Interaction between Functional Elements and COVID-19 Impact on Bedford Town Residence

This report analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on Bedford Town Residence and recommends adopting a hybrid working model to manage communication barriers, mental health issues, and duplication of work. The report also discusses the key issues present at BTR and provides recommendations for the organization to ensure a smooth transition towards the new working model.

Demonstrate the following
knowledge and understanding
Recognise understand and discuss
the interaction between functional
elements and understand the

Executive summary:
There is a complete difference in the working scenario of organization because of the
COVID 19 virus that is leading to lot of issues and difficulties for employees. In the present
times, Bedford Town residence is facing some of the issues that are related with mental health
issues, difficulty in managing work, duplication of work communication barriers, all these
barriers have to be dealt in for this purpose organization is recommended to work towards
adopting a hybrid working model.

Table of Contents
Executive summary:.........................................................................................................................2
Part 1................................................................................................................................................4
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Part 2..............................................................................................................................................10
Conclusions....................................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES:.............................................................................................................................14

Part 1
Introduction
The present spread of covid 19 virus has affected the functioning of organizations in a
drastic manner. There is a complete different scenario where the pandemic has lead to many
disruptions for the business organizations. The organizations have to make lot of changes in
terms of their internal and regular functioning in order to cope up with the changing
requirements of external environment (He and Harris, 2020). For this purpose present report is
based on the analysis of the way Bedford town residence that is a housing association is dealing
with the way it is affected by the covid 19 scenario. There is a business plan that is related with
analyzing the key elements of the way covid 19 pandemic has affected the organization
functioning and the key issues at BTR. Based on this analysis there are further recommendations
that are formulated to be implemented by the organization in long run.
Impact of COVID 19 pandemic on organizations:
The organizations after the post COVID 19 scenario are facing lot of issues that are related with
reduced demand & shrinking of markets (Ahmedand Amer, 2021). There is decline in revenues
to remain profitable the organization has to focus on managing the present working in such a
manner that they are able to maintain its long term effectiveness.
Coronavirus is an infectious disease which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It causes
a major impact all over the world mainly over schools, colleges, organizations and many more.
In businesses and organizations, the effect of coronavirus are reaching and are causing an
unprecedented change. Due to this Novel coronavirus, companies or organizations have faced
many economic crisis as well as operational uncertainty across sectors. As many people have to
shut their organizations as well as companies to avoid the infection which spread among people.
Moreover, companies have been forced to do their business uniquely that is why most of the staff
are needed to work from home in order to survive their organizations (Cataniaand et. al., 2021).
It is because the staff member's safety and their wellness is only the organizations responsibility.
In context with Bedford town residency, as it is a housing association that manages the
facilities which are provided in housing as well as in various districts such as general housing as
well as supported housing. During coronavirus, Bedford town residency faces many challenges
within organization such as lock-down restrictions which made their workers to work remotely.
This is because for Bedford their staff members as well as their residents safety is on top of their

priority list. The novel coronavirus has drastically affects the Bedford residency such as
interactions between staff, daily operations which are performed within an organization and so
on. Lack in interactions may affects on staff members behaviour as well. The impact of COVID-
19 on Bedford town residency created not only the negative impacts but it contains some positive
impacts also (Cotrinand et. al., 2020). The positive outcome that Bedford residency faces is
flexible working in pandemic it is because so many workers are working from home. Due to this
flexibility, many leaders are now planning to adopt this flexible and agile working.
An increasing in communication skill can also be determined as a negative result for
them because due to this pandemic many staff loss their effective communication. This will
generate gaps among staff members. In Bedford, staff member's mental health also get affected
as people has to stay at home alone and due to this their social separation may leads to
depression. The staff of Bedford residency also faces equity betwixt at-office and at-home
workforce. It is because the staff members consider the reopening of their offices, they must be
determined to managing on-site and distributed workforce equally. Working from home can be
struggle to manage their responsibility whether it can be a clear and easy communication or
access to information. The major impact on staff during pandemic is the workers who are
working from home do not have the opportunities to socialize with other members as well as
other residents. This may results in decreasing their physical activities for example, reduced
walking habit between meeting areas (Santos‐Garcíaand et. al., 2020). In addition to this,
increasing hours of computer work may leads to exhaustion, eye related problems, headaches
and so on. Hence, the coronavirus has developed a new surrounding in the view of both home
life and work as well.
Key issues present at BTR :
The overall impact of covid 19 virus has lead to some of the key issues that are affecting the
present functioning of BTR. Some of such key issues are mentioned below:
 communication issues: with the spread of covid 19 virus there is difficulty in the process
of communicating because of the changes in pattern of working it is becoming difficult
for employees to cope up with the newly set up working scenario. There are also issues
that is arsing as employees have developed a complete different mind set. The pandemic
has resulted into no proper security in the working pattern of employees as they are

