Organizational Healing and HR Challenges

• Organizational healing is vital, especially with ongoing changes in work environments.

HR Professionals During Crisis

• HR professionals face high expectations to keep teams together and ensure business continuity.
• Balancing business growth with employee interests has been a significant challenge.

New Challenges for HR

• HR faces new people challenges and inevitable organizational restructures.
• Maintaining others' and their own well-being and mental health are key concerns.
• HR must make difficult decisions impacting people's lives.

Operational Challenges for HR

• HR must manage furloughs, layoffs, and workforce reductions.
• Adjusting to remote work, creating business continuity plans, drafting emergency communications, and preventing the spread of germs are required.

Managing Layoffs Due to Coronavirus

• Managing layoffs during COVID-19 is a major challenge.
• Firing any employee including problematic ones, is difficult.
• The decision is harder if management wants layoffs for reasons other than performance.
• Such decisions weigh heavily on decision-makers.

Organizational Healing Explained

• Organizational healing repairs and restores social relationships after a crisis, returning the organization to normal.
• Healing aims to restore organizational functions through employees and their relationships.
• This involves supporting troubled colleagues and restoring organizational processes.
• Organizational healing involves both resilience and growth.

Three Stages of Organizational Healing

• Resource Deployment: The organization deploys internal/external resources to contain damage, showing solidarity and taking action to restore processes.
• Reconnecting with Stakeholders: Re-establishing connections with other organizational entities and integrating new systems/processes.
• Reintegration: Integrating new systems and restoring normal operations.

Four Mechanisms of Organizational Healing

• Empathy: Creating a culture of care, concern, and employee focus.
• Interventions: Taking direct/indirect steps to provide immediate assistance during a crisis.
• Collective Effort: Ensuring organization-wide involvement.
• Leadership: Top-driven leaders transmit concern, nurturing, and empathy to managers.

Collective Intelligence for Complex Problems

• Collective intelligence is group intelligence emerging from diverse teams' collaboration, efforts, and engagement.
• It needs diversity of opinion to guard against groupthink.
• It needs independent thinking with freedom to express opinions without judgment.
• Decentralization ensures people closer to the problem/customer offer meaningful contributions.
• A good method for aggregating results is needed.

Important Areas of Focus

• Systems & Processes: Leadership & Management.
• Systems & Processes: Working with Remote Teams.
• Systems & Processes: Learning & Development.
• Psychosocial Impacts: Restoring Well-being.
• Psychosocial Impacts: Social, Economical, Psychological.
• Psychosocial Impacts: Employee Assistance Programs (EAP).

Leadership and Management Strategies

• Adopt progressive leadership strategies.
• Establish a change-ready culture.
• Conduct risk analysis and implement mitigation strategies.
• Engage employees regularly to gather insights.
• Encourage experimentation and don't punish failures.

Creating a Risk Mitigation Plan

• Risk Identification: identify potential events and sequences, noting vulnerabilities/threats.
• Risk Assessment: Quantify each event's risk by weighing potential impact, likelihood of occurrence.
• Prioritization: Rank risks from severe to least; prioritize areas with lowest acceptable risk.
• Risk Tracking: monitor risks and threats, like tracking cyberattack frequency.
• Implementation & Monitoring: Monitor mitigation plan's effectiveness with tests for updates.

Working with Remote Teams

• Set expectations for member availability, establishing communication guidelines for after-work hours.
• Allow flexibility: Flexible hours promotes consistency, focusing on the quality of work done.
• Track Progress: Establish a way to track employee progress within a structure that enables them to fulfill their role.
• Emphasize communication, keeping employees aware of deadlines, resources, challenges, and expectations.
• Communication Tool: Use the tool that best fits the organization if it is text, email, video, or phone calls.
• Provide Collaboration: Shared documents help managers track work and collaborate.

Learning & Development

• Virtual learning is the new normal post-COVID-19 and e-learning is beneficial.
• Reskilling/upskilling workforces is needed, fostering a learning mindset for adapting to change.
• Train employees to efficiently use new technologies.
• Smaller teams due to financial issues require employees to have collaborative skills.
• Peer learning effectively boosts learning and involves employees in each other's journey.
• Learning agility impacts business outcomes.

Restoring Social Well-being

• People need a sense of community and purpose.
• HR builds/maintains social connections.
• They do this by establishing: Mentorship programs, affiliation groups, team development, and thorough onboarding.

Restoring Psychological Well-being

• Per WHO, burnout results from unmanaged chronic workplace stress, causing exhaustion, cynicism, and decreased productivity.
• Maintaining balance is crucial for well-being and productivity.
• HR departments offer flexible working, child care, and work-life options.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• These are employer-sponsored, work-based intervention programs that help employees resolve personal problems.
• EAPs address marital, financial, emotional, family, or substance abuse issues.
• Most Provide 24/7 mental health support, reduce costs, and increase employee productivity.