By Brie DeLisi
 
Prior to COVID-19, OSHA inspections were already on a decline, “the average number of OSHA inspections per year under this administration is more than 5,000 inspections less per year than the average number of inspections” under previous administrations, according to an NELP data brief. During COVID-19, employee complaints soared while OSHA inspections have nearly halted. Additionally, OSHA has only provided recommendations for COVID-19 employer response – with no enforceable guidelines.
 
Organizational response to this lack of enforcement and oversight is a clear indication of safety culture. Some organizations may look at this as a reason to relax safety measures and spend less resources on employee safety. However, the stronger safety cultures will look at this as a personal call to action – to step up when OSHA, an organization designed to protect workers, is failing them.
 
How does an organization with strong safety culture react to a weakened OSHA?
 
Organizations that have a strong safety culture do not regress despite changes in OSHA. They will continue to operate ‘business as usual’ when conducting self-inspections and audits – there are required daily, weekly, monthly and annual inspections that need to be conducted to ensure employee safety and continuity of business. Employees and management alike understand that, for example, if forklifts stop being inspected prior to operation, it can result in missing a safety risk which would potentially impact employee wellbeing, and if it were to break down, operations would be impacted. 
 
These companies will also leverage internal communication opportunities and anonymous reporting. Employees originally could report to OSHA any employer negligence and have a fairly quick response, and without that employees may feel helpless. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, OSHA received over 5,000 employee complaints – and has only issued 1 citation. Organizations with strong safety cultures will offer internal anonymous reporting and respond accordingly to ensure employees still have that lifeline.
 
How about responding to COVID-19? 
 
Strong safety cultures will take it upon themselves to identify and implement safety controls for avoiding employee exposure to COVID-19. Those OSHA recommendations become internal requirements and they will go above and beyond to ensure employee wellbeing. Management will bring in the resources and conducted the necessary research to create the safest work environment possible.
 
What happens to the organizations that relax safety compliance?
 
The organizations with a weak safety culture will end up paying the price, whether or not that includes an OSHA fine price tag. These companies will be impacted by have less motivated and engaged employees (due to the lack of value they are experiencing) which will impact production. There will be increased workers compensation from injuries, due to a lack of safety controls. Additionally, it is highly likely that there will be significant reductions in workforce due to illness – as is being experienced by many meat-packing factories in Minnesota, where thousands of employees have been infected. All of the above will ultimately impact their bottom line.
 
Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.

By Dale Lawrence
 
Ready for a busy day? Your first day back to the office. Got your Americano?  Check. Look at your phone and see that you still have 15 minutes before your meeting. Just enough time to catch the elevator to the twelfth-floor office, check email and then review some documents for your client meeting. However, as you approach the lobby, you see a line of people. Upon inspection, they are queuing with socially distanced spacing for the elevators. This is not good! Looking at the time again, you know the ability to get ready for the meeting is doomed. Due to the limited number of passengers allowed on each elevator, you know you will not make the call and likely will be here for 30 minutes or more.
 
Sound familiar? During the rush to bring business back in the time of COVID-19, this will become an inconvenience to millions of office workers and a major burden on productivity. It will occur four times a day EVERY workday.
 
The Social Distance Challenge 
 
Most people don’t think of how elevators work. Pulleys, counterweights, resistors, motors, computer board, safety systems. You just push a button and the familiar sound notifies you that your elevator is about to arrive. The doors open and your trip starts. Depending on other passenger needs, your trip may be direct or have a number of stops. We take this for granted.
 
However, during this pandemic, the issue isn’t how many people ride with you. It is how few. As most elevators don’t have the space required for a six-foot distance for passengers to be safe, the only way to avoid risk is allowing very few passengers at a time and ensure cleaning of contact surfaces often. While some businesses are placing social distancing markings on the elevator floor, does that provide the necessary space?
 
Elevators were not designed for social distancing.
 
The Introduction to Flow Constraint 
 
The impacts from COVID-19 are many and the return-to-work will just introduce more challenges to business. The elevator seems like an innocuous part of office life, but in reality, it is a serious constraint to the basic flow of people. Normally efficient but think of the rare days when one of the elevators is closed for maintenance. That adds extra delays but is usually manageable. Now think of almost all elevators closed for maintenance; the bottleneck would be significant.
 
