The past year has been a tremendously trying time for countless businesses. With the global health crisis fundamentally changing the way certain enterprises operate, adapting has become essential for businesses that wish to successfully weather the storm. In addition to altering the way many establishments interact with clients, the threat of the novel coronavirus has facilitated the need to re-examine how employees are treated by their employers.
As the lifeblood of your enterprise, your employees represent an invaluable resource, and failing to keep them safe and happy throughout this crisis is liable to leave them disillusioned and eager to consider other employment options.
Allowing Remote Work
Some business owners disparage the concept of remote work, believing it to be a hindrance to productivity. For one thing, the data suggests this isn’t the case. Secondly, even if you are not a fan of remote work, it cannot be denied that the recent global health crisis is an unprecedented situation. As the adage goes, desperate times call for desperate measures – and times don’t get more desperate than this.
That being the case, any employee who is able to carry out their job duties from the safety and comfort of home should be permitted to do so. Not only does this help curb the spread of the virus and keep your workforce safe, it also helps ensure the safety of their various family members and anyone else with whom they interact.
By the time the health issue is in the rearview, you may even discover that your previous beliefs about remote work were misguided and be inclined to embrace it moving forward. While it is true that some individuals do better in a structured environment, many members of the workforce are perfectly capable of providing their own structure and are able to work more productively from home.
Providing Onsite PPE
If remote work simply isn’t an option for the type of business you run, you will need to take measures to keep your employees safe in the workplace. This means making facemasks, gloves, hand sanitizer and other PPE readily available to all workers.
It also entails enforcing social distancing measures and monitoring for employees who refuse to take proper safety precautions. Although some workers are liable to find masking up and social distancing to be cumbersome, these measures are in place for their safety, as well as the safety of others.
Requiring Symptomatic Employees To Stay Home
Any employee who exhibits COVID-19 symptoms should be required to stay home until such time as they have received a COVID test and been cleared to return to work by a doctor. While certain COVID symptoms mirror symptoms of less serious illnesses, you would be wise to avoid taking any chances in this area.
A single COVID-positive employee can kick off a workplace-wide infection cluster, which will affect not only your employees, but their families, as well. Furthermore, employees who think they may have been exposed to the virus or live with people who have tested positive for COVID-19 should also be required to remain at home.
Being Understanding Of Individual Circumstances
If ever there were a time for empathy, it is now. With the pandemic facilitating countless furloughs and job losses, many members of the workforce are afraid of missing work, thereby losing their source of income. This is liable to make symptomatic individuals ignore signs of potential infection and come into work anyway, thereby placing entire businesses at risk. To avoid such situations, your enterprise should be extremely generous with paid sick leave throughout this difficult period and do everything in its power to make remote work a viable option for as many workers as possible.
You should also take every opportunity to show your employees how much you appreciate their efforts during this time. To this end, practical promotional products that bear your brand’s logo can make great gifts for both employees and clients.
Very few of us can legitimately claim to have had a good year. While some of us have certainly fared better than others, the onset of the novel coronavirus has turned daily life on its head and caused many enterprises to reconsider the way they do business.
Although COVID-19 has been tough on a number of industries, the effect it is had on individual workers mustn’t be overlooked. Any business looking to show its employees how valued they are during this troubled time would do well to take the steps discussed above.
