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Content Addressing Fears about Returning to the Workplace During and Post COVID-19
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Addressing Fears about Returning to the Workplace During and Post COVID-19 A majority of business owners are grappling with the COVID-19 situation, as they make plans on how and when to reopen their organizations. However, one element is apparent: Regardless of what national and local leaders may say, it is not the role of the government to open up economies, but rather it’s the role of the economies to open up when the citizens are safe, and activities can resume to normalcy. Coronavirus cases are also on the increase within some states, while others are gradually opening up and relaxing their social distancing restrictions. It is hence not entirely surprising that, according to a recent study on 735 employees in the US conducted by the global human resources firm Mercer, 45% of respondents expressed that they are struggling with a considerable number of employees who are insecure about returning to their workplaces. Most of them cited the fear of getting infected with Coronavirus within the workplace, as the disease is still prevalent within the United States and all over world. The pandemic has consequently created a dire dilemma, unlike any other before. Reopening, therefore, suggests that your employees run the risk of being exposed and probably infected, creating a second wave further constraining any permanent operational efforts.
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Importance of Professional Background and Experience An individual’s professional background is highly influential in assisting organizations in surviving during this coronavirus period. For instance, psychologists are in high demand during this period due to their capacity to influence positivity. Having worked in different settings further promotes an individual’s ability to offer services, and the first responder needs towards behavioral health requirements. This implies that every individual, especially those, who have already worked in high-risk areas can offer ideal services that can eliminate or counter the current pandemic’s impact on the work environment. According to Peter Newell, a former US Army colonel spent numerous years in the frontline in high-risk areas such as Afghanistan. Upon retirement, Peter established an organization, BMNT, to solve issues within private organizations and government agencies. During the pandemic period, his organization acquired new clients as organizations sought strategies to survive hence required the services of Peter’s 50-employee organization. According to his observations, clients wish to formulate strategies to figure out how to adapt to the recent changes caused by Coronavirus not only in US but also in emerging countries like India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Evidently, this situation could play out in diverse ways. For instance, some employees will take personal responsibility for the prevailing conditions within their organization. Some firms are also looking forward to government assistance, but there are risks associated with such a move. For example, an organization dependent on the government for post-COVID operations guidelines might be reliant on an institution that does not understand the actual business’ circumstances. It is Difficult to Manage People’s Fears, but Support is Important Having witnessed people fall ill, and others die, COVID-19 has caused a lot of fears among the working population. Fear, however, manifests differently in different people. Some employees harbor worries about their aging parents, whom they are unable to see face-to-face. Others are afraid of losing their children, and their own lives, particularly in regards to their economic security if they contract the virus. However, some employees such as frontline workers have no option, and hence they have to go to work and take care of Coronavirus patients. These individuals do not go to work thinking, “I will die today.” This does not imply that these individuals are devoid of any fears. One might be healthy but when a colleague or a patient one knew dies; it always takes a psychological toll on the people. It is hence vital to understand that fear management is difficult, as everyone, during this period harbors fears across a myriad of scenarios and probable occurrences. You cannot eliminate fear, but you can control it by encouraging people to be honest about their prevailing circumstances. One should therefore listen, offer transparent
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communication about the information you have, what you do not know, and what you will do to lower business risks. One of the best strategies to improve the psychological situation of fearful individuals is to operate via a tightly connected business unit that acts as a support network for employees. Consequently, if I am afraid about Coronavirus, but I get regular encouragement from my colleagues that I trust, my fears will reduce. Addressing Uncertainty in the Workplace Uncertainty within the workplace relates to the particular behaviors that are adopted by employees on an individual basis. For instance, it is not easy to know whether all employees will show up to work in masks, whether there will be social distancing regulations within the workplace, among other concerns. Working in a small firm pushes one to worry whether social distancing protocols will be upheld, mainly due to the limitation of physical space. What will be done for such firms? Will they have to fire some employees or should others work from home. If some people continuously work from home even after the limitations have been lifted, it will be imperative to understand the criteria chosen, mainly since most people prefer working