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      Post-COVID Office Perks to Attract New Talent

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      2020 shook us all, with a pandemic that turned our working world upside down. Employers have had to shift to an office design that accommodates social distancing, but they’re also bringing in new office perks to help make the transition back to the office more inviting for new and existing talent, and better for their employees’ wellness as well as productivity. Let’s take a look at how to make your office more inviting to new recruits.
      Office pods
      Social distancing is paramount for COVID-secure office space and the office pod helps with this greatly. Employees can be separated from one another in their own breakout spaces in pods to get on with tasks. Cell pods allow workers to see through their glass pods, have doors open or shut, so they’re not totally shut off but can still practice social distancing and separation.
      Instagrammable areas
      This speaks mainly to the Gen Z and millennials that are on Instagram, making daily updates, always capturing quirky design, meals, or fun businesses. Offices are changing to provide perks that will attract and entice employees to choose them over other companies in competitive job markets. Areas with fun design, abstract interior, quirky stencil wall art, biophilic decor, or even unique, modern sofas and funky corners are capture-worthy. Don’t be afraid to be different in your office design, add originality and fun with those instagrammable pieces.
      Nick Pollitt, Managing Director of office refurbishment company, Diamond Interiors, says that a place of work isn’t just that anymore:

      “Long gone are the days of cubicles, beige walls, and the nine to five. Nowadays workplaces are fun, dynamic, and have a strong focus on perks and benefits. When dealing with staff, whether they’ve been with you for years or are having their first interview, you have to make a good impression on them as much as the other way around.
      Making your office an aesthetically pleasing place is just as important as getting the work done and going home on time. So if you want to attract and keep the best talent, make sure you make your office an enjoyable place to be.”

      Relaxation rooms
      Whether it’s an office library, a hygge room, or a simple chillout room, companies are seeing the benefits of giving employees space to relax for breaks, lunches, or for times they may need to separate and work quietly. These are perfect for showing a high consideration for staff mental health and wellness.
      Games rooms
      A great office perk to have is a games room. You don’t need to go all out, it could be simply providing a games console, TV, and some comfy office sofas. But, to make it top-level, add some quirky games features like mini snooker tables, desk games, ping pong tables, and puzzles – even a fun jigsaw puzzle.
      Social spaces
      These can be integrated with games rooms but also can be areas where you allow staff to be a little more social. In a post-COVID working environment, it’s all about guidance, policies, and signposting. Make sure to keep clear signs and symbols to show where is off-limits, for instance, mark off where seating is off-limits to maintain social distancing. A social space may have newspapers, magazines, and reading materials to help with social work conversations, especially materials that are niche to certain industries.
      Lee Chambers, an environmental psychologist and wellbeing consultant, stresses how beneficial office perks like games rooms and social spaces are to employees’ mental health:

      “The allow employees to disconnect from role-related tasks and take a break, allowing them to connect more fully to the next task when they return. It also facilitates non-work-related communication, which is an essential element of social connection and workplace relationships. Social spaces can also reduce stress, allowing employees to move from their desk and change the scene.”

      Positive effects on staff
      As Chambers points out, the mental effects of office perks are extremely positive for staff – enabling them to reconnect with each other and build healthy working relationships. He also understands how they work in sync with improved productivity. For instance, social spaces and rooms for activities “create an important break in our working patterns that allow us to remove ourselves from cognitive work tasks and regenerate, so we have the ability to return to work with more focus, concentration, and energy.”
      Chambers goes on to highlight that office perks, or rather employers who value them, allow “employees who may not often get to talk a chance to connect”. They also come with creative, productive benefits as “many innovative ideas have come from a workplace social as the typical barriers of work are eroded. These relationship links forge greater company morale, give employees a feeling of connection and purpose outside of work, and give employees something to anticipate and look forward to.”
      There’s no doubt that 2021 is going to be unlike any year we’ve experienced so far. The only thing we can do is make the most of it and try to work as efficiently and safely as possible. What do you think of these 2021 office trends?

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      What Should Your Holiday Work Celebration Look Like This Year?

