I think we can all agree that the records management environment and the working from home movement have undergone a metamorphosis with the Covid-19 pandemic. People now realize that they should have converted their physical records to an electronic format years ago. What was everyone’s decision process in not scanning their documents? Possibly they thought that it costs too much to move physical records to a paperless state. Or the mindset was that records could be accessed with relative convenience from the file room or retrieved from offsite storage.
The argument then comes down to cost versus convenience. The cost to scan records can be high; however, compared to the business expenses of retrieving records in Covid times, these scanning costs are far less high. This new way of working from home incurs unforeseen operational costs and possible loss of client trust that your company can access documents efficiently – or at all.
Let’s look at a couple of additional areas that have morphed with the pandemic:
- Personal Coaching – Going to the office had allowed junior employees to get face-to-face coaching and/or counsel from seniors and leaders. It is now far more difficult to set standards and goals for employees over a zoom call and offer proper mentoring. The void created by losing personal interactions has set employees back significantly in receiving valuable coaching.
- Lack of Growth – Lack of personnel coaching has also stunted professional development. If you imagined becoming a senior manager at your company, you might find yourself a couple of years behind expectations. Being at the office, interacting daily with the decision-makers and your co-workers provided a way to measure where you are in the company. In today’s environment, you may only get information third hand or from virtual meeting perceptions.
- Full-Time Employment – Positions that used to be full-time are now shifting to part-time or may even be designated as projects. This limits the employees’ ability to excel in a specific area or gain needed experience in your field.
- To Work and How to Work – This seems to be the question for millions of the employed and unemployed. It is becoming apparent that work is no longer the most crucial aspect of one’s life. People realize they can effectively work from home, in any location, and have a personal life. Employees also realize that they have much more control over how and where they work.
- Covid Timeline – We hear in the news of new variants to Covid and that it’s not going away anytime soon. This is extending the dates that most businesses will fully re-open their offices and workspaces. Many major corporations have granted their staff the opportunity to work from home indefinitely.
What can we do? We must start transforming the way we manage and how we work. Make extra efforts to meet with and mentor your employees in order that they feel part of the company and have opportunities to grow. This could be a separate Zoom call or simply meeting for a one-to-one coffee. Find new ways to accommodate employees working from home and make it easier for them. This can be as simple as making paper files digital and having a well-organized ‘digital office’ where it is easy to access company and client information.
It won’t be easy, but as Janet Dickens stated, “The wings of transformation are born of patience and struggle.”
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