from home. Other concerns that need to be addressed include the concerns whether since people left the office around February or March 2020, there have been infections on colleagues. If for instance, a colleague was sick but has already recovered, would people be scared to interact with them due to the stigmatization? Consequently, it is the role of the organization’s management to ensure that all employees are safe from Coronavirus by ensuring that all requisite regulations are followed to the letter. For instance, to avoid complications where workers stigmatize recovered colleagues, there should be the use of a temperature or fever testers at all times; when entering the firm in the morning, during lunchtime breaks, and as they leave. This keeps tabs on the actual health situation within the firm. Such a move would also reassure all employees that anyone who has gained entry into the organization; employees, clients, and all other stakeholders are non-infected, hence reduce their level of fear. Employees are also worried about their jobs, especially when they are required to take time off if they are ill. There needs to be a policy passed by the government regarding employee job security if they are infected with Coronavirus. This assurance would go a long way towards eliminating job security and economic fears shared by the infected. If the work policy is that upon getting infected, one loses their job, employees would never share their infection status, even leading to the closure of the organization due to rampant infections
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Firm managers also have to competently establish ideal or better sanitation and cleaning programs within the workplace. Previously, cleaning and sanitation were standard, but during the pandemic, there needs to be additional concern about the situation of cleanliness to avoid infections. For instance, an organization that previously provided their sanitation may be required to take a different direction and contract a sanitation company to conduct an overhaul of their sanitation system to one that is purely aligned towards handling COVID-19. Therefore, to prepare yourself mentally, it is imperative to get as many answers as possible about concerns one may share before returning to the workplace. These strategies mentioned above should be availed before the organization reopens its employees and to the general public. Moreover, it is the role of the government to ratify coronavirus restrictions and policies to ensure that all organizations that reopen have met these requirements.
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Supporting Each Other within the Workplace It is imperative to commence with the idea that we are all within different situations and harbor diverse concerns. One should also exercise self-compassion and that they take care of their emotional health to establish what works best in regards to self-care. The coronavirus situation is similar to any other challenge that we have faced in the past, although more complicated. Therefore, when it comes to offering support to others, it is vital to listen and recognize the uniqueness of each other hence the need to listen and acknowledge their issues and assist where possible. Another direction that we can take to improve the perceptions about workplace concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic is being mindful of others. We should pay attention to others’ situations and assist without judgment, with the understanding that these individuals’ wellbeing is highly dependent on the level of compassion that one shows. Some people are weak, and if you mock them, they are bound to give up or even do something irrational like quit their jobs or commit suicide, hence the need for mindfulness Availability of Resources Most of these concerns need to be addressed via financial resources. It is, therefore, the role of an organization to ensure that they have the resources necessary to support their employees during this Coronavirus pandemic. One of the strategies that can be taken by an organization is to seek emergency funding for COVID-19 from its partners, and other financial firms that offer are ready to provide support. Alternatively, the organization might have sufficient resources, which in turn should be used to support employees financially. For example, if an employee is infected, their employers should offer financial support and any other support they can. This support cannot be implemented without being rationally incorporated into the firm’s budget. This can be done via the adoption of a supplementary budget or the establishment of an employee-assisted program. Name- Akshay Kaushal; College- Great Lakes Institute of management, Gurgaon
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Addressing fears about returning to the workplace during and post COVID-19 • As employees come back to work, they are rightly scared of snagging the virus and reductions in benefits due to business finances. They foresee being unable to support their family, getting work done under new workplace rules, or having connection to the applicable Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). Representatives are apprehensive about the potential lasting workforce decreases if clients don't return in full power, and achieving work with a diminished staff. The employers are having fears as well like if someone catches this disease in the office then it can easily be transmitted to other employees as well. Every business has different needs that allow it to acclimate to challenges in a way that causes minimal disruption to business continuity while protecting the safety of employees. Tackling with the COVID-19 virus is currently the biggest challenge, urging the organizations to modify their HR policies, work methods, and the technique they do business in various cases.
