It’s been almost a year since workplaces across the country changed suddenly and drastically due to the COVID-19 pandemic: about 88% of businesses worldwide shut down their offices and moved to remote work, while essential industries rapidly enacted new safety protocols to keep their employees safe. Now, with multiple approved vaccines being rolled out across the globe, companies and employees alike are starting to consider a post-pandemic workforce.
This has led to a lot of questions from organizations of all sizes and types. Will your company return to the office if you haven’t already? How will you enact new safety measures? Will you require vaccinations? What do your employees want to do? There’s a lot to think about, so today we’re breaking down some key points to keep in mind:
If you work in an essential industry, you probably haven’t even had the option to consider remote work - in industries like manufacturing or retail, your employees have to be onsite in order for your workforce to function. In a Pew survey at the end of 2020, over half of employees working in-person said they were concerned about their own exposure to COVID-19 and other illnesses or inadvertently putting their coworkers at risk.
In fact, a recent study by Honeywell revealed that 71% of employees currently working full-time or part-time in person do not feel completely safe inside their building today (this goes up to 82% for employees currently working from home). Not only that, but 3 out of every 10 remote workers would start looking for another job if required to return on-site without increased health and safety measures. In order to help reassure and empower your staff, make sure you are rolling out new safety measures and health/wellness initiatives (such as Healthy Roster’s Virtual Injury Clinics).
In a survey of over 9000 office-workers conducted by Future Forum by Slack, 48% of employees said they expect their employer to make permanent policy changes that will expand remote working. In fact, an overwhelming 72% want to see a hybrid workforce with a combination of in-person and remote work opportunities.
As an employer, you should be surveying your staff regularly on what they prefer as the world shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve - both in company-wide surveys and in one-on-one sessions between staff and managers. Make sure to keep in mind diversity and inclusivity gaps that may not be evident through an anonymous survey - in every study we found, women are more likely than men to be concerned about contracting COVID-19, and Black and Hispanic employees are more likely to feel like their company is not taking enough measures to protect their health and safety.
It depends on who you ask. Whereas 65% of non-executive-level employees think that a safe workplace is the responsibility of the company, about half of the executive-level workers put the responsibility on building or facility management. This disconnect means that you need to have in-depth conversations with both your decision makers and your facility management as soon as possible to collaborate on clear expectations and action steps.
In terms of what to actually do, about half of employees are most concerned about whether or not your company will actually enforce health and safety guidelines, so making sure you have consistent buy-in and expectations on enforcement is crucial. 26% of employees hope their employer will invest in new technology to make the workplace safer, which means now is an important time to start researching effective and innovative tech (such as Return to Work platforms or Virtual Injury Clinic programs) that will provide peace of mind to your entire workforce. You also need to balance short-term changes (like return to work platforms) with long-term investments in overall systems to ensure ongoing employee satisfaction.
At the end of the day, the most important thing you can do as a company is to regularly gather feedback and listen to your employees at all levels on what they’re expecting from your company and/or facility going forward. At Healthy Roster, for example, our executive team based their decision to move our company to full-time remote work on group and individual conversations with our entire staff.
Focus on what safety measures your employees expect to see in the short-term (like social distancing and mask wearing) and what long-term initiatives they’ll need (such as more flexible WFH policies or more robust health and safety programs). By demonstrating to your staff that your goal is for everyone to feel safe in their workplace, you’ll be able to increase productivity and retention, and create a healthier and happier community.
For more detail on how Healthy Roster supports your initiatives to keep your organization safe and confident, click the link below: