Back To Work Webinars: Ep. 1

Now more than ever we are all getting entangled in an endless, well…, web of webinars.

However, one Webinar that caught my attention and stood out amongst the pack was between Density CEO, Andrew Farah and Partner @ 01 Advisors, Kelly Kovacs. The two had a wonderful and enlightening discussion surrounding the challenges of returning to the workplace.

RETURNING TO THE WORKPLACE - Topics of discussion

- Addressing employee concerns about returning to work after COVID

- Maintaining social distance guidelines inside the office

- Implementing permanent work from home policies for some teams

- Preparing for future pandemics and other potential threats to employee health and wellness

These are a collection of points made and thoughts shared:

  • Companies are trying to keep employees safe and taking the approach that the worst thing is to bring everyone back too soon. 

  • Many tech companies plan to work from home and support staff while learning from the mistakes of other companies. 

  • September may be the starting point for phasing in 20-25% of employees. Focusing on employees with sensitive information - trust and safety. And with difficult home situations not suitable for work from home

  • Some companies are providing an allowance to enable employees to work from home.  

BACK TO WORK - The Importance of Trust

On building trust - my ears perked up on this one, see our blog on the importance of TRUST in the back to work effort.

A few tips on building trust

  1. Have all your information in one place:

    1. Confluence page

    2. Q/A Page

    3. Google Doc

    4. Company COVID dashboard

    5. Surveys

      1. These show empathy and show that you are here to listen to the concerns of your employees. And, incorporate employees feedback.

      2. Some questions you may want to 

        1. How is your work from home situation?

        2. If you could come into the office, how many days would you come in?

        3. How do you feel about the safety of coming back into the office?

        4. What would help make you feel safe about coming back into the office?

  2. Transparency - Be transparent about the business, the runway, the struggles faced and the strategy to overcome. 

 

BACK TO WORK: More questions than answers… but that’s good.

There are alot more questions than answers at this point and time. And more than a few of the questions asked, were answered with more questions. That might seem like a cop out. But I found this to be more thoughtful and, frankly, transparent approach. I took the candidness as sign that we don’t “know it all”... yet but are thinking these things through together, learning together, and leading together. 

So here are a few questions and their (kind of) answers. 

How are companies approaching screening and testing?

  1. Thermal testing: I know the basics about this one. Will thermal scanners used at airports, Amazon and many other places be the way employers screen employees. 

    1. Are they accurate?

    2. Winter was here. Summer is coming. How well will these work in the warm weather months with employees rushing into work? 

  2. Class systems? Are we going to phase the return of employees based on Antibodies?  Are antibodies the answer? Do they even matter? Currently, we don’t know if antibodies will denote protection, so how much value are their in decision making for getting back to work. 

Who should come back first? C-Suite or employees?

  • Preferably, only people who really need to go back to the office should be in the office. But how do you lead by example? Is it a class system? 

Why should people come back to work at all?

  • Human interaction - we should not underestimate the importance of personal, physical relationships to the health of an individual

  • The office, and human interactions, lends greatly to serendipity, collaboration and ‘side conversations’ that allow managers, team leaders and team members to keep their fingers on the pulse of what is going on

What is the worst case “back to work” scenario?

  • Latest could be January 2021. So leaders need to think about how they are supporting employees during a potential extended work from home environment.

Do your employees have a safe solution for their families?

  • Are kids back to school? If not, then how are employers going to subsidize and support employees to afford child care costs?

Welfie is supporting companies and communities in their back to work, school, play, and, frankly normal efforts. We are offering companies, small and large, our back to work COVID-19 symptoms screener and tracker. Sign up and be the first to get it when we launch. The best part the app will be free to use.

 

Catch the Webinar here

 





COVID-19, BACK TO WORKDoc Moyowebinar, covid19, corona virus, covid-19, BACK TO SCHOOL, BACK TO WORKComment