How did social media support organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The power of social media came to light during the COVID-19 pandemic when organizations faced an unprecedented shift. It came in the form of mandated work from home, which took a toll on employee productivity and mental well-being, as everyone was isolated. During this time, social media sites became a platform to stay connected with peers and updated on the latest news and information. Nearly all social media sites amped up their features to incorporate the new business model. Moreover, the ongoing pandemic accelerated the use of online forum discussions to facilitate professionals to share industry-related insights and ways to transition to the new normal. Most organizations enhanced their presence on LinkedIn, where they promoted employees to share stories of professional and personal growth, challenges, etc. This helped everyone feel they were not alone in this. Moreover, social media has also become a preferred platform for global hiring. Additionally, many companies encouraged their employees to post their work from home pictures and videos on social media to foster a positive environment. Overall, social media has become a powerful way to promote employee well-being and connect with co-workers. Now let’s take a look at the benefits of using social media for business.

Why is social media important for your business?

Social media is an effective platform for businesses to enhance their customer reach, sales, and profit margins. It offers a myriad of benefits. Here’s a list of compelling reasons to build your brand’s social media presence right away.

Positions the organization on a global platform

There are 3.96 billion social media users as of 2022, and the number is projected to grow to 4.41 billion by 2025. Given the exponential user growth rate, no organization can ignore this as an effective tool to make a mark in the marketplace. When organizations create their social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, they inadvertently open their doors to a global audience. And as a result, they can target a larger clientele. Brands like GoPro, Nike, Spotify, Wayfair, and Starbucks are some examples that stand out in positioning their brand on the global map. Using different social media sites, one can engage with their customers, respond to their needs better, and even collaborate with the influencers to target the right audience.

Streamlines communication in a hybrid setup

The after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have split the workforce into three groups, in-office, hybrid, and remote, making collaboration a tedious process. Social media works as a bridge in these challenging situations by enabling employees to communicate effortlessly. It is faster than most traditional communication tools like email and other messaging software that have their own limitations. Furthermore, the informal nature of social media allows the Gen Zs and the millennial-led workforce to communicate seamlessly.

Leads to organic traffic and boosts sales

Social media is instrumental in getting organic traffic that eventually generates leads for businesses. Using social media analytics, businesses can target their customers by tracking their activity and also pay for sponsored ads to increase top-of-the-mind recall value. Thus, when customers plan to buy a product or service in that niche, the brand becomes their first choice. For example, people refer to Xerox when they want a photocopy and Coca-cola when they want a soft drink. In addition, brands today run attractive contests in collaboration with social media influencers and build a community that they can leverage to drive sales.

Networking with the right audience and tracking competitors

Social media helps businesses tremendously when connecting and networking with the right people. Further, it serves as an online marketplace where vendors meet their potential customers. The actionable insights provided by social media apps help brands understand their target audience, purchase history, and their buying behavior. Leveraging this data, they can approach them at the right time in their buying journey. Furthermore, businesses can run an extensive competitor analysis to determine the strengths, content type, audience engagement, gaps, and threats. They can use these insights to make data-driven decisions and amplify their social media marketing game. Along with this, even employees get a chance to connect with the professionals in their domain and gain industry knowledge.

Facilitates training and personal development for employees

The advent of remote work and online education has propelled social media apps to add a new feature to their existing suite. Popular platforms like LinkedIn learning, edWeb, Edmodo, ISTE community, and Ted-Ed have become the first preference for professional learning and career development. Employees can use their free time to access and learn more about their industry from training modules and articles shared on these platforms. Organizations also sponsor these courses for their workforce to gain a competitive advantage.

Improves employee acknowledgement and retention

Since employees are working remotely, organizations can avail social media to acknowledge their hard work. They can add their employees’ pictures with captions talking about the tangible benefits their commitment brought to the company. This fosters a sense of accomplishment amongst the employees, and they can share these posts on their profiles to enhance credibility. It also helps increase the employee retention rate because they feel valued and recognized.