Source: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/ceoviewpoint.aspx • Correspondence is at the core of worker commitment and right now is an ideal opportunity to guarantee correspondence during an emergency is as exact and powerful as could reasonably be expected. There is such a great amount of vulnerability in this strange
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Send an individual letter to every worker's personal residence, telling people the organization has set up security conventions and thinks about the wellbeing and prosperity of representatives and their families.
Impart the points of interest of the re-visitation of work for furloughed and laid-off representatives. Representatives were either furloughed (desire for a re-visitation of work), laid-off (no desire yet at the same time confident of re-employ), or briefly accomplishing distant work. You can treat the furloughed and laid-off laborers like they are new representatives, which means they need a business offer and subtleties on when they can re-visitation of work, terms of work, advantages, plan, and new work desires.
Convey the progressions all returning, and current laborers must cling to concerning wellbeing rules, techniques for entering the working environment, wearing defensive things, social removing, wearing specific innovation, ability to have temperature taken, and so on.
Impart everything the business is doing to guard representatives, i.e., amazing movements, setting up rules for client communications, restricting the quantity of clients permitted in a structure at once, cleaning and purifying strategies built up, and so forth.
Create and post online recordings to impart explicit industry and government guidelines and how the organization is endeavoring to hold fast to them. This is significant on the grounds that your workers need to realize the organization is keepingdomain, and laborers need their managers to include however much conviction as could be expected into their lives. Following are a portion of the manners in which organizations can reinforce their correspondence with representatives as their furloughed, laid off, and :additionally telecommuters re-visitation of the physical work environment or as they keep on speaking with representatives who had the option to proceed with business and their ordinary work schedulessteady over ever-evolving rules. Make certain to keep the recordings refreshed as new rules rise.
Create and post recordings for representatives that clarify and show security methods.
Build up a representative conversation board so representatives can pose inquiries and express feelings and get criticism from collaborators and the executives. Tuning in to your
representatives in any type of correspondence that works best is pivotal to keeping them locked in.
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Given the particular workforce attributes, utilize the correspondence methods that are destined to arrive at all representatives, i.e., illuminate forefront pioneers first who at that point convey data to representatives; discuss straightforwardly with workers by means of a site, online media, recordings, virtual gatherings, and so on.
Keep clients and the open educated with an open site, which guarantees conveyance of a reliable message about protecting representatives, operational guidelines, cleaning conventions, and so forth.
Open a hotline that workers can call day in and day out.
Hold virtual official Q&A events with top chiefs.
Offer extra preparing for forefront pioneers on points like great correspondence for drawing in workers, making a positive culture, communitarian administration, work relations and the law, and other authority subjects.
• Give ordinary updates to forefront pioneer correspondences, including sites, on progressing association related turns of events, fortifying principles of commitment with
associations, spotting indications of association action, and lawful correspondence with representatives.
Try not to leave the employees pondering, speculating, expecting, or reaching their own determinations.
• Now we will talk about Searching Ahead for the Post Coronavirus Work environment
Organizations are at various phases of groundwork for re-opening or reestablishing the workforce. Coming up next is a rundown of things you can consider. A large number of these things were recommendations from Projections' customers.
Post video addresses from upper administration, examining all activities concerning Coronavirus. What we've done, what we are doing, what we will accomplish for what's to come.
Choose what establishments must happen to secure laborers; i.e., plexiglass parcels, sterilization stations, glove and face cover allocators, directional "X" on the floors, extraordinary garbage cans for possibly polluted materials, and so forth.
Choose what Individual Assurance Gear will be given to workers, i.e., covers, gloves, suits, plastic face shields, and so forth.
Choose what zones should be tended to, similar to plant cafeterias, break time patios, or some other region not basic to tasks.
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Build up a staged way to deal with bringing workers back, i.e.; a few representatives return the initial segment of May and others the subsequent half.
Whenever unionized, work with the association on security issues, hardware, work plans, and so forth so the association takes responsibility for organization's endeavors. Passage and the UAW, for instance, are investigating thoughts together to guard individuals.
