These are testing times. The pandemic continues to sweep the globe with new variants of the coronavirus being discovered regularly, launching novel assaults on struggling healthcare systems, sabotaging geopolitical institutions, and putting businesses, economies, and most importantly, human lives in peril around the world.

Needless to say, the apocalyptic speed of the contagion, now racing over 141 Mn, has placed a fresh lens on our collective vulnerabilities. With lockdowns, curfews, and quarantines hijacking our everyday vocabulary, we all have been forced to take a hard, second look at how we live and most importantly, what we prioritize.

On this occasion of World Day for Safety and Health at Work, we—as businesses—need to ask ourselves if we are really doing everything, we can to ensure the wellbeing of our employees. Do we have a clear plan to ensure their security? Are we providing resources to take care of their physical, mental, and financial health? With people working from home, companies are also facing challenges training and monitoring new hires remotely, ensuring coordination, and maintaining the pre-pandemic levels of productivity. Besides that, fighting anxiety is the newest task addition on all our to-do lists. Are we equipped to cope up with these monumental changes and growing uncertainty?

Ironically, the times have brought with them a keen inclination for self-reflection. So even as everything is unravelling, the leaders of today can definitely bounce forward with fresh ideas and recalibrated goals if they reshuffle their priority lists and readily adapt to new ways of doing things. The CXOs should prudently reexamine their focus to build resilience among teams. This can't happen in patchworks. Leaders need to build an unshakeable cohesive coping strategy to empower their workforce and keep them inviolably safe, happy, and motivated. For that, the organization might have to forego some of its old policies and adopt new practices but doing it might just be paramount to sustaining hope, trust, and stability at work.

While working from home, the employees have got a lot on their plates. So, cultivating empathy as an intrinsic part of the organization’s culture and showing flexibility to match individual employee needs should become non-negotiable. The management must be ready to have open conversations with employees about how and when work targets can be accomplished. Greater leeway must be offered. Work hours must be limited to a necessary minimum to afford people time for self- and family-care. Leaves of absence must be provided as needed. In fact, companies must provide special COVID-care leaves in case an employee needs time off to recover themselves or help their family members recover. Unquestioned support and solidarity are the prime sustenance needed at work today to strengthen the sense of security an employee needs, otherwise stretched thin in these troubling times.

Then, working remotely has been giving people its own meltdowns. Most miss the water cooler banter. Zoom meetings have been barely matching up to the sheer comfort and joy of bumping into actual faces at work. So, we must encourage our teams to meet virtually as much as possible for coffee breaks, lunches, games, or just regular chitchat. Ironic times these are—we all really need to take lightheartedness absolutely seriously. 

Then, alongside advising employees to follow social distancing and protocols, organizations must encourage them to get vaccinated and favorably, must offer to sponsor the respective costs per employee covering them and their family members. This is paramount to increasing our collective immunity as soon as possible and strengthening our protection against this deadly virus.

History has exposed us to the power of pandemics for exploiting the human capacity for growth. Today yet again we are living through one such time that is testing our bitterest resolve as a species. But look at the unrelenting grit of our healthcare workers, police force, essentials delivery personnel, even the ordinary citizens—human spirit and commitment would have rarely seen any parallels before. So, I see plenty of promise. Promise of a new world beyond these waves, promise of beautiful shores. So, we must hold on to our boats and row on with empathy and compassion. They really are our talismans as we collectively brace ourselves to help a stuttering world.

The author is Tanu Verma, Head of Global Marketing, Affine