Navigating the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath are some of the most significant business challenges of our time. To ensure the continuity of operations while minimizing risk to employees, most companies have adopted new ways of working. Their offices, factories, stores, and other facilities remain relatively empty.
At some point, America’s biggest companies will tell their employees that it’s time to leave home and go back to work. This decision will come with risk without extensive COVID-19 testing.
But with the coronavirus pandemic still raging and vaccination programs picking up pace, getting back to normal will be easier said than done. Besides, organizations would not want their employees to return to the office only to be sent home after a few weeks due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19.
Returning to work after COVID-19 can be scary, awkward, and irritating. To facilitate the transition, HR teams will need to make changes to the rules, physical workplace, and approach to employee relationships. Follow these steps to ensure you are well prepared for pandemic recovery.
Put safety first
When you return to work from COVID-19, your health and safety should be paramount. The first step is to ensure your physical workplace is safe for employees. The health and safety of employees should be a top management priority as they consider how to restore operations to some apparent normalcy. This is a moral, ethical and legal issue for all companies.
New deep cleaning and decontamination protocols may be needed. First, hire a cleaning service to clean your entire office thoroughly. Their high-quality cleaners will kill more germs than regular products, plus they will find their way into every nook and corner of the office where bacteria and viruses can hide. It can also mean changes to the layout of the workspace, such as moving workstations further apart or changing employee schedules to reduce the number of people in buildings at the same time.
Who and when to bring back?
Firms should appoint a multidisciplinary team responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring a return-to-work plan. This team could include company leaders from crucial departments such as legal, human resources, IT, operations, health and safety, and representatives of employee groups. This group will establish four staffing levels for global sites, each representing different staff constraints in the office. Having dedicated groups such as managing the number and time of employees returning to the office will help your business prepare to act swiftly when circumstances change.
Returning to the workplace can mean re-instating employees who are dismissed from their jobs, abandoning compulsory remote work, or returning to total productivity, regardless of where the work is performed. Given the uncertainty about the sustained impact of COVID-19, the Return to Work Planning team should remain assembled to monitor issues that arise after the workforce returns to the office.
Update Policies and Procedures
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way businesses do business. As a result, you need to look at your current policies and procedures and update them to match your existing best practices. Preparing the workplace for employees also requires recognition and compliance with state and local regulations issued in response to the current scenario. Some states and municipalities have already issued and continue to issue their own regulations to companies within their jurisdictions to combat COVID-19.
Companies renting office space in a larger building should consult building management to determine what security protocols apply to tenants and whether building management requires tenants to implement additional security measures. Then change the rules for organizing meetings. Forcing too many people into the conference room is against the principle of social distancing and may be embarrassing for some employees.
What do employees have to do?
Without the support of employees, even the best-designed plans can get into trouble. Leadership teams should lead with empathy and understand that while all of their employees experienced this crisis, not all of them experienced it the same way. Train employees on preventive measures to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19; foster good hygiene practices, including providing hand-washing facilities for employees, customers, and visitors; establish social distancing policies and practices, and perform routine environmental cleaning and disinfection.
Providing employees with a chance to present their challenges and concerns can help management teams identify potential problems with plans to return to the workplace. Inform managers of the mental health effects and ask them to monitor their employees. Isolation residues and trying to return to routine work can be difficult, so it is essential to know how to recognize employees who have problems.
Plan for a re-exit
In addition to clear guidelines on when and how to bring employees back to the office, it is also essential to have re-exit procedures should cases increase again. Firms should be prepared to continue operating with fewer employees. Organizations can achieve this by implementing flexible remote working policies and practices, identifying employees who can hold multiple functions within the company, cross-training employees to perform core business functions, and hiring (or re-hiring) additional part-time employees.
To reduce potential failure, it is essential to open them in stages; for example, you can slowly move 10% to 15% of people back to the office at a time. Alternatively, or in addition, employers may provide staggered working hours to achieve the same result if this meets the employer’s business needs. The staged approach also has the added benefit of reducing the burden on the business. This way, it is easier to pause or undo if the situation changes again.
With employers worldwide experimenting with bringing their employees back to their offices, management must act now to ensure that their jobs are both productive and safe when they return. A well-designed return to work plan will enable companies to safely and effectively bring employees back to the workplace and adapt to changing guidelines and regulatory requirements.
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