Recognize the particular assets that representatives can get to now and upon re-visitation of work, for example, emotional well-being advising administrations and wellbeing and health programs.
Decide and plan for the administration preparing expected to create solid worker commitment.
Fortify the representative correspondence framework to guarantee workers have a voice. There will be representative concerns, and you need them to tell your bosses first, instead of an association.
Set up security systems for the renewed introduction of common business administrations, for example, in-home fix administrations. Create consider the possibility that situations (ideal subjects for recordings.
Audit and change strategies as essential for exercises like travel and virtual gatherings.
Set up a Coronavirus screening survey for representatives that make them through the strides of recognizing their weakness to the infection and whether they ought to enter the work environment or leave. The inquiries can include:
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Is safe to say that employees are as of now wiped out with indications like hack, fever, windedness, sore throat?
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Have employees voyaged universally in the previous 14 days?
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Have employees been close to home contact with anybody with a positive Coronavirus finding in the previous 14 days?
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Is the employee temperature under 100 degrees F?
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Have the employees gone to a high-hazard zone or red zone area?
Manager and supervisor training is critical for a smooth re-visitation of work. These are the individuals legitimately entrusted with helping the organization contain the Covid and reacting to representative concerns or needs. The bosses must impart and uphold sickness the executives strategies and security measures. How the chief speaks with and draws in representatives will directly affect the capacity of associations to push a plan.
• Here are a few strategies that HR can adopt to not just make the work environment a protected spot to re-visitation of, however an inviting one:
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Setting up your working environment for the new universe of work
Set up a re-visitation of work notice that traces what is normal for relational communications. This could include: o
No embracing or contacting
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Wearing of face veils when not at work area
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No handshakes
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No sharing of individual things, for example, glasses, chapstick, or coats.
The HR professional should inform and communicate representatives to restrict sharing of things, for example, pens, staplers, and so forth. Move any "common" things away and urge representatives to keep their own provisions at their workstation. For shared workplaces, for example, cafés, make certain to have shower sanitizer close by for snappy cleans in the middle of employments. Post a standard, for example, "put it down, wipe it off" so everything is prepared for the following individual.
Kill Regular Spaces o
A best practice to keep everybody protected and open to during Coronavirus is to incidentally eliminate normal "gathering" zones. A portion of these could include:
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Shutting lunchrooms and urge individuals to bring hot espresso and keep their snacks in a cooler close to their work area or workspace o
Eliminating admittance to normal extra rooms, for example, storage spaces and wardrobes incidentally
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Shutting off sitting areas or other seating
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Amaze Workspaces
• Show your laborers you care by giving them some space. Adjust the workplace, exercise center, facility or spa to ensure representatives and potential guests are 6 o
feet from one another at whatever point conceivable. For workplaces, modify work areas to put more space between representatives. In the event that you have a work environment where people every now and again enter and exit, obviously mark passages and ways out as two separate spots.
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Diminish the Quantity of Individuals in the Workspace o
An extraordinary method to decrease presentation and straightforwardness tainting fears is to just let representatives keep on telecommuting on specific days, or even pivot days off incorporating ends of the week for the individuals who need to do as such.
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The HR Professional should likewise consider having representatives work in movements to lessen introduction time to other people. Some regular move times for workplaces could include: 7 am-3 pm: Move 1; 8 am-4 pm: Move 2 9 am-5 pm: Move 3 10 am-6 pm: Move 4 11 am-7 pm: "Late Move"
• Here Move means the shift of the working hours • By implementing this, not many employees will be clashing or crossing with each other or directly coming in contact when they are either leaving the office or entering the office. • An incredible method to make this work is to have all representatives set gatherings for between 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. as it were. Furthermore, talking about gatherings:
Make office Gatherings More secure o
Consider shutting littler gathering rooms and having workers meet in divided circles in the normal zones.
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Likewise, energize Zoom and other virtual alternatives. o
Put resources into moving whiteboards for meetings to generate new ideas for open space gatherings.