facing issues of no proper communication channels. Teams and individuals are returning
to work with many questions that leaders have to address.
 Isolation issues: The organization just after the lock down and the work from home set
up of employees there are instances where the employees mind set is not formed and they
are facing issues of difficulty in concentrating towards work. These issues generally arise
when there is lack of socializing among colleagues and people as they are not able to
work in the normal situation. Majority of the employees are suffering from issues of
loneliness, isolation, self doubt or dear that may affect the situation.
 There are lot of challenging performance goals and high amount of expectations when
employees are returning to office. Many organizations are willing to manage their output
in the sustained people in order to enhance the business performance.
 Mental health issues: While returning to order the covid 19 scenario there is difficulty in
coping with the working scenario. So it becomes very important for managers in Bedford
Town residence to understand the present mental health conditions of employees.
Employees are facing difficulties in adjusting the the working schedules as they are
facing issues of safety, difficulty in adjustments, so there is requirement to adjust with the
safety issues by taking various measures of health screening (Tufan, and Kayaaslan,
2020). Covid protocols have to be properly adopted by the employers. Bedford Town
residence is a hosing association with a mission to offer appropriate housing facilities to
local communities they are focusing on offering support and assistance to vulnerable
individual's. So in order to provide people proper support it becomes important to have
stable and positive mental health that can contribute towards offering proper housing
facilities to people.
 Lower productivity: There are instances of lower productivity of employees when they
are working from home. It has been observed from the assessment 1 findings that while
there was assessment made based on different parameters such as cost, productivity of
employee, health risks, time and quality the overall score has clearly indicated that
working from office is can help in maintaining the overall productivity of employee and
organization as a whole (Hu and et.al., 2021).
 Maintaining of coordination: the organization is also facing some difficulty in the
process of managing the work and coordination among employees. In Bedford Town

residence there is requirement of proper housing facilities by offering of proper support
and assistance to individuals. The employees who are working from office find it very
difficult to maintain the coordination with employees who are working from home. In the
covid 19 crisis there weer some of the job roles where it was necessary for employees to
attend the office working. So the two segments of organization that is supported housing
a and general housing find it very difficult to manage the issues that arise in the area.
There were several barriers to communication that arise in this situation because
employees were facing difficulties in terms of managing the work through video class,
telecommunication networks or social media applications. But still there were lot ODF
issues that lead to duplication of efforts wastage of time which affected the overall
working in Bedford Town residence. Many employees who weer working from home
did not had access to proper resources such as computers, laptops that were essentially
required in the process of having a smooth working process.
Recommendations
For the present organization there are need to formulate certain strategies as recommendations in
order implement it in the course of overall organization functioning:
 The organization has to conduct a “after action review”, in this process they can work
towards collection of insights and data from the employees related to the major issues and
challenges that they have faced during the course pf working after pandemic situation.
BTR has to make efforts to capitalize more efforts so that they are able to have proper
post covid recovery and they are able to continue towards winning of marketplace with
higher stability and greater certainty in return.
 Open communication channels: So there is need to open line of open communications
that can enable the leaders in communicating effective with the employees and further
engage in meaningful and work related conversations (Clark‐Ginsberg and Petrun
Sayers, 2020).
 Setting up of new target: in BTR the organization has to set up bnew goals and targets
so that leaders and managers are able to empower their teams to strive towards enhancing
and improving their performance. It will help them in returning to work by feeling more
engaged and motivated. For this various monetary and non monetary motivation
techniques can be adopted by the employers. In BTR the main focus is on setting of high