Helps recruit the right talent across geographies

According to Glassdoor, 72% of people look up their jobs on social media. Using social media as a hiring medium is an ongoing trend for most organizations. Businesses can recruit from a global talent pool by leveraging their social media presence. Moreover, job seekers are more likely to apply to a company with a strong brand presence online, reflecting their work culture. One of the prime examples is the well-known food chain McDonald’s. They used Snapchat in Canada to hire employees by taking an innovative approach. They tweaked the term applications to “snaplications” to attract the Genz and millennials as they were the prime targets. Aspirants could upload a thirty-second video sharing why they want to work at the burger franchise. Organizations can implement social media to elevate employee productivity, not just business benefits. Here are some ways to get started.

Tips on using social media to enhance employee productivity

When organizations use social media wisely and strategically, it can be beneficial in improving employee productivity in the long run. Here’s how;

Formulate a personalized social media calendar

Organizations heavily invest in building their social media presence and creating content around their brand on different platforms. However, the best practice is to create a content calendar that will help employees plan their schedules ahead of time. Further, it will prevent any clash on priority and enable employees to prepare the necessary content on time. For example, if the social media team prepares three posts a week, including videos, reels, and infographics, they can schedule the posts a week prior. This will ensure better time management and productivity, helping organizations consistently keep their audience engaged.

Encourage employees to take mental breaks for a healthy work-life balance

Due to various reasons like high workload, tight deadlines, etc., employees could miss out on taking breaks. However, constant work or long working hours can lead to burnout, lowering productivity. When employees consume social media content for entertainment, it releases dopamine, which activates the brain’s pleasure and reward center. Therefore, employees are rejuvenated and return with increased enthusiasm and vigor to continue work. They can also read some inspirational stories for a productivity boost if they feel disengaged.

Create an online community for employees

Organizations can create an online community or forum on social media to help employees connect and communicate with like-minded people from their domain. They can raise questions and doubts, discuss trends, seek expert advice, and understand conceptual topics. These forums can work as a means of getting a third-party perspective on processes from professionals outside the organization. Employees can also utilize these online communities to collaborate on innovative ideas. It can expedite problem-solving, elevating productivity.

Use social media platforms for rewards and recognition

As discussed earlier, organizations can leverage social media to recognize their employees. One way is to post their story on LinkedIn, which helps boost employee morale or create a shout-out on stories and reels crediting an employee’s hard work. Sharing employee’s contribution gives them a sense of purpose as they will be able to see the conspicuous results of their efforts. It will also encourage them to work harder to attain further goals, helping them be more productive. Additionally, an enhanced feeling of joy and inclusivity will enhance employee retention.

Set clear goals and tasks for social media

Social media can increase sales and reach a target audience, but doing it unorganized can do more harm than good. Therefore, social media managers can set clear goals and objectives every month. When employees get clear information in advance, they can divide the work accordingly. Moreover, organizations can first state the objective of using social media. For example, some may use it to hire global talent, while others seek to generate leads and increase sales. Clarifying the objective before executing the social media strategy will help employees put their efforts in the right direction, thus enhancing productivity.

Conclusion

As mentioned in this blog, leveraging social platforms in the workplace the right way can contribute to employee productivity. Therefore, it’s high time organizations encouraged their employees to use social media constructively and not perceive it as a source of distraction. Coupled with best practices, the strategies mentioned above can help you put social media to the best use.

The Glossary

The Saviom Solution:

SAVIOM is the market leader in offering the most powerful and configurable solutions for managing enterprise resources efficiently and effectively. Having more than 20 years of experience, this Australian-based MNC has a global presence in over 50 countries. It is also popular with more than 100 customers and helps them achieve their business goals. SAVIOM also has products for project portfolio management, professional service automation, and workforce planning software which can be easily customized as per business requirements.

A sudden shift to teleworking compelled organizations to revisit their workflows and processes and introduce new norms to navigate seamlessly through the transition.

Businesses started forming a robust tech repository that comprised tools for collaboration, real-time project and resource management, virtual onboarding, and so on. These trends made remote working hassle-free, and both employees and organizations began to appreciate the benefits that came along the way. Subject to this, work from home became a preference from just being a mandate.

Gartner’s research states that:

Almost 50% of employees will continue to work remotely in the post-pandemic era.

This blog highlights the journey and evolution of remote work from the pre-pandemic times to the post-COVID era and the work trends that will continue to rise. Let’s begin with diving deep into the history and emergence of remote work.

