4 questions before reopening your office
With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, many firms are still up in the air when it comes to office reopenings. As they think about whether (and how) to bring staff back in, there are four major questions to consider.
What factors are the most important to consider when planning safe returns to the office?
Employers should first familiarize themselves with the CDC recommendations for workplaces and implement those precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
As firms are preparing for what safe work will look like on the other side of the pandemic, it will be crucial to go beyond those standard protocols. By thoughtfully reevaluating the configuration of your office space, firms can work to minimize any health risks in shared office environments.
Here are a few ways to do this:
1. Display signage to alert your employees and guests to routinely sanitize their hands, and provide sanitization stations throughout office space.
2. Lower conference and meeting room capacities.
3. Limit the number of chairs in shared spaces and around tables.
In Firmspace’s private offices, we provide daily office cleaning and keep high-touch areas sanitized. This also helps members and staff feel safer at work, and it’s an approach that can be easily replicated.
More importantly, the measures that firms adopt should be part of a normalized routine for the office. By making these practices part of the daily routine, the people at your firm will have the peace of mind they need to focus on work instead of worrying about their safety.
How can firms gauge what the best work environment is for their employees?
Finding the best work environment for your firm requires ongoing communication to understand what each member of the team needs to be successful.
Executive teams and management need to keep open lines of communication and encourage employees to evaluate what’s working for them and what’s not. When it comes to what workers prefer in their workspace, it’s clear that usually one size doesn’t fit all.
It might seem obvious, but the best way to find out what works best for your employees is through continuous survey and feedback. If you checked in with everyone back in March, it’s time to send out another survey to see how they’re managing.
In each survey it’s important to be direct. Ask each member of the team how they feel about working from home, what challenges they are facing, what they expect from employers if they do decide to return, and whether or not they want to return to the office now or in the future. You should leave room on the survey to write in any specific concerns that the survey didn’t address.
Ultimately, employees need a work environment that helps them get work done, whether that’s remote or in the office. Even if the majority of your team prefers working from home full time, you should still provide flexible options for the workers who prefer operating from an office space, especially if it helps them feel more productive and engaged.
Similarly, you’ll want to make sure that you’re supporting employees who want to work remotely. That might mean reimbursing them for equipment they need. Either way, this will help remote employees feel more comfortable and productive at home.
How can firms best manage employees in a remote environment to maintain productivity?
Better managing remote teams means taking a holistic look at how your business operates and the kinds of tools your team is using to get work done. While some firms made a smooth transition to remote work, others are scrambling to adapt and find the right ones.
Frequent communication is key. Firms should regularly speak with teams to identify any gaps in business operations, tools, or technology that can’t easily be accessed remotely.
Read more: Best tools to support your remote workforce
Many firms are finding it challenging to work with Zoom and other video conferencing applications in centralized digital workspaces commonly used at accounting firms, like Citrix.
This is partly because compatibility between the systems has never quite been tested and relied upon as it is now. Cloud-based applications like these that allow for communication and collaboration have gone from “nice to have” to “must have” for firms managing remote teams.
Cloud-based services offer enhanced security and allow members of the team to get work done, no matter their physical location. The files on the cloud server are also encrypted and can only be accessed by designated members of the team with a password.
Firms that haven’t implemented remote access and cloud-based technology should strongly consider making the change. Effectively managing remote teams means that leadership needs to provide access to all the resources that support security, privacy, and collaboration for their teams to stay productive.
What factors should firms consider before switching to flexible office space instead of returning to their traditional office to reduce costs?
The decision to remain in your current office or go with flex space depends on the direction of the firm. Even before COVID-19, firms were using flex space as either home base or as a satellite office. COVID has exacerbated this need as firms explore flexible office arrangements, which are much friendlier to unexpected turns in the market.
We are seeing firms take this opportunity to construct a list of office “must-haves” by asking themselves what is the real value of having an office. Some firms will go fully remote or find flex space, some will keep their traditional leased offices, and the rest will wind up somewhere in between.
Firms should strongly consider resisting the urge to give up all real estate, even if their employees prefer working from home. The pendulum will likely swing back in the other direction in the future and some employees may desire an office environment.
That said, for many firms, spending money on an office that may or may not get used in the next year doesn’t seem worth it. Utilizing flex office space allows firms to keep their occupancy costs down and quickly scale up or down based on market factors.
Fortunately, there are flexible rental options available for firms of all sizes that can accommodate those that are looking to become more agile without sacrificing the workplace experience.
SOURCE: Michael, A. (11 December 2020) "4 questions before reopening your office" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/list/4-questions-before-reopening-your-office
Can employers mandate workers be vaccinated before returning to work?
With COVID-19 vaccines now being administered in the U.S., planning for a post-pandemic future could soon be a reality. As employers prepare to reopen offices, they have to consider whether they are going to require employees be vaccinated, and have the processes in place to support such a mandate.
“Protection is a must, not a nice to have,” says Gary Pearce, chief risk architect at Aclaimant, a workplace safety and risk management platform. “If you can't demonstrate that you're protecting your own people, you're not going to be able to keep employees.”