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      Hard as it is to believe, 2020 is finally drawing to a close. The year has brought more challenges than expected, and most are far from over. But as the holidays approach, many are looking forward to a much-needed break, spending time with friends and family, and recovering from the most mentally fatiguing year in…
      What Should Your Holiday Work Celebration Look Like This Year? Undercover Recruiter – More

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      Adapt or Fail: Why Employers Need to Redesign their Workplace Culture

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      The Coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed the way people live and work — forcing British businesses to pivot to new, digital, and remote ways of working. But, while many of these continue to manage, how many will truly thrive in the months – and perhaps years – to come?
      Today, as many companies pass the eight-month mark of remote working, and with no clear end in sight, working from home is no longer the exception, it’s the rule. But despite the advantages remote working has to offer, our latest research revealed that ‘hidden fractures’ are emerging among workforces, which risk causing irreparable damage to cultures and productivity.
      To ensure their businesses remain resilient – and prevent them from being permanently held back – it’s clear that employers need to take a proactive approach to manage and, in some cases repair, their workplace culture. The time to take action and rethink the employee experience is now; and here are four things employers should focus on:
      Design for remote
      First and foremost, business leaders need to design for remote. Indeed, when it comes to creating a positive company culture – that’s vital for a stable workforce – the same old tactics that were used pre-pandemic won’t work. Employers need to redesign the employee experience to ensure that people feel supported and connected with other team members as well as part of the same experience, wherever they are.
      For instance, just because your workforce isn’t together in the office, it doesn’t mean you can’t create meaningful experiences at key moments in employee life-cycles – at a distance. That could involve providing a new hire with a starter pack and a virtual buddy during onboarding, sending a bottle of fizz to newly promoted staff, or bringing the team together virtually to give a heartfelt farewell to a colleague who’s leaving. If effectively supported, these key moments can positively shape sentiment towards employers, roles, and colleagues.
      Continuously build familiarity
      When people are working in the office, familiarity — that is, feeling part of a team and being able to talk to colleagues and be heard — helps breed successful teamwork and a trust-based culture. But with everyone working from home, it’s easy for relationships to become momentary and transactional — a short video call here or an instant-message there, followed by weeks of nothing. And yet, familiarity is a critical outcome of employee experience, so businesses need to find new ways to weave it into every touchpoint.
      In our research we found that things like recognition for work well-done (33%) and being able to access support and guidance when needed (31%) aren’t just ‘nice to haves’ — they are the most important elements for creating a next-level workplace culture. When these are absent, the workplace culture is viewed as negative – and trust levels nosedive.
      But it doesn’t have to be this way – employers can continue to build and nurture relationships and instill a sense of familiarity by other means. Digital culture platforms, for example, could offer the solution many are looking for. These allow employers to create a space – outside of work channels – dedicated to building culture and familiarity, that all employees can participate in, as and when they please. If they’re to re-create familiarity in their remote workforce, businesses need to think differently and innovatively about how they can keep workplace connections alive and drive meaningful conversations and interaction.
      Strengthen employee networks
      As much as relationship-building is important, it’s also vital to nurture and support the development of peer networks that employees are reliant on for support, guidance, and reassurance. In fact, the cracks in networks are already starting to show, with 51% of employees saying they feel it’s harder to reach out for help from teammates when working from home. This should be a key concern for employers because when employees feel unable to lean on their peers for support and guidance, they can become increasingly anxious and more reliant on their Line Managers as a result. This, in turn, can create pressure points within the organization, causing productivity to plummet.
      Pre-pandemic, peer networks that extended outside of work teams were commonplace – something that has been altered by home-working. At a time when many people feel less visible and connected, it’s clear that businesses need to re-examine their remote working models and create the right channels to ensure employees feel seen, heard, supported, and trusted – and to help them to connect and thrive.
      One way to do this is by celebrating and acknowledging employee wins and achievements in a way that is long-lasting and is seen and heard by everyone across the business. Whether it’s highlighting their achievements over a company-wide video call or updating the team on a digital newsfeed that can be read by the whole organization, employees will feel recognized and appreciated. It’s by adopting these types of creative culture initiatives that employers can help remote workers to feel more ingrained in their business and encourage a more positive and connected workplace culture, no matter where employees are working.
      Measure and track culture
      Finally, in order for employers to effectively keep their finger on the pulse of workplace culture, it’s critical that they measure employee experience and culture. But traditional employee surveys aren’t necessarily the best option, as they’re often slow to implement and can cause survey fatigue when overused. Instead, managers and business leaders should look for ways to harness real-time and consistent culture analytics. By implementing pulse surveys more intelligently (and less frequently) they can benchmark measurements and use findings to help build and maintain an effective and happy remote workforce.
      For many organizations, returning full-time to an office is unlikely to happen any time soon and we believe that in the longer-term many companies will embrace hybrid working practices, as employees look to get the best of both worlds during their working week. But whether businesses are planning for it or not, it’s important to realize that remote working is here to stay, and not just in the short term. In order to protect their workplace culture and their company, employers need to redesign their thinking and adapt their employee experience to this new reality. Those that fail to evolve risk being held back and those that embrace the change will stay one step ahead, now and in the future.
      By Marcus Thornley, CEO of Totem.

