Coronavirus: What to do when employees can’t work from home.
Not everyone has the luxury to work remotely or skip work. A large majority of the workforce have to work from the office. So what can management do?
While it is highly advisable for employees to work from home during this trying time of Ncov, not everyone has the luxury of doing that. This could be due to many reason including
- Need to use specialized machinery (Factories, secure data centers)
- Frontline or service jobs. (Security Guards, Receptionists)
- On-site jobs (Construction, Logistics)
- Lack of Wifi or Electricity at home.
As part 2 of our Proactively Productive series (you can check out part 1 here) we took inspiration from outside of the corona virus to see how other professions prevent spread of negative elements. From how firefighters stop the spread of forest fires, to how cyber security experts stop the spread of cyber bugs from invading computer systems.
Here are 4 things you can do for staff who are unable to work from home.
1. Create Control Lines
One of the most important components of wildfire suppression is the control line. Simply put, they are boundaries — natural or man made — that firefighters use to control and limit the spread of effects.
Applying this concept to the workforce means having clear boundaries to limit the spread of NCov in your organization by preventing interactions between different departments or branches.
For example if you run a chain of convenience stores, it used to be common practice to appoint staff to different locations to meet the manpower demand. Creating a control line means having clear instructions (and documentation) for staff to only report to a certain branch. This not only limits the spread of the disease but prevents the risk of having to shut down your entire chain of stores if one employee is found to have contracted the virus. This does take sacrifices and a strong will to implement. If none of the staff of a branch can report for a shift it might be tempting to assign staff from another branch over but in these times of uncertainty it might be better to close one branch for a day than to risk all your branches.
Another way is to group staff into defined groups that will not interact with other groups physically. For example Sales and Manufacturing do not need to interact on a daily basis, so make it a policy for these two groups to stay physically apart so that if there is a case in each department it won’t affect or disrupt your entire company. Or restrict interactions between shifts so if one shift gets infected others can still work.
Listen to Singapore talk about “circuit breakers’ ‘ on how to stop the spread of infection at key points. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Snrq_Orra8
2. Build Firewalls
We are all familiar with the concept of firewall in online security. It prevents cyber viruses and malware from entering our electronic devices to wreak havoc on our data.. This concept is simple: build a preventive layer between outside elements and your internal organization. This is relevant especially to front line workers.
In Wuhan where the virus originated, stores have implemented a policy where customers can text their orders to a public Whatsapp or Viber number (pasted on the door) and staff will bring their groceries or products to the door, so customers and staff do not have to interact or communicate face to face. Services like mobile payments also help greatly (It’s 2020 why don’t you have mobile payments set up?)
This strategy can also be implemented for service providers like banks, where customers can send a picture of their cheques to the teller and drop the actual cheque into a box that can be sanitized later. In the case of deliveries, the delivery man does not need to enter the building to deliver one parcel to one person. Have a delivery checkpoint where residents of the building can come collect their packages after it has been disinfected.
Other ways include ordering lunch in bulk for staff so they do not have to contend with the packed lunch crowd at eateries, or having ride share for staff so it is possible to trace with other staff have commuted with any infected individual.
3. Hot spotting
Hot spotting is the term used in fighting forest fires to describe the extra attention given to the most active and dangerous portions of a wildfire. The crews fighting the fire size up the parts of the blaze most likely to spread and try to devise the best strategy for keeping these areas in check. A extinguishing strategy is employed when firefighters decide that a certain hotspot needs to be suppressed immediately.
This strategy requires management and HR to be aware of the latest news, for example if there is an infectious cluster forming such as the South Korean Church or the Singapore SAFRA Clubhouse meeting,
Identify employees that are affected or have had contact with these clusters and require them and those in their control groups to take leave IMMEDIATELY.
4. Contact Journalling
One thing that can help medical staff especially if a staff gets infected is for employees to record their movements and the people they interact with on a daily basis. Set a simple exercise before the shift and after the shift to get your staff to write a short journal. Sharing where they have been or are going, the type of transport and routes they took and where they went for lunch. By practicing this, your business will not only have documentation to have health officials trace any possible spread but also have proof of who any patients did and DID NOT interact with.
There are many uncertainties surrounding COVID 19 today. It’s easy to be afraid and think only for ourselves. But it’s challenges like this that inspire us to be better than ourselves, and to make the important choices that will protect our most vulnerable. We hope that this article has been helpful to you in setting strategies to mitigate the effects of COVID 19 on your workforce.
Do let us know what other topics you would want us to cover, including:
- How to develop a Risk Management Plan for your Workforce
- How to Reduce Transmission Risk among your Workforce without Shutting Everything Down.