The Pfizer vaccine has been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and will provide 100 million doses of the vaccine by the end of March, 2021. A second vaccine from Moderna is undergoing authorization from the FDA this week. Moderna has also promised 100 million doses by March.
Sixty percent of Americans say they would "definitely" or "probably" get a coronavirus vaccine, according to the Pew Research Center. Twenty-one percent say they do not plan to get vaccinated.
Employers may be tasked with mandating employees be vaccinated before returning to work. This tactic could be challenging because of personal opinions about vaccines, as well as the timeline of the roll out.
“There's still a lot of objection about vaccinations. Part of it is concern and part of it is ignorance,” Pearce says. “Given the reality, it won’t be like we’re flicking a switch. The vaccine will roll out over time.”
While employers are eager to return to the physical workplace, ensuring the safety of their employees must be top priority, Pearce says. Employers should communicate frequently and openly with employees to ensure they feel heard and their concerns are being met. He shares how employers can navigate vaccine mandates for COVID-19 and the best way to enforce these rules before returning to work.
Can employers require employees to have the COVID-19 vaccine before returning to work?
It's pretty clearly established that yes, [individual] employers can require mandatory vaccinations, as a matter of prior health crises and common law. There'll be some industries where it's going to be a mandate, like in healthcare, for example. But private employers generally can require their employees to be vaccinated.
There are some exceptions. If somebody has a medical condition that puts them at a reasonable risk, then you have to go through the traditional Americans with Disabilities Act dialogue of determining whether a reasonable accommodation can be provided or whether having to provide such an accommodation would constitute an undue hardship. The second big issue is that if you have somebody who has a bonafide religious objection, you have to take that into consideration. You might want to make an accommodation, but that obligation is not absolute.
How can employers enforce this rule?
If you're going to have that requirement, you have to have all the administrative processes in place. How do you verify as an employer that somebody went and got it? What documentation will suffice? How will you ensure confidentiality of this medical information?
If somebody is very resistant to this mandate, they could be a workplace disrupter. If ultimately you say, ‘You’ve had the opportunity to follow the mandate,’ then what else are you willing to do to make good on that? You should be prepared to find qualified replacements.
You can't just base your program and processes around what COVID-19 regulations are, because they are almost always retroactive to real world developments. Instead, base it around what the right thing is to do for your workforce, and use your relationships with your employees as a way to shape and inform the program you establish.
What are some alternatives to an employer mandate to get employees on board with this policy?
There's a certain trust culture and an existing relationship you have with your workforce. The science and information regarding COVID is constantly changing, and there will be a lot of questions. So where will employees turn for guidance and information? One of the places they're going to turn is their employer. The employer is going to be a source of information as the vaccinations roll out, so they need to ensure they’re conducting business safely to make employees confident in what they're doing. Employers need to be proactive and repetitive in terms of communication with their workers.
Employees are going to have a sixth sense for whether they trust the message from their employer. They may not like it, but at least if it's credible and they understand the reasoning and that the employer is trying to balance the needs of the public and fellow workers, people are going to get with the program. I think the best case is when it doesn't have to come down to a mandate, but rather people are persuaded by having been given the best information, this is the right thing to do to protect their family and to protect their fellow workers.
SOURCE: Place, A. (10 December 2020) "Can employers mandate workers be vaccinated before returning to work?" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/list/can-employers-mandate-workers-be-vaccinated-before-returning-to-work
Offices struggle with COVID-19 social distancing measures
Across the nation, many are beginning, if they have not already, are allowed to work from their offices, instead of having to work remotely. Now, due to the coronavirus pandemic, there are several new protocols that many may struggle to maintain. Read this blog post to learn more.
Millions of workers in recent months have returned to offices outfitted with new pandemic protocols meant to keep them healthy and safe. But temperature checks and plexiglass barriers between desks can't prevent one of the most dangerous workplace behaviors for the spread of COVID-19 — the irresistible desire to mingle.
“If you have people coming into the office, it’s very rare for them consistently to be six feet apart,” said Kanav Dhir, the head of product at VergeSense, a company that has 30,000 object-recognition sensors deployed in office buildings around the world tracking worker whereabouts.
Since the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, the company has found that 60% of interactions among North American workers violate the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s six-foot distancing guidelines, as do an even higher share in Asia, where offices usually are smaller.
Most people who can work at home still are and likely will be until at least mid-2021. But as some white-collar workers begin a cautious return, it’s becoming clear how hard it is to make the workplace safe. A bevy of sophisticated sensors and data are being used to develop detailed plans; even IBM’s vaunted Watson artificial intelligence is weighing in. In many cases the data can only verify what should be evident: The modern office, designed to pack in as many workers as possible, was never meant to enforce social distancing.
To date, the coronavirus has infected more than 8 million Americans and is blamed for 220,000 U.S. deaths. So far, efforts to get large numbers of workers into the office haven’t worked out very well. Some workers at Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase tested positive after they returned to work and were sent home. With infection rates rising again nationwide, many companies have told most employees to work from home until next year, or even forever. Michigan’s governor approved new rules last week that bar employers from forcing workers back to the office if they can do their job at home.
