70% of businesses are expecting their employees to return to office by the end of 2021. Most of these employees have spent so much time under lockdown that they may have lost some skills.
The pandemic led to a rise in mental stress and anxiety. This is a problem that can find its way to the workplace. It’s essential that you improve your skills to survive in the post-pandemic workplace.
Some of the skills that you will need when you return to work are listed below.
1. Empathy
Employees and managers can build personal trust if they have personal empathy. If you’re a business leader, you need to care for your employees by working towards better employee relations. Your employees will return the favor, and this will build a cohesive team.
Although each member needs to have empathy skills, managers need to show more empathy. Consequently, managers need to know the emotional challenges of each employee. They should also know how to address these challenges when employees return to work.
2. Growth Mindset
The post-pandemic office requires a fresh outlook. You must be ready to embrace change and strive to achieve new milestones. This also involves embracing failure and being ready to pick yourself up.
The growth mindset is also important for managers. Since making mistakes is part of a growth strategy, managers must allow their employees to take risks and try new things.
Comfortable solutions shouldn’t be entertained. You should be ready to sacrifice short-term comfort for the sake of long-term rewards.
3. Better Communication
Remote working encouraged the fine-tuning of virtual communication avenues. As you go back to the office, you must improve communication skills. Therefore, you must understand the importance of eye contact, body language, and situational clues.
The aim is to achieve honesty, trust, and transparency.
You need to know how to pass across your information in a clear manner. Also, remember that good listening skills are a part of successful skills.
Returning to the office doesn’t mean that you won’t be doing remote corporate communication. You still have to communicate with clients and colleagues. As a result, you need to know how to use your voice alone to convince people.
4. Inclusivity
Learning how to work with people from diverse backgrounds is equally important. People are becoming more empowered, and it’s imperative that you understand how to make everybody feel valued. This also involves avoiding stereotypes based on race, religion, gender, or social class.
People will also have diverse political opinions. You must know how to work with people whose political opinions are different from yours.
Most businesses have an inclusive culture, but it’s individual employees who nurture this culture. Things such as taking part in regular team-building exercises can create inclusiveness.
5. Coaching
Constant coaching will be needed to reintroduce employees to the workplace. The new corporate ecosystem integrates new realities that employees must be aware of.
For instance, online service delivery is now the new norm. Physical office visits are becoming obsolete. As a result, employees must know how to deliver services via video calls.
Return to Office With the Right Skills
It’s been a hard time, but the pandemic is being brought under control. You will soon return to office, and that’s why you need the right skills. The tips we have provided above will help you get started.
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