Business leaders regularly drive their organizations’ growth through their vision, risk-taking, and management skills. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis that requires business leaders to take on additional responsibilities in 2021. Let’s look at the 7 Key Responsibilities for Business Leaders in 2021 to address their organizations’ various challenges.
The many disruptions organizations have faced over the past several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic have posed several challenges for business leaders.
The most important of these challenges are as follows.
Hence, quite unsurprisingly, there would be specific key responsibilities for business leaders in 2021 that can help organizations to overcome these challenges effectively.
Given the challenges in the business environment posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are looking towards their business leaders to provide them with direction.
The 7 critical responsibilities for business leaders in 2021 are as follows:
The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed the worst economic upheaval in modern times with high market volatility.
Hence, this has forced organizations to rework their business plans as the situation pans out continuously.
Therefore, in 2021, business leaders need to play an important role in devising flexible strategies to not just survive under such volatile market conditions but to exploit all available growth opportunities.
In 2021, business leaders need to be more flexible and comfortable with the massive changes in business operations.
Hence, leaders need to find growth opportunities in areas where the changes are taking place.
Staying abreast of changes can prove valuable for organizations driving business growth during these tough economic times. It can become a sustainable competitive advantage in the long run.
In 2020, organizations were suddenly forced into managing remote teams without any time to prepare.
So, in 2021, as remote working has become the norm, organizations must build and reinforce the right culture for their remote workforce.
Business leaders need to work closely with HR teams and managers and implement new strategies and tools that can help build the right culture for a workforce that is working remotely.
Read: 7 Ways HR Software Can Support Your Remote Workers
Organizations must build employee trust and engagement during these challenging times to ensure business continuity and growth despite the continuous challenges and adverse market conditions.
Hence, in 2021, business leaders need to play a key role in communicating to the workforce regularly through digital platforms; sharing updates with them, guiding and motivating them.
Read: How to Boost Employee Motivation in a Post-COVID World?
The pandemic has resulted in high levels of stress and uncertainty among employees.
Remote working has added to this stress as employees try to manage their work and home situations simultaneously.
Hence a more empathetic and humane approach is required from business leaders to manage their workforce.
They need to strike the right balance between business priorities and employee sentiments.
Learning and development is another process that the pandemic has impacted.
The lack of face-to-face mentoring and classroom training sessions has made it challenging for employees to pick up new and improve existing skills.
In the significantly changed work environments, organizations need their leaders to promote a culture of digital learning.
So, employees must leverage online training sessions, self-learning videos, webinars, and pre-recorded sessions to learn new skills.
The pandemic has placed a lot of the organization’s focus on employee wellness, not just physical wellness but mental and emotional wellness.
In 2021, business leaders are expected to promote greater awareness about employee wellness and drive various wellness initiatives, especially for remote working employees.
Read: Employee Wellness Ideas for Work from Home
The key responsibilities for business leaders in 2021 would be centered on driving business growth for the organization while balancing employee wellbeing.
Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of corporate and entrepreneurship experience. In the past, Sagar has worked in leadership roles with companies such as Genpact, Infosys, and ICICI Bank. He has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. Connect on LinkedIn
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