For those employers pushing ahead with a return to the office, sensors that measure room occupancy are proving to be a necessity, said Doug Stewart, co-head of digital buildings at the technology unit Cushman & Wakefield, which manages about 785-million-square feet of commercial space in North and South America. Most offices are already fitted with sensors of some kind, even if it’s just a badging system or security cameras. Those lagging on such capabilities are now scrambling to add more, he said.
The systems were used before the pandemic to jam as many people together in the most cost-effective way, not limit workplace crowding or keep employees away from each other, Stewart said. With that in mind, companies can analyze the data all they want, but changing human behavior — we’re social creatures, after all — is harder, he said.
“Just because technology identifies it, and the analytics is flagging it, doesn’t mean the behavior will change,” Stewart said.
Because office crowding can show up in air quality, proper ventilation has replaced comfort as the focus for building managers, said Aaron Lapsley, who directs Cushman’s digital building operations with Stewart. Measuring the amount of carbon dioxide or the concentration of aerial particles can determine if airflow needs to be adjusted — or whether some people need to be told to leave a specific area. Employees are now more likely to use smartphone apps to receive alerts and keep tabs on the health and safety of the building, he said.
Something even as trivial as a trip to the bathroom or coffee machine has to be re-examined, said Mike Sandridge, executive director of client success at the technology unit of Jones Lang LaSalle, which oversees about 5-billion-square feet of property globally. Some restrooms have had to be limited to one person, and a red light will come on to let others know whether it’s occupied, based on stepping on a switch. When it’s free, the light turns green. Companies can also monitor whether the snack area is getting crowded, he said.
To help get some of its 350,000 employees back to its 150 offices around the world, International Business Machines is using its problem-solving Watson AI to analyze data from WiFi usage to help design and adjust office occupancy, said Joanne Wright, vice president of enterprise operations.
Understanding worker habits is more useful if you have a way to nudge them into new patterns. Since the pandemic began, Radiant RFID has sold 10,000 wristbands that vibrate when co-workers are too close to each other. The technology was originally designed to warn workers away from dangerous machinery, not other people. So far, the wristbands are responsible for reducing unsafe contacts by about 65%, said Kenneth Ratton, chief executive of the company, which makes radio-communication devices. At this point, the data on more than 3 billion encounters shows the average worker has had about 300 interactions closer than six feet lasting 10 minutes or more.
“The biggest problem is we as Americans haven't really been socially distanced, ever,” Ratton said.
Nadia Diwas is using another kind of technology: a wireless key fob she carries in her pocket made by her employer, Semtech, which tracks her movements and interactions, making it useful for contact tracing if someone gets sick, which is as important as warning people they are too close. The technology originally was developed by Semtech to help devices such as thermostats communicate on the so-called internet of things.
The reality is that people still need to work together, and if you’re back in the office, that means face-to-face interaction, said Diwas, who works in an electronics lab with two and sometimes three other people. She said she comes in contact with more people at the grocery store than in the office.
“It does make me more aware and more careful,” Diwas said in an interview. “The way I picture it in my head is that if both of us stretch our arms out, we should not touch each other.”
For most office workers, the best way to keep a safe distance from colleagues for the foreseeable future will still be on Zoom.
SOURCE: Green, J. (26 October 2020) "Offices struggle with COVID-19 social distancing measures" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from employeebenefitadviser.com/articles/offices-struggle-with-covid-19-social-distancing-measures
Just 28% of Americans expect to return to the workplace before 2021
According to a recent study from a Conference Board Survey, only 28 percent of Americans expect that they can return to the workplace before the year 2021. Although that percentage has increased, many are still uneasy about the idea of returning to public spaces. Read this blog post to learn more.
Just 28% of Americans say they already have or expect to return to workplaces before the end of the year, indicating the coronavirus pandemic is making remote work more mainstream, a Conference Board survey showed Thursday.
Nearly one-third of respondents said they would be uncomfortable getting back to offices, shops and factories, while half said their greatest concern was contracting the disease at work, according to the Sept. 16-25 online survey of more than 1,100 workers. Only 17% of employees said they were very comfortable or even wanted to return.
The coronavirus continues to spread across the U.S., with 34 states recording higher seven-day averages of new cases compared with a month ago. While progress is being made on a vaccine, it will be months before it’s available to the general public. Even when it is ready, the Conference Board’s survey showed just 7% expect a return to their workplace.
“For knowledge workers and others where remote working is an option, you’re going to see more of a remote or hybrid working arrangement become the standard way,” said Rebecca Ray, executive vice president of human capital at the Conference Board.
A cultural shift to working from home and the pause or stop in business reopenings have upended the commercial real estate market. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren warned that a resurgence in the virus could lead to troubles in the financial sector via commerical real estate.
The “commercial real estate sector is going to be impacted in the long term as we now need much less space for offices, retail, and probably higher education,” said Gad Levanon, head of the Conference Board Labor Markets Institute.
The Conference Board’s survey echoed with a recent poll of company executives by Cisco Systems. More than half plan to downsize their offices as remote working will become commonplace after the pandemic subsides, according to the Cisco survey.
The Conference Board survey also showed that lower-ranking employees are more concerned about returning. Some 20% of rank-and-file workers and 21% of front-line managers indicated they feel pressure to return in order to keep their jobs, compared with just 4% of executives. Individual contributors are also the least comfortable coming back to job sites.