Implement Cleaning Rules - The most significant way you can cause your representatives and work environment guests and clients to feel safe is to give them a lot of approaches to disinfect and secure themselves. Here are some acceptable choices:
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Many, many hand sanitizer stations scattered all through the working environment. More is better!
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Post obvious "Cleaning Rules." Urge each and every individual who enters to consider shared work environment things, for example, the copier, door handles, and pen-cushions like exercise center gear – "clean after use" without fail. Clarify that everybody is liable for cleaning and disinfecting, not simply the authoritative or gathering/HR staff.
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On the off chance that accessible, give singular hand sanitizers, dispensable gloves, and covers to every worker.
• In the end, it can be concluded that all the above mentioned techniques and strategies could be used to address the employee fears about returning to the workplace during and post COVID-19. Name-Ankur Sharma; College- Symbiosis Institute of International Business, Pune
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Addressing fears about returning to the workplace during and post COVID-19 • The world has been affected by a global pandemic that has affected every spheres of life. It has brought life to a sudden halt, locked us in our homes and crippled the economy. Affecting the sick and healthy, rich and poor in the same way, millions have been affected, tested positive, recovered while some have lost their closed ones. Bearing the symptoms of common cold along with some other specific, it has not been cured until now while the researchers are still struggling to find a vaccine for the ghastly virus. • With the global pandemic hitting the various avenues of life spheres, the businesses have also been affected. Challenges surrounding the workplaces depend on the issues with the workplaces, the commute to the offices and the daily challenges that have been additionally impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not just the workplace has stopped working but with that the day to day activities have been affected in terms of essentials commodities breaking the chain of manufacturing or the import and export of goods. • What are the fears – • Being far more than a health crisis, but affecting the societies as whole – such has been the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. With the workplaces and the work getting severely affected due to the months of lockdown, the impact has varied from one region to another even for a given country. • There have been several issues of security that have come up for the employees with regards to working at offices and workplaces. These starts from the changing and adapting to the new lifestyle of maintaining a proper hygiene, and keeping places and surfaces sanitized. Beginning from commuting to the workplace where the commute is becoming a barrier where employees are sacred to use the public transport.
• Employees are more scared of coming to work for their own safety as well as those of their families which might get infected with the employees acting as virus carriers.
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• Employees are scared of the issues at the working places where there is an increased chance of getting infected. Employees were divided in terms of their concerns for families – where younger employees who had no liabilities of a family were more interested in working from office, other employees who had a family were concerned about their families getting infected by the virus that may be transmitted through them. This posed a great risk to a large chunk of the working population. • While the flexibility of work from home has many advantages, it does not provide the same perks as that of the working spaces. After being into lockdown for more than 6 months and working from home, people are suffering from the fear of missing out (FOMO). Human beings are a social being and keeping them constrained, making them work under these critical times is leading to an increase mental stress which leads to depression and anxiety. Human beings thrive on human touch and thus, while working from home, staring at your screens with increased screen on time, employees are reaching their burn-out stages quite early which leads to boredom and procrastination of work. These were also accompanied by changing in lifestyles, irregular sleeping patterns, obesity and other health issues, which are • again not beneficial for the health of the employees. With the procrastination kicking in, employees are lacking the impetus to work on defined deadlines and quality of work is deteriorating. • These impacted their working style affecting their productivity. Maintaining the mental health of the employees in these scenarios is an important factor to keep the working forces stable. • With the early burnout and fatigues coming in, people have also been calling for the opening up of the working spaces in the usual manner along with the steps taken for prevention and precaution. • How to handle them – • When surveyed the working professionals, who were asked – whether they would be willing to work from home, with the given situations; most of them were inclined towards working from home but were divided in terms of companies implementing work from home policies.
• Though most of them are looking for safer environments, companies bringing in policies of work from home bothered them and they looked for a more balanced approach towards the scenario with spending an appropriate number of hours in the office amount to a range of five to six hours per day. Employees were also interested working in job rotation, which in a way ensured no particular employees were forced to work in the office spaces against their will. Most of them were concerned about the regular and apt sanitization of their workplaces.
