As your organization wrestles with the decision to return-to-work in light of the COVID-19, today we want to discuss a few tips to ensure the transition goes smoothly.
First, ensure your workplace is safe. Seems obvious, right? But check and recheck to ensure your workplace AND your workforce is ready. Daily life will be different, people may or may not be comfortable with certain aspects of the reopening, and you should prepare for their concerns. Make sure continual sanitization is occurring, proper PPE and hand-washing stations are available. Lastly, make sure everyone knows the protocols – arriving to the office may involve a questionnaire, the lunch room may be changed to office space; whatever it might be ensuring you communicate the new realities to staff will get you the most buy-in from them.
Second, not everyone needs to be in the office. Much like the provinces and regions within are opening in stages – you may want to consider also taking such an approach. Consider, if possible, flexing work schedules to reduce the number of bodies in the physical space. There are lots of virtual tools out there – Zoom, Teams, Remo, Skype – and you are probably already familiar with them, having used them for months now; well, guess what? You can still use them! Now that you’ve embraced the tech, you should embrace it for the long haul, and who knows – maybe this makes your meetings more efficient anyways.
Third, demand physical distancing and proper masking. This goes beyond the first point. It’s not only expected that you will communicate with staff and have PPE available, you need to be diligent that staff are following the rules. Maybe this means putting markers on the floor, maybe this means barriers between desks, whatever it is, policies are only as good as the leadership is at enforcing them. The virus is no joke, your attitude towards staff adherence shouldn’t be either.
It should be noted that there are supports out there to assist your workplace in getting proper PPE – here in Northwestern Ontario, check out FedNor’s RRRF fund, which is being administered through the various Community Futures offices (http://fednor.gc.ca/eic/site/fednor-fednor.nsf/eng/h_fn04591.html) (find your local CF office here - https://www.cfontario.ca/index.php/northwest). The province recently announced the new Northern Ontario Recovery Plan, which assists with PPE installations amongst other things (https://nohfc.ca/en/pages/programs/northern-ontario-recovery-program).