Like all systems, any constraint to flow has an impact. From a high-level system view, the objective of the elevator is to safely and efficiently move people from point A to point B. Think of the objective as ‘100% safe delivery of people to their desired destination as-quick-as possible’. In a production or manufacturing facility, any reduction of the efficient flow is called a constraint and the by-product creates inventory. This inventory typically gets stuck prior to the constraint, increases and costs the operation money in lost sales, productivity and efficiency. Now shift back to thinking of the movement of people instead of producing a product. The disruption to moving people on the elevator creates a backlog of passengers. This backlog creates an inventory of people waiting for the elevator. This inventory will cost you money in lost productivity. Unlike inventory, the people involved also feel frustration.
 
Elevators are becoming the bottle neck in the office.
 
The Impact to Productivity
 
The typical elevator office passenger takes four trips per day, 250 days per year. This represents a transportation delay for your workers to arrive at their desk or workstation on time. In fact, a study conducted by IBM in the early 2000s with almost 6500 office workers in 16 US-based cities found the accumulated time spent waiting for elevators during workdays was significant. In New York City alone, they found the accumulated time for the city’s office workforce waiting for elevators exceeded 16 years annually in lost productivity. While elevator manufacturers have made significant improvements in the last few decades, COVID-19 will cause a major disruption to an already complex daily routine. 
 
An Illustration
 
Imagine a 40+ story office tower with 2000 workers who normally arrive daily. Back to my earlier analogy, the system requires a movement of 2000 people, four times a day for an expected 8000 trips. Pre-COVID, increasing the number of riders per trip reduces the number of elevator trips. As example, an average of 7 passengers per trip across 4 elevators would result in 285 trips per day, per elevator. 
 
Now think of the current COVID situation. An effective social distancing approach would now significantly increase the number of trips per day. Depending on how few passengers are determined can safety travel at one time will determine how many additional trips are required (the question also comes to who decided the new capacity - based on health expertise or building management decision?). A CDC study found that the virus can travel up to 13 feet as an aerosol and while they didn’t look at elevators, distance should be maximized. This creates a big challenge to normal elevator capacity.
 
The problem is compounded as elevator trips are not all created equal. There is an added level of complexity since the vast majority of trips are likely between three periods of time:
 

• 7:30am-9am
• 11:30am-1:00pm (likely two trips per person as most businesses have closed the office floor kitchen area)
• 4:00pm-5:30pm

 
These rush periods likely mean the number of passengers greatly increase over the average (likely doubling the average number of passengers) while most of the 2000 workers utilize the elevators during each window of time. When modelling social distancing and factoring peak times, the impact could be an increase of 100% the average trips per day but 300-500% the number of trips during daily peak times. This would cause the backlog to be beyond the elevator’s ability. Imagine waiting 45 minutes for an elevator, four times a day?
 
Options
 

• Minimum: Building maintenance provides constant cleaning throughout the day and supplies hand sanitizer inside every elevator car (studies have shown the virus lasts longest on stainless steel and plastic). While this increases cleanliness, it doesn’t reduce the passenger constraint and won’t decrease risk from aerosol spread. 
• Minimum: Mark standing areas and provide clear guidelines for conduct such as requiring all passengers wear a mask and avoid talking. Note: some building management are even asking passengers to face the elevator walls.
• Possible but challenging: Provide elevator passes to even out the flow. This will drastically increase complexity but can provide some options for reducing peak time challenges. This does add a great amount of daily administration effort (especially for multiple tenants) and has many challenges regarding workload modelling, compliance & enforcement.
• Best option: Decrease the number of all onsite workers more than 60%:
  • Administration (finance, human resources, clerical etc.) can mostly work remotes and often have standard shifts.
  • Management can work remotely at least half of the week.
  • Sales and call center workers can become partially or fully remote workers.
  • Assess suitability for ‘resident’ (always onsite), ‘partial remote’ and ‘fully remote’ profiles for all workers. Ensure processes and the worker and leadership habits adapt to this new normal.
  • When properly implemented, this will save the company money and improve the productivityand culture.
  • Don’t only look at this as ‘remote work’ but ‘Flex Work’. This isn’t only about the physical aspect of work but has the potential of revolutionizing how work is done in your business.

 
At Propulo Consulting, we partner with you to improve the world of work. Our team has the expertise to help your business plan and implement a sensible Flex Work strategy without pain. We work with you to ensure your company culture and processes develop accordingly during or after a Flex Work transition so you can continue to deliver results for your organization and customers. Please visit our website or contact us for the latest insights and research into flexible work.

By Madison Hanscom, PhD
 
When times get tough, we often rely on our communities to help us prevail. 
 