Throwback to the pre-covid times & why remote work wasn’t a norm?

Multiple factors led to the resistance in adopting the remote work model. However, over time the benefits and presence of modern tools and technology overruled the concerns. Here is a glimpse of this journey:

Companies were wary of moving their data outside their premises

Due to a dearth of cybersecurity infrastructure in the previous decade, data security and privacy was a major concern. Companies were daunted by security breaches, spyware, or malware attacks during those times.

They were also concerned about hiring third-party vendors for data management because they would have less control over data in their distribution centers than over on-premise data. So, businesses refrained from moving their data or providing access to it outside their premises.

Evolution of the onsite-offshore model for non-critical activities

In an onsite-offshore model, an on-site team takes up the project, and part of the work is outsourced to off-shore teams. As the off-shore team is often from a low-cost county, it incurs fewer costs and expenses than the on-site model. At the same time, employers have the liberty to hire talent from across geographical boundaries.

Looking at the benefits, organizations took a step forward and adopted the hybrid delivery model. However, they initially started outsourcing only non-critical tasks to off-shore employees as data security concerns were still prevalent.

Creation of captives for critical activities with secured environment

While outsourcing non-critical tasks was their first step towards saving costs, organizations were yet to find a way to increase profitability. They, thus, felt the need to devise a plan to outsource critical tasks to off-shore low-cost locations in a secured manner. Eventually, they introduced the concept of captive business units.

A captive center is a client-owned service delivery center, generally in an off-shore and low-cost country. It provides service resources to the client organization.

The client unit conducts critical operations as a part of its own. Despite being performed remotely, these activities are not outsourced to the vendor’s premises. Hence, the client has better control over risks associated with intellectual property theft through advanced security measures.

Reluctance to adopt the work-from-home model

Companies thought that remote work would be a deterrent to team members’ productivity. They were also skeptical about giving autonomy to the workforce while working remotely due lack of complete trust in employees.

As employees weren’t acquainted with the work-from-home model, they also were equally hesitant to embrace it and doubted its viability. So, although access to data outside offices and outsourcing of business tasks had started, the evolution of remote work to its present form was still far.

How Covid-19 changed the global landscape of work culture?

When Covid-19 struck, worldwide lockdown, strict travel bans, import-export restrictions, etc., turned the business environment chaotic. Global business leaders had to shun their routine work culture due to mandated office shutdowns. Despite significant data security and productivity concerns, they had to resort to remote work to survive the crisis. Besides, the work culture and management practices evolved in several ways.

For instance, organizations embraced video conferencing applications like Zoom and business collaboration tools like Slack, MS Teams, etc., to streamline communication and exchange necessary documents. They also leveraged resource management tools to manage and keep track of the workforce dispersed across boundaries. Virtual onboarding and team-building sessions became part and parcel of the work culture to foster a sense of belonging and keep the team connected in a distributed workspace.

Future work trends to look out for in the post-Covid era

The mandated work from home model brought forward a myriad of workplace trends that will continue to grow even in the post-covid era. The reason is they provide end-users with multiple benefits, including workplace flexibility, reduced infrastructure costs, better work-life balance, location independence, and more.

Below is the list of the trends most likely to last in the post-Covid era due to their high utility.

Growing preference for a hybrid work model

Glassdoor’s recent survey states:

Nearly 9 in 10 employees say they would prefer remote work for part of their person-days even after offices reopen.

The fact highlights that inclination to hybrid work arrangements among employees has soared globally. Organizations are catering to this growing demand as it provides mutual benefits to both employees and employers. Businesses can save a significant amount on infrastructure, maintenance, and utility costs. At the same time, employees have the flexibility and time to fulfill their personal commitments better. When employees strike a better work-life balance, they feel valued, which directly influences their engagement level, and increases their productivity, thereby benefiting the company.

Increased importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE, &I)

As businesses moved online, companies realized that they could consider expanding beyond domestic boundaries to hire talent. Now that enterprises are hiring employees from various countries, ethnicities, and cultures, it has diversified the workplace further. Remote work emerging as the new norm has also brought about myriad job opportunities for differently-abled individuals.

