How do you get back to work after the ease of lock-down? Claire Donnelly, Senior Consultant at Mike Hoff Consulting
It is a testament to the hard work of the UAE Government that restrictions are lifting enough to allow Employees to start returning to work, maintain new guidelines on physically distancing and wearing face masks. Slowly lifting restrictions indicate the Government are maintaining their keen observation of the infection rate whilst starting to bring business back to life. The past months have been hugely challenging to Business owners, many of whom are now in survival mode. Dealing with COVID has certainly impacted people, many of whom were complete resistant at first to being forced to isolate/ work from home, obtain a movement permits to go to the shops and nightly curfews all down to a bad case of the flu! But as the news started to report the depths of human
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tragedy in countries around the world, many UAE based expats were in total admiration of the UAE’s immediate reaction, regardless of the economic impact. Some of us have had to deal with tragedy within our own families back home, never have we felt more removed from our home countries. Even our ability to fly back at a moment notice was put on hold. A lot of sacrifices have had to be made, but all for the greater good, as the UAEs infections and tragic loss of life numbers show just what happens when a country takes action early. In order to survive and ride this crisis, many Companies have had reduced their workforce down to the bear minimum, asked their dedicated team members to work on reduced salaries or go immediately onto unpaid holiday without knowing when they will be able to get them back to work. Companies are now able to ask their employees to go back to work, and here we are beginning to see a strange reaction, a reluctance of go back into work! Surely everyone will be keen to get back to normal? But the old normal is long past and COVID is still present, why would we want to put ourselves and families at risk by attending the office when we are managing fine working from home, so why do we need to change?
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