Our communities are composed of everyone around us — neighbors, friends, those who work at the grocery store, the people who run the local brewery. 2020 has been a hard year. When people are suffering, the community suffers. 
 
There are things business leaders can do to support the community. 
 
In the research literature we study something called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) — this is when companies do good for society, and this goes above and beyond what is required by the law or regulations. This might be directed towards environmental efforts or the public. 
 
CEOs and leaders have a great deal of power when it comes to supporting the community and their employees living in it. Examples of CSR initiatives might include: 

• Donate overproduction of food and goods to food banks or local charities 
• Raise funds for hunger relief 
• Engage employees in a river clean-up event 
• Sponsor employees who volunteer
• Stock the local food pantry 
• Pay all workers a living wage 
• Be more progressive on climate change initiatives 
• Think about all workers in your supply chain (e.g., farmers) and find ways to support them (e.g., fair trade, humane working conditions) 
• Employ individuals with disabilities 
• Give to charity 

 
When companies help the community, it helps them, too. 
 
Although the greatest reward for supporting the community will be the great feeling you get when helping others, but there are some other business-related benefits that are pretty great:

• People enjoy working for companies that exercise social responsibility. Employers with better reputations and more CSR attract better candidates, which leads to more engaged employees.  
• When you have employees that love working for your company, this strengthens the reputation and brand.
• People are less likely to leave their jobs when they perceive there to be strong corporate social responsibility.
• It is a differentiation strategy.
• It is positively linked to customer patronage.
• It enhances relationships with and perceptions from the community.

 
With this being said, when you do good for society, make it known! Community members, customers, and stakeholders would all like to know about the things you are doing to support the greater good. 
 
At Propulo we help organizations to develop a culture and strategy that supports the community as well as their own people. Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.
 
References

• Rupp, D. E., & Mallory, D. B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility: Psychological, person-centric, and progressing. Annual Review Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2(1), 211-236.
• Carroll, A. B., & Shabana, K. M. (2010). The business case for corporate social responsibility: A review of concepts, research and practice. International journal of management reviews, 12(1), 85-105.

By KyoungHee Choi
 
Until the pandemic hit, the sharing economy was disrupting many business models and was a trending topic of discussion in business circles. Renting out assets to other people as a business model has been around for decades. However, modern technology allowed for new ways to connect owners with buyers with greater ease and convenience. 
 
This mega trend impacted nearly all business sectors such as transportation (i.e. Uber, Lift), hotel (i.e. Airbnb), consumer goods (i.e. Ebay, Etsy, Rent the runaway), professional/personal services (i.e. Fiverr, Upwork) and health care (i.e. American well, Doctor on demand). 
 
Many factors helped accelerate this key trend including new access to technology and lifestyle tendencies that were predominantly embraced by millennials that favored sharing to owning assets. It suddenly became easier, safer, less expensive and simpler to share assets as urbanization picked up.
 
The following were some of the key headlines on this new trend:

• In 2016, 44.8 million U.S. adults used the sharing economy, and it’s expected to grow to 86.5 million U.S. users by 2021.
• Uber ($68 billion) is the most valuable U.S. sharing economy, with Airbnb ($31 billion) and Wework ($21.06 billion) following - Data as of Aug 2017.
• In just New York City alone, there are roughly 4.5 times more Uber drivers than yellow cabs. This has caused the price of owning a taxicab in New York City to drop from $1 million in 2015 to less than $200,000 today.
• PWC research suggests that 86 percent of U.S. adults familiar with the sharing economy say that it makes life more affordable and 83 percent also agree that the sharing economy is more convenient and efficient than traditional methods.
• The healthcare industry is expected to generate annual revenues of $8.7 trillion by 2020. That likely explains why venture funding for digital health start-ups increased by 10.2 percent in Q1 of 2018 compared to Q1 of 2017.

 
So, what is the sharing economy? 
The sharing economy is simply the exchange of value through an online/collaborative platform. This is also referred to as peer-to-peer (P2P) renting. The main feature of a sharing economy business model is access instead of ownership and the business/platform itself does not possess any of the assets on offer. (i.e Airbnb does not own a single room, Uber and Lyft does not own a single car). 

Then the pandemic hit. While all business sectors were impacted, the impact on the sharing economy is different and potentially more significant. It provides new opportunities for legacy business models that act swiftly.
 