Moreover, more employees bringing their expertise to the table has also opened the door for innovations. All these changes have compounded to make the working culture all-inclusive, collaborative, and high-performing. Due to all these benefits, enterprises are ready to sustain this reinforced diverse and all-inclusive culture in the future.

Higher investment in employee wellness programs than ever

Gartner’s survey finds:

Over one-fourth of the employees surveyed are mentally depressed as a result of the pandemic.

Isolation, anxiety, and a sedentary lifestyle have led to increased mental and physical health issues amongst individuals. As a result, they have become more health-conscious and started taking initiatives to lead a healthy lifestyle. This growing awareness for physical and mental well-being led organizations to revamp their employee wellness strategies accordingly.

They are offering paid-day offs, fitness sessions, career counseling, and so on. For example, Starbucks announced to provide 20 free mental health sessions every year to its U.S. employees and eligible family members.

More job opportunities for professionals from small cities/country towns

Earlier, companies would often hire all their employees to work on-premise. As their offices were typically in tier-1 cities, professionals from country towns would find it challenging to relocate there. The reasons often comprised monetary constraints, family priorities, health issues, etc. However, the upsurge of remote work has brought about a monumental shift in their careers.

As a result, remote job roles gained more impetus. Several giants like Amazon and General Motors rolled out permanent remote jobs to adapt to changing times. Small-scale businesses also followed suit. This change paved the way for more job opportunities for professionals from small cities and country towns. It, thus, provided them with a fair chance to grow in their respective careers.

Better preparedness for business continuity

One of the vital lessons that companies learned from Covid-19 is to develop business resilience alongside business efficiency. They have, therefore, started drafting a business continuity program to detect potential threats and eliminate them ahead of time with efficient strategies. They first pick critical resources in various departments, including marketing, finance, etc., to act as risk managers.

They then create a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify and quantify critical risk threat scenarios next. Next, a plan for alternative actions to mitigate the impacts of risks is formulated. For instance, a manufacturer can identify secondary suppliers to serve as backups in cases of primary supplier constraints. Finally, team members are trained to form a business continuity plan to make them resilient and ready to tackle risks head-on. They are also trained to hone their emotional intelligence, teamwork, and other soft skills to stay calm and confident during adverse situations.

Minimized operational costs by adopting cloud infrastructure

The mandated work-from-home has escalated the prominence of cloud computing. Enterprises are now looking to replace physical tech infrastructure with cloud deployment models. Cloud computing doesn’t require a large in-house IT staff solely to install, repair, and maintain storage infrastructure. It, thus, helps a company cut down on huge upfront installation and maintenance costs, unlike traditional on-premise systems.

Additionally, as cloud computing enables seamless and secure data sharing, businesses consider it a trend they can keep following. Moreover, a company can allocate IT resources to more technology-intensive tasks and align their efforts with its long-term goals to boost profitability.

Emergence of new tools to facilitate virtual team building activities

As employees are dispersed across varied geographies, the need of the hour is staying well-connected to ensure smooth functioning of the team and completion of projects. Hence, organizations are using several management tools to enhance collaboration and bring remote team members on the same page. Enterprises are also implementing tools to streamline business processes like resource management, project management, and others.

They are taking steps to keep their remote team members’ engagement levels high using virtual conferencing tools like Zoom and Skype for team-building sessions. Further, virtual employee recognition programs and celebration events are being held extensively to enhance communication, strengthen relations, and develop a sense of belonging to raise productivity.

Conclusion

The Covid-19 outbreak forced companies to rethink their organizational framework and policies and adopt new work culture trends. It also re-emphasized the importance of focusing on not just business efficiency but also resilience to stay afloat amid a crisis.

Over time, they experienced that the adopted work trends are the best fit for the “new normal” post-Covid. So, while things may have started becoming normal again, large-scale work culture shifts and trends are here to stay.

What workplace trends would you follow post-Covid?

The Glossary

The SAVIOM Solution

SAVIOM has over 20 years of experience helping multinational clients manage their resources efficiently and effectively. With over 20 years of experience, this Australian-based MNC has a global presence across 50 countries and has helped 100+ clients meet their specific business goals. Saviom also provides tools for project portfolio management, professional service automation, and workforce planning software. So, SAVIOM can help your business to establish an efficient system geared towards your specific business challenges.