Some 29% of respondents said they had little faith that their colleagues would adhere to safety protocols and guidelines upon return. One-third questioned the wisdom of going back to workplaces because they said productivity has remained high when working remotely, the survey showed.
SOURCE: Ren, H. (15 October 2020) "Just 28% of Americans expect to return to the workplace before 2021" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/articles/just-28-of-americans-expect-to-return-to-the-workplace-before-2021
Why continuous listening is the key to a smooth transition back to work
Returning to the workplace during this time can be difficult for many, especially with employers who are being faced with the question of how to create and keep a safe and comfortable workplace scene. Read this blog post to learn more.
As states and businesses reopen in the U.S., many employers are faced with a difficult decision: Should their employees go back to the workplace? And if so, when? Amazon told their workers they likely wouldn’t return until October, while Google announced that their employees wouldn’t go back to the office until 2021. Twitter and Facebook decided most employees could work from home forever.
But once employers do make that decision, they’re then confronted with a more formidable one: How do they get their employees back in a way that is both safe and comfortable for everyone? In short, how do they successfully manage employee experience?
Most companies have coordinated COVID-19 task forces charged with making those decisions and helping their employees navigate the global pandemic. And whether they realize it or not, those task forces are broken down into two different functions: operational and experiential.
When COVID-19 first hit, the task forces had to deal with the operational challenge of moving massive workforces home overnight, and they worked to ensure employees had the equipment and software needed to function remotely. And soon after, many realized they also had another responsibility on their plate: employee mental wellbeing.
Leaders recognized they’d have to find new ways to keep their people sharp, productive, and happy. In fact, their employees’ experience with remote work was a central component in making that big operational move successful.
The same will happen as task forces bring people back to the workplace. In fact, managing employee experience will become a task force’s most critical responsibility. To ensure employees feel comfortable returning to the workplace, company leadership needs to know how they feel about coming back and what safety concerns they may have. Then leadership must act on that information.
But the current situation (and their employees’ feelings) can change rapidly. That’s why a method called “continuous listening” is essential to managing employee experience. At least once a day (if not more), employees should be able to respond to a few questions about how they’re feeling, and leaders can use that real-time information to successfully take care of their teams.
A large retail bank in North America has set up an always-on feedback channel for retail branch employees to identify safety concerns in different branches. The bank recognized that, when it came to health and safety concerns, employees might need to offer feedback immediately rather than waiting for a survey that came around once a day. Other organizations have used pre-screening tools that allow employees to self-report each day so company leadership can decide whether they should come into the workplace.
Continuous listening helps leadership communicate with employees, and vice versa. If there’s ever been a time to listen to your people and manage their employee experience, it’s now.
A Qualtrics study conducted at the beginning of May found that two out of three workers in the United States didn’t feel comfortable returning to the workplace. In fact, nearly half of all workers said they didn’t expect to go back to work until August or later.
Most respondents said they want assurance from public officials like the Centers for Disease Control or state and local governments before returning, while about half said they’d feel more comfortable once a treatment or vaccine is available. Nearly 70%, though, said they trust their company leadership to make the right decision on when to come back.
Once leadership makes that decision, however, employees expect them to enact policies and procedures that will protect workers’ safety. Almost 75% said they want their work facility to be thoroughly and regularly cleaned and disinfected, while 62% said they want strict policies about who cannot come to the office, including those who are sick and have recently traveled. Nearly 60% said they want masks available to everyone who wants one, while the same amount said they want all employees to be required to wear a mask at all times.
A majority expect their company to require those who travel to self-quarantine for 14 days, prohibit handshakes and hugs, and set safety measures around communal food. Almost 40% said they want employees to be brought back in phases instead of all at once.
Employees also want the freedom to take action themselves. Over 60% said they want to be able to wear a mask and maintain social distancing at work, and half said they want more flexible sick-leave policies that employees are encouraged to use, even with minor symptoms. Nearly the same amount said they want to be able to limit the number of people they’re exposed to in workplace meetings, and almost 40% said they want to be able to skip work without penalty or continue working from home if they feel unsafe.
These findings provide companies with a general idea of what their employees want to see before coming back to work, but gathering data specific to each organization is even more helpful. Before and after companies begin their initial return, they’ll need to listen closely and continuously to their employees and should increase emphasis on employee feedback.
After all, employees are an organization’s best ambassadors. Invest in them, and they’ll invest in you.
SOURCE: Choi, J. (27 July 2020) "Why continuous listening is the key to a smooth transition back to work" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/opinion/why-continuous-listening-is-the-key-to-a-smooth-transition-back-to-work
Employees Look to HR to Evaluate COVID-19 Data Before Reopening
Many employers are looking at the opportunity to allow employees to return to their workplace, but before returning many are asking and reaching out to their HR departments to look and rely on local, state, and federal data in order to make a safe transition back into office. Read this blog post to learn more.
When national staffing and recruitment firm Addison Group began putting in place the necessary measures to reopen the company's offices in Texas, Peg Buchenroth, senior vice president of human resources, relied on local, state and federal data to make the transition.
