hile the recent worldwide pandemic plays out as a major economic influence, keeping our employees engaged and productive is more important and challenging than ever. According to a Gallup survey* published during the third quarter of 2020, 33 percent of US workers are currently working remotely, with approximately two-thirds of those individuals communicating a desire to continue working from home post-pandemic. Interestingly of those surveyed, more than half of US workers are not concerned about the exposure of COVID-19 at work. What does this mean to our Alaskan business leaders? Something entrepreneurs have known for years, change is here to stay. How we navigate change will influence workforce engagement. As leaders our best course now is to seek out opportunity to move from (disaster) response to active change management.

First, understanding the effectiveness of change, regardless of solution is an excellent way to embark on meaningful and solution-orientated change. It is important to understand this should not be considered a destination but rather an adoption of a culture of change in itself. One of the best tools we have found is the Kotter model of change, including 8 steps.

As leaders we can orchestrate change by providing our workforce clarity regarding the current environment, by engaging a core team to develop a plan to align strategic vision with new forming initiatives, and then deploy. Specifi c to the pandemic, this model may be used at the micro and macro level. By engaging our staff incrementally day to day while adjusting to a major event, individuals understand their value and role in bringing their A game. In place of traditional accountability matrices, we provide clear short-term wins both motivating to the employee and focused on excellence.