According to recent Gartner research, “By 2030, the demand for remote work will increase by 30% as Gen Z will enter the workforce.”

While working from a brick-and-mortar office space, employees had the privilege to socialize at cafeterias, office desks, or work events. However, with the rise of remote work, communication and bonds between colleagues are slowly becoming strained. Therefore, organizations need to keep their virtual teams aligned with company culture while ensuring their productivity.

As rightly quoted by Bang Gae, “teamwork makes the dream work,” companies must organize virtual team building activities that leverage team empowerment and employee engagement. It includes weekly activities, happy hours, coffee meetings, virtual games sessions, and fun challenges. These practices reinforce employee morale, strengthen team connections, and maximize productivity.

This article will cover some best practices and benefits of virtual team building activities.

Let’s begin with understanding what exactly is virtual team building.

What is Virtual Team Building?

Virtual team building is a continuous process of bringing remote teams together and creating bonds with teammates through various communication technologies in a similar office environment. Since communication is not in person, trust and transparency are crucial.

Virtual team building activities require specific initiatives to be taken by the team leaders to keep the team on the same page. 

For example; Virtual lunch can replicate cafeteria lunch, casual coffee meetups, video streaming, stress busters games, and more. It helps teams connect personally by bringing human interaction to virtual work.

Now that we know the basics let’s understand different benefits in more detail here.

Benefits of virtual team building activities for remote teams

Regular virtual team building activities help your workforce quickly adapt to a new remote work lifestyle. It helps minimize the negative impact of online workplace cultures, such as the inability to separate work time from personal time, loneliness, and the added stress of a global health crisis.

According to Gallup research, “Virtual team building activities lead to an increase in employee performance rate, claiming 41% lower absenteeism and 21% higher profitability.”

Here is how virtual team building activities can benefit you:

Boosts Employees’ Morale

Constantly pushing teams to deliver work and adhere to deadlines can cause disengagement and burnout. Thus the ideal team leader must encourage the team to function cohesively by conducting virtual team building activities such as group discussions, online meetings, brainstorming, casual meetup, and more. These team bonding practices empower the team with positive reinforcement and make them feel valued.

It aids in developing mutual respect amongst employees, boosts employee morale, and eliminates internal conflicts.

Promotes Workforce Collaboration

Projects cannot succeed without team efforts as most tasks are interdependent and demand coordination between the resources. In a concrete workspace, it is easier for team collaboration. But when employees are working virtually, it gets challenging to align the team with the project’s progress. There are greater chances of discrepancies in communication.

Therefore, conducting virtual team building drills proves beneficial. It helps employees stay connected with coworkers and promotes them to work cohesively. It also makes resources aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses and enables them to coordinate and complete tasks according to their competence, saving time and additional effort.

Supports Innovation Management

Innovation is a key to gaining a business advantage in the competitive industry. Virtual team building is a medium to bring all employees under one roof,  promote creativity, brainstorm, and foster innovation. When there are multiple perspectives, any idea can lead to a breakthrough innovation for a firm.

The innovation management strategy will boost team collaboration and allow people to interact, share, and receive constructive feedback. When employees look at an issue or challenge through the lens of innovation, they become more involved in achieving the company’s long-term goals.

Increases Productivity

When teams are siloed, chances are they don’t have a clear work direction which can lead to lower productivity. But virtual team building activities allow team leaders to explain organization goals with utmost clarity.

When employees have a sense of purpose, it motivates them to work with all their might to reach the goal. It, in turn, results in improving the resource pool’s performance index without any form of employee burnout.

Encourage Versatility

Several organizations now demand a versatile workforce to respond quickly and effectively to ever-changing developments. Thus, organizing team-building activities enhances resource skills and expertise in more than one discipline. It is also a safe zone for employees to try new tasks and make mistakes without the fear of repercussions.

technology, and people.

Reinforce Positive Work Culture

Using the diligent intuitive tool, organizations can ensure that remote teams have clear insight and visibility of all ongoing work. It will make all team members accountable for producing quality work.