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      What Your WFH Team Really Needs: Unstructured Interaction

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      New research suggests the problems with work from home (WFH) don’t emerge because employees are no longer co-located. Its weaknesses arise when leaders fail to create an unstructured connection.
      In August 2020, we surveyed 2,300 executives and employees who were abruptly thrust from the workplace due to COVID-19. The results question the long-held pessimism that virtual technologies can promote the frequent informal interaction needed to generate social capital—a measure of the healthy functioning of social systems. We see hopeful evidence that virtual tech can be used not just for working, but for creating a connection.
      We’ve known communication technologies are adequate for structured interaction. Need to get a geographically dispersed team to develop a budget? A 1980s-style conference call worked fine. Want your team to critique a marketing plan? A 2015-era video conference is terrific. But what we never found a way to do with these technologies was to promote unstructured interaction that reliably produces deep human bonds.
      Unstructured interaction is free-form contact that promotes exploration, social learning, and social connection. Research shows it’s a critical ingredient of high-performance organizations. Much of the trust you might develop during a stressful product launch comes from unplanned moments where you show colleagues a prized video of your daughter scoring a goal, or when you share a special headache recipe with a coworker who is repeatedly rubbing her head.
      Because few have historically used virtual communications to consistently promote this kind of interaction, we’ve assumed it couldn’t be done. That’s how we came to assume that the only way to create a deep connection is to pass pizza over a cubicle wall.
      The Office is a Way, Not the Way
      We found tremendous social capital can be generated if leaders match new social technologies with virtual technologies. The limiting factor has never been distance, it has been an absence of innovation in social rituals that create similar effects on proximity.
      What worked about the office was that it was a highly structured way of promoting unstructured interaction. It gave the illusion of agency to our spontaneous connection. But in reality, those “chance” happenings were always engineered. We were required to arrive at 8 am, have lunch at noon, and work where we were assigned. And it worked. Like marbles in a bowl, our contact with each other was not elective.
      Leaders in organizations that have thrived in recent months understand that WFH demands more than substituting conference calls for conference rooms. They are experimenting aggressively to create new norms and rituals for unstructured interaction. For example, here’s how one leader promotes unstructured virtual contact:
      “Every morning at 9:30, my team meets [online] for a ‘Check-in’ to make sure everyone is okay. Initially, it was very work-focused. Now it has become a time to share personal stories, give tours of our homes, see each other’s families, have our morning coffee together… If anyone is upset, we show compassion. If anyone needs help, we provide assistance. If anyone has a success, we celebrate. [We] have really come together as people who care about each other…”
      Similar to office-based rituals, everyone must arrive at the same virtual location at the same time. From there, the agenda is loose and social. But the result is deepening feelings of connection and trust.
      When we asked respondents what tactics leaders used to offset WFH challenges, we found that leaders in healthy organizations went beyond the obvious interventions like altering work hours or offering flex-time policies, and were far more likely to use:
      Fun, off-the-wall virtual events (virtual dance parties, online eating contests, etc.).
      More frequent team meetings.
      Scheduled non-work-related team meetings for team members to connect.
      Notice what these have in common—they enable not just structured, but unstructured interaction. And their social capital effects were strikingly different, showing a two to four times greater impact on social capital than offering a more generous flex time policy.
      This study provides early evidence that leaders need not choose between developing a high-performance culture and allowing home-based work. It may be possible to have both, provided leaders to take responsibility to embed new rituals that provide an ample mix of structured and unstructured interaction.
      Joseph Grenny is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and leading social scientist for business performance. He is the co-founder of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and leadership development.

