 1–31. Web.
Kalogiannidis, S. (2020). Impact of effective business communication on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management Research, 5(6). Web.
Meister, J. (2020). The impact of the coronavirus on HR and the new normal of work. Forbes. Web.
Musheke, M. M., & Phiri, J. (2021). The effects of effective communication on organizational performance based on the systems theory. Open Journal of Business and Management, 09(02), 659–671. Web.
Quaife, M., van Zandvoort, K., Gimma, A., Shah, K., McCreesh, N., Prem, K., Barasa, E., Mwanga, D., Kangwana, B., Pinchoff, J., Edmunds, W. J., Jarvis, C. I., & Austrian, K. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 control measures on social contacts and transmission in Canada informal settlements. BMC Medicine, 18(1). Web.