Three ways to ensure employees perform at their peak

As people emerge from a difficult 18 months, forward-thinking small business owners are thinking about how they can rebuild their businesses to be more sustainable, successful and adaptable.

One of the elements they are focusing on is their employees. By helping people to perform at their peak, businesses can drive better customer service, higher productivity and more innovation.

The pandemic, load shedding and the unrest have left business owners and employees depleted – physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.

But these times have also highlighted the importance of mental and physical wellness in the workplace and the role business owners can play in helping their people to thrive.

Here are three practical ways business owners can work with their employees to build a better and more sustainable workplace that will be well positioned to compete in the post-pandemic landscape:

• Put a spotlight on employee wellness It is likely that some or even most of your employees are wrestling with mental and physical health concerns. Covid has been a perfect storm of stressors, including social isolation, job insecurity, financial losses, illness, new personal demands (like home schooling) and grief. As such, many small companies are putting health and wellness at the top of the agenda. It need not be expensive to provide resources, such as fitness or emotional resilience webinars. Other examples include sponsoring meditation or yoga sessions, offering mindfulness training (or access to an app like Headspace), or providing access to a clinical psychologist. And it may be as simple as regularly checking in with your staff to see if they’re doing okay.
• Offer practical support Financial wellness is closely linked to physical and mental well-being. Employees and their families may have seen a reduction in their basic income. Their partners might have lost their jobs or needed to support extended family that lost income or a breadwinner. Look at ways to help employees who are facing debt or other financial problems. Introducing financial counselling and education is one way to support them. Another is to have a debt counsellor on call. Funeral policies for employees’ direct and extended families can provide peace of mind.
• Introduce flexible working hours and models The move to remote working was not wrinkle-free, but it was more successful than many small business owners expected. One lesson to take from that is it is entirely possible to offer a more flexible working model for some members of your team without compromising performance and productivity. Talk to your employees about what has worked and what has not. These open conversations can lead to working arrangements where people get their work done, while still having the leeway to manage childcare and other personal responsibilities. It can also help drive productivity and employee engagement by keeping people focused on outcomes rather than work hours. The end is (hopefully) in sight With the mass vaccination programme picking up momentum the worst of the pandemic may be behind us. This is a perfect time to regroup, evaluate the lessons of the past 18 months and develop a team that will be ready for whatever comes next.

Harduth is vice-president, small business, Sage Africa and Middle East