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• Even though offices need to maintain proper sanitization facilities with maintaining an inventory for masks, gloves and sanitizers for the incoming guests and clients, they also need to maintain proper hygiene with respect to the public spaces inside the office such as cafeteria, lifts, parking, clubs, fitness centres, etc. • While all of them were in favour of new drills being introduced by the companies in terms of safety protocols and procedures in chances of any medical emergency and most of them wanted their workspace pharmacies to be updated to deal with any cases of medical emergency at the office space.
• Although limited, but very few people were also interested in the concept of bio-bubble – where bio-secure environments will be provided to the employees in terms of maintaining proper sanitization, restricted movement, no contact of any member from outside, and mandatory self-quarantine. People are less aware of the concept as such as this appears as a notion to curb their freedom. • When taken the case scenario of the financial capital of India – Mumbai, things are pretty dire – most of the offices are working at about 50% of their work strength or on a need basis. For a typical corporate office building, the offices are being occupied only at 30% of their rate depending on the nature of the work that they do. Most of the offices are working on a need basis as well as availability and convenient of coming to office spaces. Depending on the nature of the work – while the hardcore industries of imports and exports, mining, heavy machinery and manufacturing had their offices shut for a longer duration, consulting and private owners had opened up for better potential clients and marking a visible presence in their respective markets. Other offices regarding the essential services such as banks and post offices, government offices have started working by adapting a Standard of Procedure (SOP) for adapting to the “new normal”. Even lifts at these offices have been labelled with posters where employees are asked not to face each other rather face the walls of the lift and use toothpicks or their car keys to operate the lift. • The restaurants have started home deliveries and takeaways as more and more people are opting to dine in the safer environments of their homes. There has been a rise in the number of delivery agents driving across the cities delivering foods to the customers. • The IT and Services giants have moved their workforce to their homes and are planning to continue to do so in order to reduce their carbon footprint. Companies are looking more towards collaborative workspaces which will help them in saving space, reducing cists spent on infrastructure and enhancing employee experience.
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• Where some sectors have remained unaffected with the sudden push of being forced to move to digitization, tourism, hospitality and healthcare has been affected worst. Tourism industry had reached a halt and had seen no footfall for the months of lockdown but it has managed to sprang up by following the SOP. The medical and healthcare are still struggling with the excessive number of COVID-19 patients and lack of infrastructure facilitates, and these are the sectors where the workplaces have been affected from all areas of hygiene, safety and sanitization. Even though regard has been given to them for being the frontline workers, they have not been proper workspaces which has crumpled the healthcare infrastructure due to the sudden workload on the healthcare professionals.
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Predictions • The capacity of the conference rooms which earlier sat about 10-12 people have been reduced to 4, so that a distance of 4 feet can be maintained in the conference rooms or people are preferring open spaces for people involving larger meetings. Infrastructure firms are now looking at developing workspaces that are COVID oriented, so that the places for sanitization, inventories for sanitizers, masks and gloves can be spaced out keeping in mind the employees that would be working from these offices. • These changes slowly indicate that people are looking for adapting the changes brought in by the global pandemic along with working together towards better productivity, increased mental state and stability. Leaders should also keep in mind to provide employees with more control over their working schedules in order to ensure their safety and health; keeping in mind this will in turn help achieve better productivity and recover the losses if any during the months of lockdown. • The positives can be seen in the manner that it has made people aware about personal hygiene, taking care of their environment, and made people realize the importance of the freedom that they enjoy which they should now work towards preserving if they want to enjoy being the social animal that they are – at offices where an average human being spends most part of their lifetimes. • Lockdown had seen efficacious impacts on the environment with the sudden plug of all of human activities. This brought an element of revival of nature into picture and keeping this into mind, people have become more conscious about the preservation of their environments as a whole and are willing to take steps towards it, where reducing their carbon footprint, using recycled products and working towards a better and sustainable workspace and environment where the coexistent system of work and life can be balanced along with nurturing the nature. Name-Aditya Singhai; College- NMIMS, Mumbai
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