Regular office catch-ups, work-related discussions all lead to a significant influence on employees, thereby reinforcing positive workplace cultures. Virtual team building games, lunch or a coffee break, book/music clubs, contest nights, virtual happy hours, birthday celebrations can boost positive work culture in an organization.

Build Diverse Relationships

The best work culture leverages resources from different time zones, embraces diversity (cultural/gender/race difference), and celebrates it. Thus, virtual team building activities help organizations build meaningful relationships and connections among geographically distributed teams and develop cross-generational relationships. It exposes virtual teams to new ways of working across boundaries through systems, processes, technology, and people.

The advantages of team-building activities are substantial. Let’s now look at some of the best practices that support virtual team-building with it.

Best Practices For Virtual Team-building

Team leaders can avail the benefits of the virtual work environment and promote team bonding  by following some tips given below: 

Regular check-ins & feedback with teammates

It is easy to check in on employees in traditional workspaces and keep a tab on their work rate by just visiting their cubicles. However, it gets challenging when the team is dispersed across boundaries. Managers must therefore make it a point to conduct regular check-ins with employees. It will help resources enhance their performance and get a clear picture of the process and scope of improvement from their perspective.

Aside from support, most managers’ and employees’ critical need is to find a shared understanding of what work to prioritize. The one-on-one conversation with employees will help managers understand how best to support employee’s work, productivity, growth, and success.

Foster virtual water-cooler chats

From casual office breaks to impromptu chats at a colleague’s desk, physical office space provided several opportunities for interaction with colleagues. To replicate this experience, managers can schedule virtual water-cooler discussions weekly where team members can indulge in a casual conversation or icebreaker questions over a cup of tea or coffee.

These simple yet effective initiatives can positively impact remote employees’ mental well-being and help them feel less isolated.

Conduct employee wellness programs

Employees are struggling to embrace the sudden shift of virtual work culture due to the challenging times of pandemic. As both of these factors have a significant impact on employees’ wellbeing, companies should consider investing in 3 domains of wellbeing initiatives, i.e., mental, physical, and social wellbeing.

Companies can provide wellness packages to employees and introduce the concept of mindfulness. Other supports include free and accessible counseling for mental well-being in remote employees, reimbursement for fitness activities, etc., to address employee’s stress, work concerns, and challenges.

Provide Recognition and Awards

Team leaders can deliver praise and acknowledgment to well-performing employees by providing recognition and awards. The recognition awards such as employee of the month, team hero, etc., will boost employee morale and motivate others to perform better in tasks.

Beyond financial incentives, other perks for employees can include online training, workspace upgrades, a wellness package, technology allowances, etc. It will make everyone aware of the performance expectations and drive them to take ownership of their work.

Conduct Daily Stand-ups

Regardless of whether the team is working remotely across different geographical boundaries or co-located, organizing daily stand-ups will bring all employees to the same page. A short, consistent, and focused daily stand-up will align resources on the highest priority tasks before the day starts. The success of any stand-up meeting depends on team participation and effective communication. People can move in sync only when everyone is aware of the team’s objectives, project deadlines, and team member availability.

Conclusion

In a post-pandemic world, most companies are considering remote work culture as a permanent option. The employees can save significant travel time while the organizations can cut down on expensive real-estate costs. If the activities are well-coordinated, it can be a win-win for both parties.

Thus, team-building drills can help organizations to prepare their workforce during this impromptu work transition period. It is known to be more effective when it is intentional and has a purpose as it transcends cultural and physical barriers. It also allows employees to participate without typical corporate hierarchies and across diverse geographical boundaries.

In a nutshell, team-building activities are essential to building a stable remote workforce for any business. By creating a fun and collaborative virtual environment where transparent communications are encouraged, you can help your team thrive and gain business profitability, even when they’re working virtually.

What are the key team-building practices you have adopted for your virtual employees?

The Glossary

The SAVIOM Solution

SAVIOM is the market leader in offering the most powerful and configurable solutions for managing enterprise resources efficiently and effectively. Having more than 20 years of experience, this Australian-based MNC has a global presence in over 50 countries. It is also popular with more than 100 customers and helping them to achieve their business goals. SAVIOM also has products for project portfolio management, professional service automation, and workforce planning software which can be easily customized as per business requirements.