The impact for legacy business models presents new opportunities while being fraught with risk
Traditional industries have generally been hit hard by the sharing economy revolution and many traditional brands struggled to adapt or shift to the changing trends. Generally older business models become complacent and, in many cases, they took too long to adapt their business models to the new customer expectations. This had massive impact on their market share and profitability which in many cases has impacted their balance sheet entering the recent recession. 
 
However, for these businesses that can adapt quickly this time, a huge opportunity exists to reestablish trust with their client base by reinventing their customer experience delivery – something that the sharing economy will struggle to do.
 
What is the impact of COVID-19 for the sharing economy? 
The sharing economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 black swan event mainly because of the lack of accountability. Customer expectations have changed radically. What brought them historical success and enabled very rapid growth is their ultimate Achilles heel.
 
While some of their challenges stem from the increase in flex/remote work and the lack of socializing which has significantly reduced demand, the biggest longer-term impact is the lack of trust and accountability in their business model. 
 
As people are scared and worried, they are increasingly searching for certainty. Some hotel chains have recently tapped into this opportunity by creating clean protocols with commitments, seals, checklists and third-party audits and training. This can easily and consistently be rolled out for large hotel chains but is impossible to manage when you don’t control the assets.
 
While all the key players in the sharing economy continuously send emails on what they are doing to increase safety, there is no way to trust each owner/provider in ensuring that they follow safety protocols or that they even care about such factors.
 
How can anyone trust that each Uber driver is following sanitization protocols in their vehicles or wear masks (most have been observed with no masks). How can we ensure that each Airbnb host is fully sanitizing their place using the right cleaning products to the degree that large hotel chains are particularly when there is a shortage of cleaning products and tighter margins? 
 
There are simply too many uncontrolled variables and points of failure which get to the very fabric of trust which is needed for the sharing economy to work. 
 
The Double-edged sword: Turning crisis into opportunity.
No one expected this pandemic to hit our global business market. While we can’t change the cards that we have been dealt with, we can seek to turn this crisis into a new opportunity. I often say that “Opportunity is like a coin: there are always two sides.” Now it’s time to flip your coin! 
 
Here are few examples of business sectors that present new opportunities if they can adjust and adapt quickly. To capitalize on these opportunities, leaders will need to reimagine their business models and can’t just make minor changes. 
 
1. Car Dealerships
As people worry about their safety, they are less likely to use shared car services (i.e. Zipcar), shared rides (i.e. Uber or Lyft) or even traditional rental cars and public transit. They can control the condition and cleanliness of their cars which should cause a rise in demand for car ownership. Yet, the process of purchasing a car is still stuck in the byzantine ages. You typically need to visit a dealership, test drive a car and sign a contract in person. To capitalize, car dealerships that want to capture this market share will need to rapidly digitize and instill trust. Toyota has begun to roll out such ad campaigns but doesn’t truly control the dealerships so the step change needs to be driven by each dealership.
 
2. Hotels
Traditional hotel businesses were challenged by Airbnb. If hotel chains rethink their customer experience and focus on instilling trust through certification and cleanliness standards that are backed by independent audits and cleanliness seals (i.e. Hilton), they could rapidly regain a significant advantage. Hyatt and Hilton have been particularly good at instilling such trust with Marriott also doing a good job. At the end of the day, hotel chains became successful initially because of their ability to roll out standards – in the 1950’s Holiday Inn set the standard that displaced most independent operators based on consistency and cleanliness.
 
3. Airlines
​All the airlines rolled out great standards on cleanliness but didn’t go as far as the hotel chains. The challenge has been the consistency of the use of their standards. For airlines, now is the best time to nail on consistency while addressing their brand awareness and safety culture. Employees need to understand why these measures are so important – it’s not just about health, it’s also about brand and survivability. While Delta is by most measures one of the best airlines in North America and was one of the most proactive at rolling out new standards, the consistency of their application was brought into question in a recent post on Delta’s lacking “Carestandard”. Safety and safety culture are the most critical expectations in the airline industry. However, if they don’t consistently follow safety guidelines, customers will rapidly lose trust in the brand. Worse yet, this could extend to a broader perception of lacking safety standards.
 
The concept of brands and chains had a profound impact on marketing. Many of these brands originally disrupted their category nearly 50-60 years ago by leveraging the power of a brand to instill trust. As I had previously mentioned, Holiday Inn in the 50s disrupted the industry of small motel and hotel operators by demonstrating the value of standards. If you have the advantage of such a strong and consistent brand, now is the time to invest in wedging that point of differentiation.
 