The company's employees switched to remote work during the week of March 16. Since then, Buchenroth and her colleagues have been monitoring coronavirus cases in Texas, where the numbers are changing fast.
Recent data from Texas health authorities demonstrates why it's important for human resource managers to follow infection and hospitalization rates in different geographies.
According to Texas Department of State Health Services data, nearly 75,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the first week of June and more than 1,800 people died of COVID-19. As of July 19, nearly 4,000 people had died from COVID-19 in the state, and the death toll is expected to rise further as reported cases have climbed to over 330,000.
Texas Health and Human Services has posted a warning on its website: "Please note that all data are provisional and subject to change. Probable cases are not included in the total case numbers."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began clearing the way for businesses to reopen in May to restart the state's economy but had to roll back those plans after COVID-19 deaths began to rise. In the midst of this, the Addison Group reopened its San Antonio/Houston offices on May 4, its Dallas location on May 18 and its Austin facility on May 20. The company closed its Texas offices for the July 4 holiday and has kept them closed as it considers what to do next.
"While we successfully opened our Texas offices in May for employees who wanted to return to in-person work, we've decided to close these locations and will monitor the situation in case we need to reassess," Buchenroth said. "The safety of our employees remains Addison Group's top priority, and we will continue to leverage federal, state and local data to inform any future decisions."
She said employees who return to the office will need to adhere to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, such as wearing a mask and maintaining 6 feet of physical distance from others.
"We want to make sure that employees feel safe when they return to the office," Buchenroth said.
She added that the company takes into consideration the many factors that can influence an employee's decision to return to the office, including child care needs, elder care responsibilities, and serious underlying medical conditions that put individuals at high risk of developing a severe illness from COVID-19.
Coronavirus and COVID-19
Using Data to Inform Reopening
As more businesses reopen, employers will have to decide if going to the office is safe based on the data received from local health authorities. Insight from that data will determine how employers will design their workspaces to allow for adequate social distancing within an office, how many workers will be allowed in the office at a time and whether remote work will continue for the foreseeable future.
John Dooney, an HR Knowledge Advisor at the Society for Human Resource Management, said he has noticed an increase in the number of inquiries from HR professionals about new federal, state and local measures and how to safely reopen businesses. He added that while health officials have gained a better understanding of the coronavirus during the past four months, there is still a lot more to learn.
"The pandemic is evolving, and we haven't had the luxury of time to get the information we need," Dooney said. "I think it's important for HR managers to continually review data from authoritative resources."
HR needs to be aware of the changes states are making as they reverse previous decisions on reopening their economies given increasing coronavirus infections and death rates in states like Arizona, Florida and Texas. The current crisis, Dooney said, should prompt HR professionals to be more involved with their senior leadership teams in the decision-making process.
"HR executives should work with senior managers to come up with the best ideas that protect their employees," Dooney advised. "The leadership team should be looking at not only how to maintain the business, but also how to implement adequate protections."
Employers' responses will also depend on the work environment at each company. Hospitals, supermarkets, pharmacies and delivery services, for example, need employees at their worksites; many knowledge-based businesses, however, are better-suited to rely on remote workers.
Gavin Morton, head of people and financial operations at HR.com, said as discrepancies arise in the actual number of coronavirus infections and deaths caused by COVID-19, employees will want to know that their employers have seen the data, considered it carefully and are concerned about workers' safety.
"We all want to know exactly what's going on, but it is very difficult for medical professionals and coroners to quickly ascribe deaths to COVID-19 or other causes," Morton said. "It is logical that there are both more cases and more infections than are being reported, since the testing numbers are still relatively low, and we may not know for years what the true impact has been."
Morton added that employers are in a powerful position to reduce their employees' anxiety. "Employers need to read carefully to understand what the reliable facts are and use them to inform their employees rather than alarm them. Clarity, calm and honesty go a long way," he said.
Morton said HR professionals should consider and educate the leadership team in two key areas:
- How this information impacts the business and employees. Some data could have little to no impact on a company, depending on such factors as location and type of business, while other information could have a severe impact. An outbreak of cases in a city four hours away may not worry the organization's local employees, but if someone's parents live in that city, he or she may be personally very concerned.
- Employee sentiment. It is critical to understand how employees are feeling and how new data can affect their confidence in their safety.
Contact tracing, new coronavirus cases, new hospitalizations, and increases or drops in the number of people dying from COVID-19 will be critical data that will contribute to HR managers' planning.
Human resource professionals should remember, too, that the data are interrelated.
For example, Morton noted that while an increase in deaths reported is alarming, it doesn't necessarily mean that there are more cases; similarly, falling death rates may not mean that transmission today is low. Information about deaths is only one piece of the puzzle.
Developing measures to secure the safety and encourage the performance of employees during the second half of the year won't be easy, especially if there is suspicion that federal, state and local information on the COVID-19 crisis isn't accurate.
"The numbers are really important, and companies need to pay close attention to information which impacts their employees and their customers," Morton said. "While the data can help guide their decisions, HR leaders and company leaders still need to interpret the data. This is true for any information, and so the uncertainty around death reporting is no different. Company leaders need to use their best judgment based on their knowledge of their business, employees and customers."
