Employers have been urged to feed employees with the right information especially during this COVID-19 period.
Director, Human Resource of Vodafone Ghana, Hannah Ashiokai Akrong, noted that businesses should put in place proper communications channel. “Organizations need to understand what the anxieties are for their employees as well as marry the objectives of the business.”
Speaking at Ghana’s Most Respected CEO’s breakfast series, organised by the Business and Financial Times (B&FT) in partnership with Vodafone Business, she stressed that every business needs a continuity plan. The webinar was held on the theme ‘Managing an anxious work force during and post COVID-19 for business continuity’.
“Every business has been impacted by COVID-19, but what are some of the things that can be done. How are we helping employees for them to operate safely? We need to ensure that the mental health of workers is sustained throughout this period,” she added.
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Ms. Akrong pointed out that employees need to be responsible. “Open up with employees, they have amazing ideas that can contribute to the growth of your company. You need to rally your employees around your mission and vision and get your employees for one purpose; we have to take up the learnings and look at what we can do for our businesses to thrive,” she said.
She further stated that businesses cannot go back to the way they were doing business before the pandemic even if the virus is contained.
“We have all been disrupted, like it or not by COVID-19, our businesses have transformed, we can’t go back to business as it was, things have changed. Before the lockdown, I had an employee in the UK who wasn’t able to come back and has been very productive working from the UK,” she said.
She explained that the world has learnt lessons from the pandemic that will have to be used to move businesses into the future. “We have to take the learnings and then go into the future with these learnings and transform our business. These disruptions were forced on us and we have to look at what we can take in order for our businesses to thrive,” she added.