Your focus on safety culture and customer experience is more critical than ever. It’s time to think about how you can differentiate your brand around trust and rapidly and consistently operationalize that point of difference. Just as one would sail through an intense storm, leaders cannot control the wind, but leaders can control the course and direction of the ship. This is the time for leaders to take firm control of the direction, seek a path with less turbulence and guide the ship across for the future business success.
 
At Propulo, our focus has always been on safety culture, customer experience and operational excellence. Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.
 
References: 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/289856/number-sharing-economy-users-us/
https://bmtoolbox.net/patterns/sharing-economy/#:~:text=The%20main%20features%20of%20a,facilitates%20all%20processes%20between%20them
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/the-sharing-economy-and-how-it-changes-industries-4172234
https://www.vox.com/2017/8/8/16113140/top-10-most-valuable-startups-uber-spacex-wework-airbnb
https://www.newsweek.com/uber-lyft-taxi-drivers-suicide-new-york-city-866994
https://www.dreamit.com/journal/2018/4/13/on-the-rise-digital-health-startups-see-uptick-in-year-over-year-venture-funding-for-q1-2018
https://loyaltylobby.com/2020/06/16/deltas-lacking-carestandard-enforcement/?omhide=true

By Brie DeLisi

Experiencing a pandemic and changing the way organizations operate in a very short period of time has identified plenty of opportunities for improvement, particularly in developing contingency plans. The purpose of a contingency plan is to identify outside forces that could potential impact business operations and identifying solutions to be able to mitigate and respond to those situations. There are several crucial steps to developing contingency plans, the following steps are an example of how to develop a contingency plan for a call center – specifically with forward looking impacts of COVID.
 
Create a contingency team – stakeholders from every part of the business should be involved to ensure a diverse set of perspectives. Each individual should be able to bring a unique view of potential concerns and solutions to the table. These individuals will also support response plans, and it is important that backups are always identified and trained in the event that a primary team member is unable to support. There needs to be representation from the entire organization to ensure that each department is covered, as well as clear roles and responsibilities for team participation and in the event of an actual emergency.
 
Team members should include (if applicable):
Senior Leadership, Facilities, IT, Communications, Public Relations, Human Resources, Health and Safety, Security, Finance, and Management/representation from each department
 
Identify potential emergency situations that can impact business operations – these should be plausible impacts including everything from power outages, data breaches, snowstorms, tornados, and, of course, pandemics. Particular concerns for the our immediate future should include: returning to the office environment and there is a 2nd wave of COVID, if there is an outbreak of COVID (or the flu) among employees, if employees are working from home and there is a mass power outage, potential data breaches within home offices, etc. 
 
When identifying these situations, the next step will be to determine how operations will be affected. Will employees be unable to work? Will employees need to seek shelter? Will there be an impact on employee health and safety? How will customer-facing operations be impacted? Will customer data be compromised? Continue to ask these questions and identify what may happen if the event occurs from all aspects – it is vital to have representation from across the organization is important because each will have a different perspective on what may happen to their teams and stakeholders.
 
Identify plans to mitigate each scenario – after identifying the potential issues, develop plans to determine how to address each situation. Each stakeholder can bring perspectives on solutions or it might be work seeking outside counsel to facilitate. These plans can also be modular – for example, one solution might be to have a contract with a backup vendor to support call operations. This particular solution can be applied to multiple possible scenarios including if there is a power outage, or if there is a mass breakout of COVID among employees and they physically can’t work.
 
Test and assess contingency plans – ever emergency response and contingency plan should be tested and assessed for a number of reasons. It is an opportunity to identify any gaps or flaws in the plans that may thwart an otherwise successful implementation. Testing plans also allows everyone an opportunity to practice their role. When we experience an emergency situation, our brain does not operate as it would under ‘normal’ circumstances, rather it enters flight or fight mode, and we need to rely on muscle memory to support our actions. These activities should be documented, gaps identified, and corrective actions applied, and ideally drills should be performed annually.
 
Contingency Plan Drill Checklist:

• Identify individuals to observe and document drill
• Conduct an unannounced drill to simulate reality
• Verify activities and results against the written plan
• Identify gaps in the written plan, systems and employee actions
• Review with the Contingency Plan Team – conduct root cause analysis (if needed) and corrective actions to address gaps
• Implement the corrective actions
• Communicate the results and updates to the contingency plan to the organization

 
Communicate – any individual who may be involved in a contingency plan activity should be informed and aware of their role, as well as any updates to their role. Communications should also support the individual to be able to ask questions or provide feedback.