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      Why Visual Representations of Diversity Aid an Inclusive Work Environment

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      The workplace is where we spend most of our lives. Shouldn’t it, therefore, be a place where we can bring our whole selves to work without the fear of facing discrimination based on our ethnicity, culture, gender, age, or sexual orientation? Shouldn’t the workplace include, celebrate, and represent people from all walks of life? Unfortunately,…
      Why Visual Representations of Diversity Aid an Inclusive Work Environment Undercover Recruiter – More

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      How to Deal with Changing COVID-19 Regulations

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      Research shows nearly half the population has reported feeling worried and stressed since the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic earlier this year.
      With new health and safety measures at work to familiarise yourself with, constantly changing government regulations, and the future of the physical workplace remaining unclear, it’s hardly a surprise the mental health of both employers and their staff has deteriorated.
      The effects of seasonal changes can be profound too. the length of daylight, the intensity of the sunlight, and how and where we spend our time can all impact our mental health.
      It’s common for people to feel more tired, unmotivated, and depleted in the colder months. Anxiety may also increase as these changes can create an unsettled response in the human body.
      I discuss the best employee mental health support businesses can provide to help individuals struggling with uncertainty.
      How uncertainty affects mental health
      ‘Is my job safe?’ ‘Will my pay be reduced?’ ’Will I be back in the office soon?” ‘Will we be in lockdown again?’
      The ongoing pandemic has contributed to many questions being raised, which we are yet to still find answers to – especially where the workplace is concerned. Because of this many are finding uncertainty more uncomfortable, especially as some employees now face uncertainty regarding multiple aspects of their lives, which may have previously felt within their control.
      Of course, nothing in life is entirely certain but for some, the current situation has triggered uncomfortable emotions and scientific research suggests it’s important businesses have strategies in place to support employees with uncertainty’s psychological and physical impact on the body.
      Research suggests there is a link between high intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive difficulties. Uncertainty can also have a physical impact on the body due to the ongoing impact of stress hormones.
      The physical effect includes impaired memory, diabetes, digestive functioning and impact on our cardiovascular system
      How can businesses provide the right emotional support for staff?
      Employee benefits propositions should be designed and updated with emotional support in mind, giving staff access to the tools they need to cope during stressful or uncertain periods.
      The emotional impact of COVID-19 on each employee will be different and the support on offer from employers should reflect this. However, worryingly, a recent survey revealed that only 15 percent of employers had asked staff to identify their needs during this difficult time.
      Understanding the workforce is therefore essential and enables employers to tailor the most useful benefits proposition. This means getting to know employees through surveys, online forums, and one-to-one chats, recognizing their needs and priorities.
      Offerings should include a combination of services that give employees access to specialists with whom they can discuss their difficulties and learn positive coping mechanisms.
      Highlight existing workplace offerings like employee assistance programs (EAPs) which offer direct, confidential contact with counselors and mental health experts.
      You could also consider inviting an expert to give a company talk on general coping mechanisms for anxiety. This may help those who are worried about speaking to managers or employers about their fears.
      If face-to-face offerings aren’t currently possible, telephone or online CBT sessions are useful in helping employees tackle unhelpful thinking patterns or in learning practical coping techniques. Consider investing in online workshops or webinars, which can assist everyone in recognizing signs of stress and equip them with the confidence and skills to support others.
      For example, emotional literacy training is an effective tool for boosting employee resilience by ensuring staff has a common language to discuss mental health.
      At Nuffield Health, over 12,000 employees (of 16,000) have successfully completed emotional literacy training. Following this training, 94 percent said they’d feel confident supporting a colleague showing signs of emotional distress.
      In conjunction, we also offer Mental Health Awareness training workshops. This develops Mental Health Champions in the workplace, who, in combination with line managers, are empowered to raise understanding around mental wellbeing and to help others access the right support at the right time.
      It’s also important to ensure connectivity for members of staff who are still self-isolating or if businesses remain working from home. Those continuing with prolonged remote working may face psychological hazards linked to increased loneliness and isolation.
      Supporting employees with remote therapy of their choosing, either by video, phone, or email, provides an additional expert support network while away from their colleagues.
      By Brendan Street, Professional Head of Emotional Wellbeing, Nuffield Health.

