People Management in COVID Times – Let’s not talk down but lift up

Sheila moved in with her in-laws, since the COVID outbreak. It’s a big family, there is a cacophony of music, chatter, laughter and cry, round the clock. There is a lot of work to do every day, so she gets up at 4 a.m. in the morning, 4 hours before her usual time. She wants to make sure that when she switches her work mode ON, she doesn’t have to worry about household chores. 

All set to take work, she wades through the emails received over the weekend. One by one, she is ticking all of them. An old client has written about an issue with product delivery. Apparently, there was a mix up with addresses in the same location. The email has already set the tone of the conversation. The client representative has put some words in bold letters, in red. Sheila is apprehensive of how her manager will react to this. This was a genuine mistake, which she has dealt with in the past as well. But, with everything changing – lifestyle, work conditions, systemic upheaval, she has been extremely wary of the repercussions of every little mistake.

Sheila replies to the email, apologising on behalf of her team and asking for details so she can rectify the error. 

The client doesn’t respond. 

Sheila doesn’t wait for things to go bad. She picks up the phone and makes a call to the client, who is already not in a good mood. He does share details but with an accusatory and offensive tone. Upset by the whole situation, Sheila conduits the same anger not only to her subordinates, but also her family. 

A small incident, which got fixed within a day, affected so many lives, in so many bad ways – Sheila, her sub-ordinates, her new family members, her sub-ordinates’ family members, to say the least. It turns out that the client who wrote the email, was himself in an emotional turmoil. 

We all have to understand that with mandatory physical distancing and increasing virtual networking, we need to be extremely conscious of our digital language and behaviour; now more than ever. 

Clients, vendors, customers and stakeholders, we are all co-dependent, none can function without others’ support. How we speak to one another, how we react to situations, can impact lives and relationships, personal and professional, much severely than ever before. 

Do not talk down. That’s the last thing that will help anybody.

Now is the time to look after each other. Now is the time to care for each other. Now is the time to lift each other up.