Read more from this blog series:  
BLOG 1: THE NEW NORMAL
BLOG 2: OFFICE ENVIRONMENT SETUP
BLOG 3: SAFE WORKING PROCEDURES AND PPE
BLOG 4: PREPARATION FOR RETURN - EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS
BLOG 5: REMOTE AND FLEX WORK OPTIONS

Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.

By Josh Williams, Ph.D.
 
Positive psychology is the application of empirical research to study and positively influence the human experience. It is founded in humanistic psychology and lends itself well to leaders managing employees during COVID re-entry (and beyond). Martin Seligman developed the PERMA acronym which represents key components of improving our human experiences. This includes being Positive with others, actively Engaging with them, valuing these Relationships, providing Meaning to others’ actions, and celebrating Accomplishments. Each will be briefly discussed below in relation to COVID re-entry to work. 
 

• Positive- Leaders need to be especially positive now with employees as they return to work. They are coping with COVID and the uncertainty and fear this brings. Staying positive sets the tone for others who are looking for your guidance.  

 

• Engaging- Leaders need to check in and see how people are doing. This includes spending time listening to their concerns and offering to help out in any way that you can. It’s also smart to see if they have suggestions to ensure a safe return to work.  

 

• Relationships- Improving the quantity and quality of conversations with employees shows you care. This crisis, in an odd way, brings people together. Addressing shared concerns and experiences may help forge relationships that prosper now and into the future.  

 

• Meaning- Many people are feeling extreme stress, fatigue, and distractions. Beyond mental health considerations, these error precursors also increase the likelihood of serious injuries and fatalities on the job. People need to find meaning in their work and leaders should reinforce the good things that they’re doing.  

 

• Accomplishments- Leaders should spend more time thanking people for their efforts during this difficult time. Beyond making people feel better, positive reinforcement increases the frequency of the rewarded behavior. For safety, this means people are more likely to exhibit safe behaviors (e.g., wearing face masks, locking out power) to prevent serious incidents.  

 
Improving elements of positive psychology is associated with improved job satisfaction and performance. Leaders should remember the PERMA acronym as they actively engage employees to stay safe during this COVID re-entry period. It will make people feel appreciated and also help keep them safe and healthy. 
 
At Propulo, we can help you develop strategies for smart COVID-19 re-entry that is effective now and sustainable in the future. Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.
 

By Eric Johnson

Further into the future as the pandemic has waned for some time, idea of flex work as a normal aspect of business operations may become permanent as organizations grow accustomed to the cost savings and flexibility offered to workers.  With several considerations, organizations can plan around the culture shift and assist employees by creating purposeful guidelines and norms for the future.
 
Communications Training
Currently many individuals in offices may have their own conference number that they can use to create conference calls through their own setup. As we move into the stable future, we expect individuals to have a personal video call conference number or click-link as well. Organizations should develop training around the technical / advanced use of video conferencing, etiquette, safety, and other elements to ensure that employees have appropriate understanding of how to efficiently use video at a higher frequency, and that there is a clear set of expectations from the organization.
This may be permissible through the current conferencing tools within the organization, as a feature increase, or may require a brand-new vendor to meet the needs of the organization. 
 
Home Environments and Setup
Everyone understands that working from home comes with a certain level of distraction, significantly correlated with the increase in number of household members.  Consider providing employees with training on how to handle these distractions and offer forums for people to share best practices. The risk may decrease somewhat as children are consistently back in school, however if a spouse is working from home as well, boundaries will need to be created to  develop a consistent environment that supports the work needed to be completed.
Additionally, IT may want to develop a set of guidelines from a home networking perspective to give employees guidance on bandwidth needs, security needs, and other technical components to perform their work. For example if an employee has a low bandwidth IT service, they may need to increase their plan in order to achieve the bandwidth necessary to provide video, or if their internet is spotty and frequently disconnects, they may need to change carriers. There may be situations even where wired Internet is not available, and the employee solely relies on satellite or even cellular Wi-Fi hotspots. Organizations will need to consider these home limitations and may potentially partner up with a carrier to offer discounted services if possible. 
 
Work Environments and Required Attendance
While more employees work from home, there will always be a need for a work location. management needs to identify the times or situations where employees will need to be in the office. Doing this now will provide the opportunities to understand what those situations are and to have discussions with employees to get their feedback and provide input.  Management should also consider the possibility of satellite office locations such as WeWork or Regis that could possibly give employees an office environment with reduced travel times if the concentration of employees is high enough to warrant the business decision to do so.
 