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      Fresh Perspectives for Post-Pandemic Working

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      Forecasting like the weather is fraught with difficulty, but at least the Met Office has decades of data, advanced modeling technology all combined with huge experience. Forecasting the future of work, how people will work, and what the workplace will look like – in the context of a global pandemic – is completely unprecedented. A bit like trying to foresee a hurricane making landfall at Hastings.
      Certainly, offices will not die nor disappear, but the experience of the past few months has seen a huge behavioral change, particularly during the hard lockdown. The proven viability of working remotely at scale means the way we work and the way we use offices needs to adapt.  But, before jumping into solutions-mode, we should recognize technology-driven change was already in train. Over the last decade, it has resulted in a massive shift from fixed to fluid. Covid-19 has added fuel to the fire. It is the single greatest change accelerator in the world of work, and the domain of real estate, for more than 100 years.
      To help readers of Undercover Recruiter gain some fresh perspectives; I suggest that the following thoughts may help re-shape your views on work, the workforce, and the workplace. They are all premised on my core belief that whatever emerges post-COVID-19 it will be much more people-centric than ever before.
      1. There may not be ‘a new normal’.
      A reservoir of printer’s ink has been expended on the discourse of returning to work and getting back to a new normal. I wonder are we looking at this through blinkers? The winds of massive change in terms of how we work were already starting to gust before the pandemic. Working away from the office has severely dented the Principle of Presenteeism, the last bastion of traditional management; which strengthens these winds to gale force. I believe we are facing a new reality which calls for a lot of fresh thinking about how we do things.
      2. Are we seeing only part of the picture in the current debate about the merits of office versus home/remote working?
      In recent months the bi-polar debate of working from home versus a return to the office has attracted a host of media commentary. Yet I suggest that this debate is only part of the picture. The pandemic enforced experiment of working beyond the confines of the traditional office demonstrates that we now have a real choice about where and when we work.  It has also raised many other questions.
      3. Can we move away from our fixation on the physical aspect of work and see the wood for the trees.
      Whilst there is much to commend the office in terms of collaboration, creativity, and the social aspects of how we work, we do need to revisit its overall purpose. The key question in my mind is the fixed nature of the pre-pandemic system – everything revolved around a fixed physical place with four walls. What about the potential of multiple workplace dimensions rather than the traditional either/or choice – the office or work from home?  Can we think about alternative ways of how we carry out office-type work today?
      4. Now is the time to shift to outcomes-focused work.
      Surely, we can all recognize the benefits to be derived from alternative working practices which, in themselves, can produce meaningful outcomes and measurable impact – irrespective of the physical space where people are working.
      5. Do we need to join the dots?
      The propensity for silo thinking and ‘protecting our own turf’ prevails in lots of organizations. Has the time arrived to break down these barriers?  In the interest of coming up with a more sustainable and sensible view of the convergence of work, the workforce, and the workplace.
      6. Necessity is the mother of all invention.
      We have all been forced to change in 2020, and I wonder could we discover new or different ways of doing things?  The nature of work and how we use both spaces and places have been fundamentally affected by the crisis and a return to the old world is unlikely.  By using this time to think and reflect, could we invent some fresh thinking about workplaces, work, and the workforce?
      Our world is changing, work is changing; therefore, the built environment needs to adjust. Now is the time to re-set, re-assess and re-imagine.  But it will be much wider than just buildings as I said at the start, it will all be about the talent and their new-found choice.  I think we are seeing not an era of change, but the change of an era.
      Where is My Office?: Reimagining the Workplace for the 21st Century by Chris Kane, in collaboration with Eugenia Anastassiou, is published by Bloomsbury Business on 15 October 2020. Available at Bloomsbury.com and at all good bookshops.

