In Conversation with Stephen Bailey, Founder and CEO, ExecOnline

“It’s important that people feel safe to be vulnerable in talking about not just what they think we want to hear but about what’s really going on; the real issues they’re facing in their lives,” says Stephen Bailey, Founder and CEO, ExecOnline.

In an interview with HR.com, Stephen talks about the key HR practices and tips to keep his team motivated, productive, and together virtually and how his organization is maintaining a positive morale in these testing times. Excerpts from the interview:  

Stephen: We have seen a seismic shift in the future of work and how employers are able to connect with their employees. For a large percentage of companies in the US, the concept of working from home was reserved for employees who didn’t need to come in everyday but instead relied on a “home base” situation. 

When this trend first started making waves a decade or so ago, employers were a little more limited in their technical capabilities. These days, with the help of technology and smart HR practices, employers are able to keep productivity moving forward. 

That said, the onset of the novel Coronavirus threw a wrench into the smaller, more controlled work-from-home trend as nearly all employees have had no choice but to work from home. And that trend is continuing into the foreseeable future. 

Employers quickly realized that beyond the immediate challenges of ensuring employees had the technology they needed to work from home, there were new challenges related to the stress of having everyone in a household working and learning and living together all the time, and the challenge of fostering connectivity outside of a physical office situation. WebEx and Zoom calls can only do so much to bring the team together, and in many situations, leaders and HR professionals have had to learn how to adapt on the fly to address this social and emotional gap. 

Stephen: There is no question that remote burnout is real. In July, we surveyed 1000+ leaders from 100+ organizations, and over 90% identified employee burnout as a concern for their teams. Everyone is looking forward to getting back to their version of normal, even if they enjoy working from home. For many, the daily commute was a chance to finally read their favorite book or newspaper because their home is full of children, homework and an unending list of to-dos. For others, simple normalcy existed in their weekly lunch dates with friends or during a gathering of teammates in a meeting. But the truth is we’ve all had to alter some facet of our lives these past few months. 

And because of this, employers would do well to embrace the concept of virtual empathy. It can be difficult to manage an organization during uncertain times, but it is critical for leaders to possess and show empathy in order to effectively lead their business and employees through this time and to ensure there is a virtual cohesion or connectivity to maintain positive morale.  

To address remote burnout, HR teams and managers should look for ways to spend time each day checking in with individual team members. This also means taking the time to understand that every employee is different and there is no such thing as a “traditional” home life. Right now, personal obligations such as childcare and support for the sick and/or elderly are the priority. 

Leaders are essentially being invited into their employees’ homes because of video conferencing, and virtual empathy means showing concern in any way possible, including being flexible about daily schedules, understanding when and why certain staff cannot participate in a team meeting, or if they are feeling more exhausted than normal because they are working longer hours. It’s also important to share resources for the support offered by your company so any issues can be addressed before they compromise the health or retention of your employees.

Stephen: I try to do a quick pulse check with a number of employees’ employee each month. In addition, I reserve the first few minutes of every 1x1 meeting to discuss the personal before diving into business topics.  Sometimes it’s as simple as asking about their pets or their family, or plans for the coming weekend--even if “plans” means having a nice day outside or watching a new movie at home. It’s important that HR teams and leaders try to ensure their staff understands that we are all in this together, and we will get through this together. 

Part of the challenge in this is getting people to open up. Even though we’ve all been isolated and are hungry for those connections, there are still mental boundaries that exist between work and home life. Clearly, those are blurring a bit these days, but some people may struggle with finding a balance between professional and personal personas in this new close-in environment. So, it’s important that people feel safe to be vulnerable in talking about not just what they think we want to hear but about what’s really going on; the real issues they’re facing in their lives.

Stephen: We are fortunate that we had a successful remote culture before Covid, so we have focused our support on reducing the impact of Covid-specific burnout challenges. Our HR team has taken the lead on maintaining regular HR office hours for any employee to discuss the challenges they are facing and we have also worked with our benefits provider to make sure mental health counseling is available to all employees as part of their insurance coverage.  

In addition, we have sponsored virtual workout sessions to provide employees with an outlet for maintaining their physical and mental wellness. We work directly with fitness instructors to provide Zoom trainings ranging from yoga to Peloton rides, to high-intensity interval training. We offer the sessions to employees at multiple times to ensure that there is at least one time-zone friendly option for every employee.   

Finally, we have sponsored virtual company dinners to provide employees with the opportunity to meet new people as well as maintain their existing relationships with colleagues. The virtual dinners are organized as cross-functional groups of 8-10 employees with a dinner “host” and a curated set of potential topics for the groups to discuss. They are designed to be low-stress, engaging events that keep tenured employees connected to one another while allowing new employees the opportunity to meet people they don’t interface with as part of their day-to-day.

Stephen: For HR leaders, patience is important in this process. It’s important to understand that going from an office environment to a virtual space is new for many employees. Sure, some have had experience with this concept if they have remote work as a part of their employment agreement, or have had to stay home for a day or two because of unforeseen circumstances with their home or family.

And, it’s easy to assume that technologies such as Zoom have also made it easier for people to adapt to regular video conferencing, but the truth is there are millions of employees who never had a video conversation before Covid, so they are still getting used to this “new normal.”

It is also essential that HR teams make themselves available for any employee at any time who may be struggling with this new normal. We have to remember that sitting down at the computer is no longer just about getting down to work--that screen time is doing double-duty for enabling tasks as well as a sense of togetherness. And while we’ve gravitated toward making video calls the “norm,” maybe they don’t need to be for everything. 

Done right, effective internal communications means that there is an open, honest flow between leadership and employees within the channels they’re used to. And a regular cadence would help employees feel less pressure in those face-to-face calls to spend the bulk of their time getting information instead of having a real conversation. 

Stephen: Moving from a cube or office to the confines of our homes has changed the way we regularly work with teammates. It is easier for things to get lost in the shuffle or to put conversations on hold because there’s still uncertainty about the status of the project or job requirement. But managers need to find ways to make their teams feel confident that the work can and should still move forward. 

This means holding regular meetings, offering assistance and guidance on projects, checking in with other departmental leads to find synergies and reviewing reasons behind any work stoppage. It might also mean setting up structures to empower employees in different departments to go straight to the source--each other--rather than navigate through hierarchy or try to convene a large group on a call just to confirm workflow or milestones.

Stephen: The role of leaders has never been more important than it is now and the current environment demands that successful organizations ensure that their leaders have a set of “future-ready” capabilities that are key to success.  

Future-Ready Leaders are characterized by three capabilities: 1. the business acumen and adaptability to lead teams through a rapid business transformation; 2. the empathy to support the mental wellness of their teams in this challenging environment; 3. the perspective and awareness to lead diverse teams inclusively.

Stephen: Ensuring that employees take time off is a particular challenge in this environment, especially when considering a range of different employee circumstances (geographic location, family situation, financial resources, etc.) and varying levels of employee risk tolerance. We have taken a two-pronged approach to encourage time-off.  

First, is messaging--our HR team consistently messages the importance of taking time off, even if that time off does not include usual travel plans. Second, from a policy perspective, we have allowed employees to roll over an increased number of their vacation days due to Covid, but we have also made clear that they will lose a certain percentage of days if they are not used by the end of the year. While it is an ongoing challenge, we have seen employees start to take more advantage of their vacation days during the summer months, in particular.