As the country has been thrust into a sudden work from home situation, many of the ways in which working from home has evolved has been a function of individual approaches thus far. Moving into a fully post pandemic world, organizations can use this time too shape what that future will look like so that they are able to hit the ground running once it arrives. 

Read more about Flex Work: 
https://propulo.com/about/thought_leadership/files/category-flex-work.html

By Eric Johnson

As states and local governments begin to loosen the travel and commerce sequestration guidelines, many people are looking to get back to the sense of normalcy from pre-lockdown. However, a number of locales that have commenced reopening have also experienced an increase in Covid cases.  It is currently not clear if the rise is due to the greater number of people being tested, or due to actual statistical increase in cases. However, the nominal numbers are increasingly worrying both elected and health officials and there are many discussions around a potential second wave and the possibility of a new round of re-closings. 
Organizations should start developing contingency plans around the possibility of re-closings and a new round of sequestration in place.  While many organizations may be able to continue to use the same protocols and approaches they are currently using for a potential next round, there are a couple of considerations to keep in mind. 
 
Manage customer expectations through a communication plan
During a re-opening period, customers will begin to see greater access to goods and services. A re-closing environment may limit access to those goods and services once again, as currently experienced now. This leaves the potential for customers to become frustrated or to try to arbitrage places where re-closings have not occurred, to procure needs and desires. Have a clear and well thought out communication plan to keep customers in the loop regarding product and service delivery, hours of operations, and other components of the business that customers use to gauge access to the organization. Make sure that websites are constantly updated and that external information sources such as Google Maps and Facebook reflect the changes in sync with the updated sequestration information from government sources.
If possible, be proactive in reaching out to customers and provide any possible alternative ways of product or service delivery.  Prioritize the customer base based on profitability to ensure valuable customers are taking care of.   Reach out to new or lower-tier customers to ensure awareness of all offered products and services.
 
Stay abreast of the marketplace
Make sure to stay abreast of competitors in the marketplace. This serves to both indicate the potential for acquiring new customers, and also to understand how external factors may impact your organization based on impacts to other players in the space. Additionally, continue to research new uses for the current set of delivered products and services. Draw up on employee frontline experience and be willing to be flexible in experimenting with new ideas. There are countless stories of organizations pivoting into new areas based on suggestions internally, as we have learned from the vodka company that added a hand sanitizer line and the machining company that began to produce ventilators with their spare capacity.  A second wave may provide yet more opportunities to branch out.
 
The first level of sequestration was enacted to reduce the spread of the virus in order to manage hospital capacity in treating affected individuals. As we now have a better understanding of hospital capacity, treatment, and testing, hopefully the need for sequestration will be lessened in the future. However, it is the duty of all organizations to be sufficiently aware of the potential risks and to have a plan for mitigation, especially since some past pandemics have shown a second wave to be potentially worse than the first.

Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.

By Brie DeLisi

Many organizations are in the process of considering if and how to bring their employees back to the workplace. There are potential risks involved in bringing employees back, especially at full capacity in the office. In the call center example, employers are facing this consideration with a fairly large workforce in a shared work environment with close quarters. 
 
Average cubicle or workstation recommendations are around 100 square feet per employee (a 10 x 10 ft workspace) and if employees were to stay isolated in their 100 sq. foot ‘bubble’ that might work, however there is a decent amount of movement throughout the day and the likelihood of maintaining proper social distancing is unlikely. With this consideration, annual base office rental rates per sq. ft is around $10-14 per year, depending on the space.  It can then be determined that each employee workstation space alone will cost about $1,000-1,400 per year, not including annual operating expenses, furniture, electrical, etc. 
 
Organizations are likely looking at the costs of leasing what has been largely empty space for the last couple months and wondering what to do next. When considering the options for the future, fortunately, there are a number of options to consider for the work environment structure, with pros and cons to each for consideration:
 
Full return to the workplace – this is a situation in which all employees return to the office, there will likely be changes in the day-to-day operations to limit interactions.

• High risk of contracting COVID-19 in tight quarters
• Increased employee stress levels due to potential risk of exposure, which will then also impact quality of work and productivity
• Highly stringent procedural requirements to reduce risk of exposure – regular sanitation schedules, PPE, limited interaction dynamics
• Overall increase in spending for the immediate future for resources and equipment to address COVID 19 risks

 
Partial return to the workplace for the entire workforce, Situation A – in this situation, perhaps half the employees return to the office for half the week while the other half work from home, and swap for the latter half of the week.

