Do you know how many people were not happy with their jobs before the pandemic? And among those who still hold their jobs today, how many are still not satisfied? As you know, doing a job that you don’t like may lead to serious implications on your heath, personal or professional relationships. The world is changing into a new world different from the one before the crisis with the new measures of social distancing, business closure, job losses, the new way of working virtually from home and online shopping. This pandemic is forcing you to start the change process whether you like it or not. How are you dealing with these changes or how are you going to deal with these changes if you didn’t start the change process yet?

Your ability to adapt is essential to survive and flourish during this time of global economic turmoil challenges and uncertainty created by the COVID19 pandemic. Added to that, people living in the UK are facing another economic disruption due to Brexit. Businesses are uncertain about the future; there has been an increase in the unemployment rate worldwide across all sectors of the economy, a decrease in consumers’ confidence, and the digitalization of work and other daily activities. People are living under stress due to hardship, demanding jobs, and the impact of this situation on their mental and physical health.  You will need to recognise that change is needed in your career, business, or even in your social life. You cannot work alone in order to find a solution, you will need a team of people with creative ideas.

What is change? Change is the process through which something is transformed from one state to another state.  For example, change can mean that you will no longer work from a workplace or you will change or differentiate your core product or service or you will diversify your business. Change can mean that you need to look for a new job or start a new business if you lost your job and you need to relocate with your family etc. If it is not well managed it can lead to challenges in your business, team, and personal level because those who will be affected by that change can resist it. You will need to explain to them clearly why that change is needed and what will be the outcome and the implementation so that they can be involved in the change process right from the beginning. Therefore, they will feel part of it, own it, and will contribute with their ideas to ensure that the change process is successful. And also if they are likely to lose their jobs, when you informing them on time, you will give them the opportunity to start searching for a new job before you lay them off. Unemployment is stressful and the rate continues to rise worldwide.

How to resolve the problem of unemployment?

Entrepreneurship is a vital agent to bring an innovative change in creating new firms. The global market, technology advancement, and customers’ power are forces that are impacting on how to manage this change. It is therefore paramount to use appropriate tools, skills, and techniques on how to lead a successful change process and implementation during this challenging time.  The effect of unemployment on entrepreneurship is complex. You can maybe say that because the rate of unemployment is high, it means that the business opportunity is scarce. However, once unemployment is controlled the higher the number of people is joining the unemployment pool, the higher there is an incentive to start a new business.

As mentioned earlier, you cannot work alone. Teamwork is paramount for you to thrive. In order to live, work, and even play in society as a human being, you need to cooperate with others by having both a collective and individual identity within a group or any organisation. You can team up with other people and work together cooperatively. With advanced technology development, the internet affects us all both in our private or working life helping many individuals and businesses to work remotely. A team is a group of people who come together to achieve a common goal. They can be working in the same location or in different locations.  There are four types of teams such as functional, cross-functional, self-directed, and virtual team. In the functional team, tasks are divided according to specialist roles. In cross-functional, team members are from different departments bringing a mixed knowledge in the team.  In a self-directed team, members are autonomous and are free to do what they want to achieve the goal, and innovative ideas can come out.

The last type is the virtual team with members dispersed in different geographical or organisational locations but sharing common purpose through information and technologies linked through emails, videoconferencing, internet, voicemail, intranet, and various forms of collaboration software to perform the work instead of meeting face to face. We have seen how small, medium and large companies have moved from a workplace to work from home virtually during this COVID 19 pandemic lockdown with employees located in different locations while many others are closing down. However, it is not easy to understand the dynamics of teamwork. There are many problems in virtual teams as in any other traditional team.  Those Problems are things like the lack of trust. The lack of trust can kill good work as it creates an atmosphere of frustration, anger, resentment, and leading finally to resignation.

The second problem is the problem of leadership in setting clear vision and goals. Unclear goals lead to failure. Lack of clear goals will lead to the assumption of the work to be done. The work to be done will be harder and not satisfying. The lack of communication is another difficulty as members will be unwilling to seek support when needed. Each team member in your team brings to the team a unique and valuable asset. It can be their skills, knowledge, and experience. The result that you can achieve together may be far greater than what each member would achieve by themselves. You can accomplish big things when you put together the right people with the right combination of skills. You need to have leadership skills and develop your team by building trust among members and open communication. A high performing team has a spirit of togetherness. It will result in members’ creativity and innovation spirit due to the different skills and perspectives in the team. Creativity is possible in a collaborative environment where members put their effort together to innovate. The team members will have the feeling of belongingness and feel that their ideas and beliefs are being supported therefore will increase their performance.

In order to maintain or increase your competitive advantage, you need to have in your team, members with creative minds and also create an environment where they are expressing their ideas freely. Whether your business operates from a workplace or home, you need to select members who can bring creative ideas to the team.  Change is inevitable whether in your career, business, or even in your social life. You will need to have a team of people to help you find a solution fast for you to thrive and get back on track. When you recognise the need for change, you need to identify who will be affected.

How to manage that change successfully?

Explain why change is needed and what change will accomplish why change is really necessary. Ask the support of those who will be affected by that change so that they are involved right from the beginning by providing their opinion and ideas. If you don’t involve them and bring that change already done, they will resist it and that change implementation will fail. Plan the change process.

I don’t know what kind of challenges you are facing with right now and what is the change that you need to implement. You need to know that you are not alone. Teamwork is very important and it works. Please use the link below and tell me what your pain is. You don’t need to figure out alone. Let us find the solution together.

Annie Ka Wenu Dip, BSc, MSc

Project Management Coach, Speaker and Author

Branding Strategist

Founder/CEO of Life Quality Improvement Coaching

Book series: https://lqic.co.uk/authoring/

Learn more: https://lqic.co.uk/my-courses/

Podcast: https://anchor.fm/annie-ka-wenu/episodes/EPISODE–1-HOW-TO-HAVE-CLARITY-IN-YOUR-CHOICES-AND-DECISIONS-ei0cnq