SOURCE: Lewis, N. (20 July 2020) "Employees Look to HR to Evaluate COVID-19 Data Before Reopening" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/hr-evaluate-covid19-data-before-reopening.aspx
SHRM: Employers Consider Safety Precautions for Return to Workplace
As employers begin to look at what lies ahead in regards to returning to the workplace, they also have to begin looking at what precautions they need to consider in order to keep the workplace safe for everyone involved. Read this blog post to learn more.
Nearly half of organizations surveyed have not announced a return-to-work date as COVID-19 restrictions ease in some parts of the country, but a majority of HR professionals think setting even a tentative date is a good idea.
The findings from new Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) research released June 9 illustrate how U.S. employers are considering a phased return of employees, staggered start and stop times, health precautions, and physical changes to their worksites.
Setting a return date is a good idea, two-thirds of HR professionals said, because it eases job-security concerns among staff, especially for those in physical and service industries such as health care, retail and education. Employers that have established a date prefer employees to return on or before June 30, according to more than three-fourths of HR professionals.
Much of what an organization decides to do depends on its size and industry.
Large employers—those with 500 or more employees—were less likely to have announced a return date. This was especially true in knowledge industries. However, organizations in those industries—finance, consulting, engineering and administrative services companies—also were more likely to let employees continue to work from home and determine when they want to return to the worksite.
Industries where the work is more physical—construction, manufacturing and transportation—were more likely to have already reopened their physical locations and to implement an alternating work schedule.
Other strategies include:
- Staggering the start and stop of employees' workdays as well as break times so as to reduce the number of workers in one location at the same time (75 percent).
- Reducing the number of customers permitted on site at one time and taking measures such as counting the number of people as they enter (78 percent).
- Limiting the number of employees or customers on site at one time (81 percent).
The research is based on a SHRM survey that collected responses May 13-20 from a random sampling of 1,087 SHRM members working in HR. Academicians, students, consultants, people who are self-employed or retired, and HR professionals who were furloughed or laid off were excluded from the sample.
“This research gives a glimpse into how COVID-19 has changed the world of work, and what workplaces will look like once we return,” said Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, SHRM's president and CEO. “Workers should expect to see more masks, fewer handshakes, marked floors, more barriers, and greater flexibility—especially when it comes to remote work.”
Among employers implementing a phased-return plan, one-third intend to do so by specific departments or functions. Others are first bringing back employees with lower health risks or those in leadership positions. The length of the phased return also varies, from two weeks to more than three months.
"Getting back to work takes a lot of work," Taylor noted, "and HR professionals have played an essential role in drawing up plans that drive organizations forward and protect public health.”
SOURCE: Gurchiek, K. (09 June 2020) "SHRM: Employers Consider Safety Precautions for Return to Workplace" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/shrm-employers-consider-safety-precautions-for-return-to-workplace.aspx
People Analytics Guide Return-to-Work Choices
With many workplaces beginning to return to work, many leaders are using analytic tools to make decisions regarding staff easier. Read this blog post to learn more.
Human resources leaders are turning to people analytics tools to help make difficult decisions as their staffs return to the workplace and face a damaged economy. Whether it's figuring out how to keep workers safe, making decisions on furloughs and layoffs, or ensuring the right number of employees are in the right roles, these technologies collect, blend and analyze people data to guide HR leaders in their "what if" scenario planning.
Research shows the use of people analytics software was on the rise even before the coronavirus crisis hit. Now experts say many HR leaders are doubling down on the use of those tools.
Platforms Integrate Data
People analytics platforms fall into a number of categories. One group can help users integrate and analyze the diverse data sets related to COVID-19 and the composition of their workforces. They help answer questions like which people in key roles can go back to the workplace and which should continue working remotely; assist in developing first- and second-level succession plans in case workers get sick or need to step away to assist family members; and help align workforce planning with shifting business strategy and uncertain revenue forecasts.
AON is one vendor with an analytics tool that helps HR leaders think through workforce costs amid COVID-19. The London-based company's Talent Modeler platform can help determine the impact of shift reductions or help leaders choose from a range of options such as furloughs, attrition, pay cuts or layoffs.
Experts say sophisticated people analytics also can help leaders evaluate alternatives to layoffs, such as hiring or promotion freezes, shortened work schedules, or reducing costs like real estate expenses.
Nicholas Garbis, vice president of people analytics strategy for One Model, a people analytics provider with offices in Austin, Texas, has seen an evolution among HR leaders he's spoken to throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. As organizations begin their return-to-work planning—which largely entails addressing employee fear of COVID-19 infection as well as monitoring the reopening of child care centers—more are now planning for the "what if" scenarios that will arise this summer, he said.
This coming phase requires HR leaders to have better data and insight into the state of their current workforce and how it may need to change in the short term. "You need to be able to accurately assess your capacity, starting with the kind of workforce gaps that may have emerged from early March to now," Garbis said. "What talent have you lost, for example, to furloughs, layoffs or health issues?"
One Model's analytics platform collects and blends diverse forms of people data into a unified model to help surface these kinds of insights. HR should examine the state of "talent segments" in the organization as well as gauge potential coronavirus risks, Garbis said, then create a short-term strategic plan to define future workforce needs.
