The global pandemic has required us all to re-evaluate our personal and professional lives with a new perspective. Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on our world, leaving in its wake: death, permanent disability, loss of livelihoods, a worldwide mental health crisis, and too many tragedies to adequately capture in words.
While we continue to face these ever-present challenges, we are reminded of how truly connected we are as a global community. While the virus spread rapidly across the globe, so did kindness and the resilience of the human spirit.
Employers are now presented with new opportunities to capitalize on including:
The Employee Experience: Employers can support employees as they navigate through difficult times. There can be a renewed employer willingness to listen to what matters most to employees and an openness to explore modifications to company practices so that employees may successfully emerge from the pandemic with solid physical and emotional health.
Flexibility: Employers can give employees the gift of time to balance their professional responsibilities and personal lives to help alleviate pandemic burnout as well as improve job satisfaction levels.
Prioritizing Employee Wellness: Employers who help employees manage their work-life balance will strengthen their partnerships with employees. Working together to come up with creative solutions to prevent and alleviate burnout will strengthen employees’ immune systems, improve their daily outlook, and equally as important, it will position employees for greater success in meeting clients’ needs.
Remote Workforce Opportunities: Employers have a real opportunity to think bigger. There is an opportunity to cast a wider net globally when searching for employee and business partner talent. Achieve Accreditation is excited to be launching several new staff business partnerships in the coming months across more states, in Mexico, and in England. The world somehow seems smaller thanks to the enhanced acceptance of technologies like Zoom. Other business technology advances also allow us to have virtual real time workspaces, enabling opportunities for collaboration with individuals across the globe to create more creative business solutions. This “wider net” thinking will allow us as a company to strengthen our efforts to be more purposeful in seeking out diversity and inclusion. Companies stand to learn and grow when the work environment fosters the creation of ideas and solutions from a variety of backgrounds.
Charles Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The global pandemic certainly hits the mark for the worst of times. Employers owe it to themselves, their employees, and their clients to look for “pearls of opportunities” to establish positive changes and workplace stability, despite the uncertainty of these difficult times.
Kathleen O’Connor, MA is President & Founder of Achieve Accreditation. Achieve Accreditation has helped skilled nursing providers and assisted living organizations to obtain and maintain their Joint Commission Accreditation for over 30 years.