How to Keep Your Team Engaged During COVID-19
As the real estate industry continues to navigate through the coronavirus crisis, industry leaders are developing strategies that keep their talent connected. Managing change can be difficult, so it’s essential for these organizations to have a centralized internal communication hub accessible to remote workers across the business.
Learn how Konverse can be your all-in-one communications hub.
With the right communications strategy implemented, organizations can support employee engagement, encourage and develop company culture, and improve employee loyalty over time.
Below are considerations to help your organization develop a communication strategy that empowers employees during the coronavirus crisis.
Be Clear
During times of uncertainty, it’s necessary for business leaders to set well-defined expectations for their teams. This doesn’t just include business priorities, but also standards that protect the health and safety of the team, clients, and community at large.
When expectations – whether they focus on new protocols, how agents can spend their remote-work time, or both – are set, alignment across the organization becomes seamless. Agents can spend less time seeking answers and more time focused on their tasks.
Consider these tips:
- Keep it simple. Use plainspoken words, especially when introducing new policies, making announcements, and answering questions. Aim for an 8th grade reading level.
- Set goals for team members. With goals in place, employees know what to work towards and feel more productive. These goals don’t have to focus solely on hitting quotas but can (and should!) include previously de-prioritized projects. With Konverse, team leaders can create tasks to keep teams organized and focused.
- Bring it back to your company’s mission. How can you leverage your mission to create these goals? Is your firm focused on exceptional client experience? Think through opportunities you can provide to your agents that helps the organization achieve that mission.
Be Consistent
During the coronavirus outbreak, new information is constantly being introduced. Timely, regular check-ins from leadership signal to teams that the organization is plugged in and proactively responding to new information.
Importantly, identifying a “single source of truth” reduces confusion and ensures alignment across the organization. For instance, firms can use Konverse to create a COVID-19 Announcements room to post messages, share resources, and easily funnel relevant information. Agents can quickly find answers to their crisis-related questions and the organization ensures the visibility of key messages.
Firms should also regularly share updates on the business. With work-remote policies enacted around the world, it’s more difficult than ever for deskless employees to feel connected. By sharing wins, celebrating team members, and keeping an open line of communication, firms can foster a greater sense of community and culture to encourage retention among their agents. Konverse chat rooms and community posts are a great option to help deskless employees feel connected, wherever they are.
Be Prepared
When navigating a crisis like the coronavirus outbreak, it can feel impossible to be completely prepared for change. However, it’s important for businesses to take the time to define a crisis communications strategy that accommodates for the short and long-term. Keeping valuable employees like your agents engaged should be at the top of the list of priorities while you design out a strategy.
Proactively offer tools that can help them do their best work (tutorials on virtual tours, for instance). With Konverse, businesses can create training rooms, embed videos, and track engagement by user to better understand which employees are at greater risk of leaving the organization when business is “back to normal.”
As the world continues to grapple with the short and long-term effects of coronavirus, the organizations that will succeed will prioritize their talent and activate a clear, centralized internal communications strategy that empowers its employees and unites its workforce.