performance standards where employees will be rewarded with proper recognition if they
are able to achieve such standards. For this aim proper performance standards will be set
up that will be achieved by motivating the employee and rewarding of high performing
workforce. It will lead to a sense of motivation among the employees and they will work
towards maximization of their present level of contribution towards their roles and
responsibilities.
 Establishment of a crisis team: It is recommended that in Bedford Town residence there
can be setting up of a crisis management team. In order to lessen the negative impact
while preparing the organization for future development it is important to centralist the
efforts that organizations may be willing to establish a core crisis team (He, Zhang and
Li, 2021). It will help in the process of having proper coordination during crisis to
manage efforts and have well defined set of objectives for the organization.
 Contingency plans for critical roles: It is suggested that in Bedford Town residence the
organization have to make proper planning to have contingency plans for critical roles.
For this the organization have to identify such roles, determine the skills, fulfill the
positions, establish who can replace key individuals, for the purpose of mitigating such
roles there is requirement to identify the skill gaps, accelerate the overall training of
candidates. It will also help in freeing up the capacity and redeploy skills where they are
most required.
 Flexible working arrangements: In order to ensure that there is minimal contact among
employees. In Bedford Town residence the managers have to work towards creation of
flexible working arrangements. There is need to split the teams by elimination of
unnecessary personnel from getting in contact with each other (Karalis, 2020). The main
focus has to be on productivity of employees for this if required there can be reduction of
work week, reduction of hours per day or some other options to support employees. It
will lead towards reduction of redundancies and helping in managing the increasing work
pressure.
 Collaborative working practices: it is suggest that in the post covid working situation in
BTR the organization can work towards building of a collaborative working environment.
In this there is need to identify the individual strength, establishments of realistic
expectations, clarification of goals by review of roles, checking of responsibilities,

calcification of expectations of employees (Nadeem, 2020). It is going to lead towards
cross learning. Employees will be able to have interactive collaboration and there will be
enhancement of creativity by encouraging of open mindedness. Further innovation can be
rewarded by linking it to the organization reward system. Hybrid work from home model: A hybrid work from home model is based on allowing
some employees to workable remotely and some other to work on premises. In this
structure there is departments and teams that are split between working in house and
working remotely. There is designation of certain leadership roles and positions as fully
remote and in house across all the departments.
Pros of having a hybrid model of working:
hiring of incredible talent across globe: In when organization will be having a hybrid
model of working then it will help in building of a team with exceptional skills,. There will be
different time zones that will offer a round the clock coverage and extra brain power to
employees the peak productive time (Kayhan Tetik, Gedik Tekinemre and Taş, 2021) . In
Bedford Town residence, will offer employee with strength and help them in managing their
productivity level.
Better accommodation of team members: working from home will offer employee
with higher flexibility as they will be able to deal with disabilities and they will be working with
required flexibility.
Cons of hybrid model:
In BTR when the organization will be adopting a hybrid model there are certin disadvantage that
have to be dealt in the course of functionality as mentioned below:
Employees may feel isolated: Employees in organization may feel disconnected,
isolated. In the work from home situation some of employees might not feel comfortable and
there is absence of guidance to newly hired employees. There can also be difficulties that is
associated with managing of work (Ashraf, 2020). The new hiring may not be given proper
training and guidance with respect to the specific requirement of organization functioning. Some
employees may feel difficulty in consciously accommodating to the needs of meeting the
schedule. Leaders may also not able to manage the work as per specific requirement of working
in organization.