"HR business partners should be consulting with business leaders right now to say, 'This is the mix of people and roles you have now. What might you need your workforce to look like in six to 12 months?' " he said. "You want to ensure you're growing where you're supposed to grow and shrinking where you want to shrink."
People analytics also can help redeploy employees to areas experiencing increased demand. Ian Cook, vice president of people solutions for Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based Visier, said a financial services company he knows was considering furloughing employees in one area of its business until it experienced a spike in another area—life insurance sales. "That allowed them to move some front-line customer service people over to selling life insurance policies," Cook said.
In another case a regional bank used analytics to decide to move a call center to shift work and parallel work teams with physical distancing, said Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader, people and organization for PwC, a research and consulting firm in New York City.
"The goal was to help manage call center capacity and infection risk," Sethi said. "Almost 50 percent of CFOs in a recent PwC survey said they would have to implement some form of shift work when they bring people back to the workplace."
Employee Coaching Analytics
Employee coaching tools can give managers and employees feedback on how their communication or management styles have changed as a result of remote working arrangements. One vendor in the space is Cultivate, which creates reports that give employees a summary of their digital behaviors at home.
"These analytics could show managers, for example, how responsive they've been to certain employees in the work-from-home setting or how much overall time they've spent with certain workers," said Stacia Garr, co-founder and principal analyst of RedThread Research, a human capital research and advisory firm in Woodside, Calif.
Measuring Inclusion During Remote Work
This category of analytics can help HR understand how remote work is impacting leadership development, performance-based promotions or the inclusion of diverse employee populations. Some experts believe, for example, that a remote working environment can make it easier for implicit or unconscious bias to take root.
"We know that people's networks have contracted as a result of remote work, and there also can be less insight into employee performance," Garr said. "When we aren't seeing each other in person as often and aren't as aware of what others are doing or thinking, it can open the door to unconscious bias and stereotyping."
Organizational network analysis technology can track employees' connections to give HR a better understanding of how remote workers are interacting during COVID-19, Garr said. "The tools can give you an indication of who is being included in conversations, who is on e-mail threads and who is being invited to meetings. It can help you see if people across the organization are being included on an equal basis." Some of these vendors include TrustSphere, Polinode, Innovisor and OrgAnalytix.
Employee Surveying and Sentiment Analysis
Many companies are deploying employee listening tools to stay abreast of how workers are feeling at home and to gauge their sentiment on returning to the workplace. Platforms like Qualtrics, Yva, Perceptyx and Limeade offer such survey tools, some of which include artificial intelligence capabilities to make it easier to compile and analyze survey results.
"Organizations are using these surveys to measure employee feelings about a return to the workplace, with the understanding that not everyone is of the same mind about that return," Garr said. Such surveys sometimes ask employees to register their preferences for a return to the workplace. Might they want to work certain shifts or travel into the office on certain days, for example, and work other days at home?
COVID-Specific Employee Health and Safety Tracking
Some people analytics have adapted to allow HR leaders to merge publicly available COVID-19 data with their internal people data to assist in workforce planning. Visier integrates COVID-19 data sources and automated analysis to help users make more-informed decisions related to staffing.
Visier's database allows leaders to see which of their employees are in areas most impacted by the coronavirus and helps to manage business continuity challenges.
"We've layered the latest COVID-19 case data into the application so business users can see by geography how deeply the virus has gone into their populations and can view projections from the University of Washington model about peaks and changes in various states," said Visier's Cook.
SOURCE: Zielinski, D. (22 May 2020) "People Analytics Guide Return-to-Work Choices" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/people-analytics-guide-return-to-work-choices-coronavirus.aspx
How COVID-19 has changed the recruiting tech stack
The rapid shift to telework for many office-based employers is not only forcing companies to conduct recruiting virtually, but also making them reconsider every aspect of their talent acquisition strategies. After implementing additional technology solutions amid the pandemic, experts suggest that some changes will be permanent.
While the talent acquisition function tends to lead technology adoption among HR groups, interviews were still commonly held face-to-face at some point in the process and deliberation over candidates often took place in in-person meetings. But recruiting leaders may find that digital processes offer new advantages and end up keeping them even when they return to their offices.
Improving the function
While many organizations scrambled to put together online fixes for manual or in-person processes during the pandemic, improvement took a back seat to maintaining continuity. Now that change is not so rapid, business leaders are focusing on how to improve in these conditions.
Recruiting is no different. Existing technology solutions can address strategic imperatives that were top of mind before the pandemic, such as workforce data, candidate experience or recruiter productivity. More importantly, these technologies can still be deployed while everyone is working from home.
"I think as you start to look at how things like machine learning can be applied, there's a lot of opportunities," Mark Brandau, a research principal, global industry analyst at Forrester, told HR Dive. "The ones I gravitate to are things that automate the process."
Scheduling, communicating with candidates and optimizing job board spend — the same way marketers do with online ad spend — represent the "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to recruiting technology, Brandau said. The tools are usually simple to use and do not depend on the technical maturity of the organization for adoption or implementation.
Having every single recruiting activity occurring within some sort of technology also allows for better data collection. While organizations are trying to collect as much as possible, it's a challenge to validate data entered by people and also can be subjective, such as a hiring manager's perception of a candidate after a first-round in-person interview.