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      How Can Oversharing in Job Interviews Damage Your Prospects?

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      Everybody has that one talkative friend who is always guilty of oversharing. What they did over the weekend, what they’re doing next weekend, what they had for dinner, who they’re dating – it can be exhausting hanging out with them, or even reading their social media posts, due to the onslaught of information they always feel the need to provide. But they’re our friends, so we forgive them for monopolizing conversations and clogging up our Facebook feed.
      Some of us may even be guilty ourselves. Perhaps you’re the chatty one, and love being the center of attention in social circles. For job seekers, being an extrovert can serve them well, as those who are outgoing are known to have an advantage in the workplace. However, while being a people person might give employees an edge when climbing the corporate ladder, job seekers should be wary of coming across too verbose in interviews. Though sharing information is a necessary part of the job application process, oversharing could cost candidates the job. Let’s look at a few reasons.
      Bad First Impression
      A job interview is meant to be an exchange of information. Interviewers want to get to know candidates, asking them several questions in order to determine their fit for the role and organization. Candidates in turn share information about their job history and relevant work experience. When a candidate talks too much in an interview, it causes the interviewer to feel as though he or she has lost control of the situation, which should never happen. While candidates should feel free to be themselves, they should let the interviewer control the direction of the interview in order to gain the information they seek.
      Lack of Respect
      Interviewers are usually on a tight schedule and must interview multiple candidates in addition to their daily responsibilities. Job seekers who monopolize the conversation show a disregard for the interviewer’s agenda and disrespect for their time. If the meeting nears its end and the interviewer still hasn’t gleaned the information needed to accurately evaluate the candidate for the position, it puts them in the awkward position of having to run late to their next appointment or end the interview without the facts they require to make a hiring decision.
      Lack of Focus
      The main purpose of a job interview is to evaluate candidates, and an experienced interviewer knows what questions to ask to determine which candidate would be the best fit for the role and company. However, if candidates are easily distracted and have trouble staying on topic when answering questions about their work history or qualifications, the interviewer might have concerns regarding their ability to focus on assigned tasks or complete projects within deadlines once hired. While sharing personal stories and examples can be helpful in interviews, candidates should keep them brief and ensure they’re relevant to the interviewer’s questions. If the interviewer then requires more information, he or she will ask.
      Confidentiality Concerns
      Running a successful business involves handling confidential information. This may include company sales figures, employee salaries, client details, etc. Nearly all employees above entry-level encounter some type of information that should not be shared outside the company. If candidates show a lack of restraint in sharing irrelevant stories or personal details during a job interview, this may be seen as a red flag regarding their ability to maintain confidentiality when given access to sensitive company information. Interviews are a good time to start building trust with employers. In addition to sharing personal information requested by the interviewer, candidates should also demonstrate they know when not to share.
      Social Media Behavior
      Oversharing isn’t just limited to face-to-face conversations; it can also occur online. Too much has already been written about social media etiquette, and most job seekers know that they will likely be judged by their online behavior. In fact, according to a recent CareerBuilder survey, 70 percent of employers use social media sites to screen job candidates before hiring, and seven percent plan to start. If an employer finds dozens of frivolous social media posts while researching a prospective employee, this could prove damaging to the candidate’s personal brand, regardless of whether he or she deems the content “appropriate.” Candidates should remember that social media posts don’t have to be lewd or profane to jeopardize their job prospects.
      In nearly every role and industry, success requires being aware of one’s surroundings and acting appropriately. Job interviews are the first step toward career success, giving employers the chance to observe and evaluate candidates’ behavior. Though they may think they’re just being friendly, candidates who love talking a little too much may make a poor first impression in job interviews. However, those who demonstrate to the interviewer that they know when to talk and when to listen, and how to answer questions directly and succinctly, are more likely to make a stronger first impression, leading to a positive interview outcome.

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