Part 2
Personal reflection based on learning experience documented by journal entries
The reflection is based on the overall learning experiences that have been because of various
experiences of this module. There are some of skill sets that have been acquired during the
process of studying in the module (Muhali, Yuanita and Ibrahim, 2019). In week 1 the overall
experience of learning was stated to be score as 3 and the feeling related to studies was higher
that was 4. the main learning lessons of the tasks of management is to appreciate the and
understand the leadership. I understood the differences between leading and managing. Further I
also developed understand of the traits of leadership model. The main focus of learning in week
1 was based on basic traits of leaders and managers and its long term effectiveness in success of
individual.
In week 2 I focused of enhancing my overall learning experience that was higher from week 1
and was 4. the feeling of studies in general was also rated as 4. in this week I understood about
the basic organization structure by dividing of the work in divisions and functions by further
coordinating it in alternative ways. I understood the way partitions are affecting the function of
business and the basic transformation model that is associated with it. I also understood the
operations falsification and the different operations systems. In this week the major learning
experience was related to the way business are functioning that is going to help me in future
professional development.
As per VARK learning styles there are different types of learning styles and learners. Such as it
includes visual learning, auditory learning, reading, writing and Kinesthetic learning (Miller and
Konstantinou, 2021). From the present made analysis it is concluded that I am a reading and
writing learning type individual where there is more preference for writing and learning taking
place simultaneously. It can be very helpful in writing the information and then learning to
understand it in more better way. It is very helpful in the process of dealing with various
hindrances that may arise in the process of learning for individuals.
In week 3 the rating of experience was 4 for the overall experience of learning and the feeling of
studies in general was also rated as 4. in this week also the main focus was on developing a
detailed apprehension of the different types of operating systems. I learn the ways in which
activities can be coordinated in alternative ways. I understood the strategies of appreciating the
different operations systems and the way it can assist in effective functioning of organization.

Further in week 4, I acquired the communication skills. In this module I learn about both written
and verbal communication skills. I understood about the ways of presentations, discussions and
report writing. Written communication skills were enhanced as I learn the way of report writing.
I enhanced my verbal communication skills since semester one the learning unit has helped me
in the process of development of my skills.
In week 5, the main focus was on reading skills. There were different aspects that are related to
reading a particular article or case study (Warda, 2021). This module has helped me in enhancing
such skill sets that can lead towards increasing the effectiveness of my reading. Reading skills
are associated with decoding, enhancing my vocabulary, having proper reasoning, background
knowledge and I also worked on my memory retention skills and being more attentive towards
what I am reading at a particular point of time.
In week 6, I worked on my problem solving skills where I understood the importance of
collecting the required information and further analyzing it. There are many different issues that
can arise in the course of learning and working on a project.
In week 7, the main analysis was on the way in which information can be collected and gathered
by identification of most authentic and reliable sources while working on a particular project
work. Having a proper information base is very important for the purpose of reaching to relevant
conclusions and recommendation in particular project. So, at this stage I learnt researching skills
that is to collect information by identifying various reliable sources that is basically online
available information from journal articles, blogs and other associated information.
Kolbs learning cycle:
concrete experience: It is related with new experience or situation that is encountered in the
process of learning. In present scenario I learn something new was problem solving skills
(Adadan and Oner, 2018). It may be related to skill and knowledge gaps that are present at a
particular point of time. So, in the present module I understood various problem solving skills
that can help me in dealing with the issues that may arise in the future course of learning process.
Reflective observation of new experience: There were some of the issues that arise during the
process of working in form of internal conflict arsing between various team members.
Abstract conceptualization: after making analysis the new idea developed is related with using
of collaborative working practices that can help in resolution of conflicts.

Active Experimentation: In this I will be applying the collaborative working skills for the
purpose of solving various issues that may arise in the future course of professional learning.
As per belbin team development roles there are some of specific roles that were performed as a
team and can help in the process of managing weakness as team members (Erdogan, 2019). For
instance there are different team development roles that include action oriented roles in which
shapers are the one who are challenging teams to improve. In present module while working on
different aspect I reflected my role as a shaper that is used as best approach for solving various
problems and issues. I analyzed different activities and obstacles as challenges to minimize its
impact on my overall learning process.
From the above made analysis it can be said that there are different skills sets that have been
acquired during the learning process of this module. These skill sets are going to assist in the
future course of learning and development process in context of future professional development.

Conclusions
It is concluded from the above discussed scenario that in the present Covid 19 virus there
are lot of issues that are faced by organizations because of a complete different scenario of
working that is adopted because of the social distancing and lock down situation. This has
resulted into lot of difficulties that are faced by employees in the process of adjusting and coping
with the scenario.

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