"Something we suspected before the pandemic is organizations don't have a lot of necessary data to make adaptive forward decisions," Brandau said. "That includes candidate data and [talent] market data."
Having better data by having more widespread technology will allow talent acquisition leaders to be more informed about the metrics that matter and how they can improve the function's effectiveness. Efficiency gains, like being able to immediately schedule an interview, can improve the candidate experience and save recruiters time.
"They either want to automate [sourcing and screening] more because of high volume or they want to find better quality candidates," Brandau said. "So they're focused on automation and quality of time" to improve the caliber of candidates entering the funnel and their experience.
Expanding into onboarding
In a pre-pandemic interview process, once a candidate accepts a job offer, after the initial excitement from both parties subsides, there is often a hand-off to a different colleague to manage the onboarding process. Today, with remote work as the norm and more automation coming, there is an opportunity for talent acquisition to bolster, if not completely own, onboarding.
"Once a client understands and gets wind of what's possible with onboarding, especially as a part of a bigger HCM transformation, when you tie in learning and procurement and other things that can happen and goals within onboarding," Brandau said, "they start to light up because they see it way more transformative beyond talent acquisition."
Being able to seamlessly move into value-add onboarding activities without the possibility of a clunky handoff can pay off in many ways. It can boost a new employee's preparedness and excitement. It can also serve as an extension of a company's brand, Brandau said, noting the connections between candidate experience, employment branding and the overall branding of a company. Tactically, onboarding automation can include signaling procurement for a new computer or other supplies a new hire may need.
Organizational leaders often are interested in automating the first steps of onboarding to support a new employees' alignment with organizational goals and maximize the experience of their first 90 days, including what training they may need. "So there's a lot of there's a lot of immediate benefit, as opposed to longer term benefit, when you think about ROI and visibility and brand reinforcement, that's why they gravitate that way," he added.
Finding new sourcing channels
Another opportunity for remote recruiting teams is expanding the geography and scope of sourcing channels. When recruiters no longer need to travel to career fairs and instead interact with prospective employees virtually, they can speak to more candidates. And when candidates don't need to play email tag to schedule an interview, they move the process more efficiently.
SOURCE: Kidwai, A. (14 May 2020) "How COVID-19 has changed the recruiting tech stack" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/how-covid-19-has-changed-the-recruiting-tech-stack/577953/
Work from home forever? Businesses are divided on that
With many businesses working remotely still due to the coronavirus, many businesses are debating on if working from home will become permanently and are even divided on that decision. Read this blog post to learn more.
The work-from-home movement is gaining steam in Silicon Valley as a flurry of companies — big and small — are embracing remote-working policies beyond the pandemic. But even as some executives extol its virtues, other tech leaders aren’t so sure, opening a growing divide inside the industry over the future of work. It’s a worthy debate.
On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his company will start allowing some existing employees to work from home permanently. He said Facebook will also “aggressively open up remote hiring” for engineering talent in areas it doesn’t have an office, saying as much as 50% of the company’s employees could eventually work remotely within 10 years. In similar fashion, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke said his e-commerce software company will allow its employees to work from home indefinitely, adding he expects that most of his staff will work remotely going forward. The days of “office centricity is over,” the executive posted on social media. The two companies join Twitter, which said last week it will let employees work from home as standard practice as well.
Not everyone in technology is on board. Take-Two Interactive Software CEO Strauss Zelnick said on an investor call this week that he believes sustained strong productivity will get more difficult the longer people are forced to work from home, adding that “there is no substitute for in-person collaboration and connection.” That follows comments from Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella, who expressed concern in an interview with the New York Times last week that early positive remote-work productivity metrics may mask underlying deficiencies, in terms of managing and mentoring employees. He also raised worries about potential burnout and mental-health issues. “Maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?” he asked.
There’s something to be said for this pushback. Sure, there are many pluses to offering off-site work flexibility — including better employee retention and the ability to hire from a more diverse talent base in other geographies — but corporations should realize the work-from-home trend isn’t a panacea. In fact, there are significant drawbacks and challenges that shouldn’t be overlooked.
As Zelnick pointed out, there are unquantifiable benefits derived from being in the same physical location. Scheduled videoconferencing meetings don’t engender the same spontaneous creativity compared to the many back-and-forth brief conversations during a typical day at an office. And nothing beats face-to-face interactions for building the relationships and trust required to persuade your colleagues on big decisions.
It’s notable that even as Facebook projects confidence and forward-looking thought leadership in its charge toward its new work-from-home culture, it is implementing the change slowly. Zuckerberg said only the company’s senior engineers with strong performance reviews will be initially allowed to apply for remote-work flexibility, adding it will be a measured transition before extending the policy to non-engineers.
To be frank, it wouldn’t surprise me to see many of these companies slow down their transitions to remote working. After all, the world is only a few months into this massive remote-work experiment. The initial productivity benefits may dissipate and significant negative consequences may well appear over time. Best not to rush into any drastic decisions.
SOURCE: Kim, T. (26 May 2020) "Work from home forever? Businesses are divided on that" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/articles/work-from-home-forever-businesses-are-divided-on-that