• Employees will still benefit from the office environment that they thrive in for half the week
• Reduced likelihood of mass exposure to COVID-19 when work groups are systematically separated
• Workstations can be shared, though they must be thoroughly cleaned when being swapped – however the workspace leasing costs will be reduced by half

 
Partial return to the workplace for the entire workforce, Situation  B – in this dynamic, half the workforce returns to the office while half work remotely in a permanent situation

• Only half the workforce will be potentially exposed to COVID-19 in the office
• Reduction in workspace and workstation costs
• The remote workforce may feel neglected or less motivation if proper precautions are not taken to ensure they are given the same level of attention and support

 
Fully remote workforce – in which the office environment is largely liquidated, and all employees work remotely

• Eliminated risk of workplace exposure to COVID-19
• Completely eliminated workspace (remember that annual $1,000-$1,400 per employee workspace, just the sq. feet in leasing costs), utilities and more
• Considerations will need to be taken for fostering a team culture and dynamic that might be missed in the workplace
• There are a number of employee benefits to consider as well

 
At Propulo, we’d be happy to discuss the options and considerations for the future of your call center workforce! 
 
Future blogs in this series

• Contingency Plan Development

Read more from this blog series:  
BLOG 1: THE NEW NORMAL
BLOG 2: OFFICE ENVIRONMENT SETUP
BLOG 3: SAFE WORKING PROCEDURES AND PPE
BLOG 4: PREPARATION FOR RETURN - EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS
BLOG 6: CONTINGENCY PLAN DEVELOPMENT

Read more about Flex Work: 
https://propulo.com/about/thought_leadership/files/category-flex-work.html

By Josh Williams, Ph.D.
 
Having the right attitude for safety can be a challenge, particularly as we get back to work during the COVID era. Not only are people stressed out about COVID, work activities may seem less consequential than normal with constant news about COVID deaths and sinking economies. Here is a model for assessing attitudes that may be useful for honest self-appraisal and for influencing others. Attitudes can be classified as Complainers, Spectators, and Champions (adapted from Yanna, 1996). Leaders can use this information to positively influence employee attitudes for COVID re-entry. 
 

• Complainers usually voice safety concerns to express displeasure, not to make improvements. They often direct complaints to other employees instead of EHS or supervisors who have the power to make changes. They also believe other people cause their problems and change is inherently bad. This leads to feelings of anger, resentment, doubt, frustration, and fear. 

 

• Spectators rarely discuss safety concerns, as they believe their actions will have little effect on the company. As a result, they seldom get involved in safety efforts. Spectators typically believe other people will solve important problems, change is unnecessary, most situations are “no big deal,” and people have minimal control over their lives. As a result, Spectators often feel uninspired, detached, unemotional, and indifferent.

 

• Champions normally express safety concerns constructively and work effectively with others to make improvements. Champions believe problems create opportunities for change, change is a sign of growth, and people control their own lives. They also deal with negative aspects of the company in a reasonable, mature fashion. This leads to feelings of confidence, happiness, contentment, personal control, and optimism. 

 
The good news is we can change our own attitude mindsets and, in many cases, influence the attitudes of others. So, complainers can become champions (and vice-versa). In general, effective safety leaders use the following techniques to try and move employees from complainers to champions:

• Own up to past organizational mistakes and look to the future to make improvements.
• Treat mistakes as learning opportunities, not occasions to punish.
• Solicit input from employees about safety concerns and respond to these concerns in a timely manner.
• Create opportunities for employees to get involved in safety initiatives. 
• Encourage discussions between and within organizational levels.
• Increase the frequency and quality of one-on-one conversations.
• Treat employees fairly and respectfully.
• Consider how you can improve your own safety attitudes to lead employees.

 
During this COVID era, these guidelines are even more important. In particular, leaders need to increase the quality of genuine, one-on-one conversations with employees (at a safe distance). It’s imperative leaders check in regularly with employees to see how they’re doing and ask what they can do to help. This actively caring leadership style will help convert some of your complainers and spectators into champions for safety both during and after this crisis. 
 
At Propulo, we can help you develop strategies for smart COVID-19 re-entry that is effective now and sustainable in the future. Please visit our website (Propulo Consulting) for more business insights and leadership resources.