It has been—and continues to be—a wild ride out there. And with some countries beginning to reopen for business, we will soon face our first glimpse of the post-Covid work world. Call it a soft opening.
And as with any such endeavor, we’re bound to experience some hiccups. Below, we at Tamooz have put together a few points we feel bear mentioning as the global economic engines lurch into first gear. We hope you find them useful.
Set up the skeleton crew
Your list of "essential workers" for your workplace will look different depending on several factors—but it makes sense to take a good long look at your return-to-work process, and what level of in-person staffing is necessary for that to occur.
If you’re in an office, you’ve likely been working from home for months, so that number may actually be zero.
New house, new rules
Just because you’re getting back to the workplace doesn’t mean things are going back to anything like “normal.” And normal office habits, like talking in the breakroom or grabbing from the same donut box, will not be coming back—at least not like they were before.
People will likely have some anxiety determining what to do in this new “new normal”—so help them out by over-communicating, with emails outlining new procedures, and plenty of signage around the office to remind people not to fall into old habits.
Don't stop communicating
The next few months will be filled with a lot of new things for you and your office mates: new rules, new protocols, and all-new definitions for things like “dedication,” “accountability”, and “work/life balance.”
It’s easy to predict misunderstandings with the big, obvious changes. But don’t forget to communicate the little things that you’d assume “everyone would know.”
Your policies will likely change as new CDC guidelines are passed down, so keeping on top of all of it will be no small task. When in doubt, more information is always better—even if they’re starting to roll their eyes at you and say, “OK, Mom.”
Skip the vanity meetings
If there were ever a poster child for the “this meeting should have been an email” crowd, it’s this. If you absolutely must bring people together, be sure to invite only those who are essential, and to practice safe social distancing.
Distancing at work
Depending on the layout of your office, this could be anything from easily-done to impossible. Staffing your workplace at 25% capacity to start is a good tip, but keeping regular contact at a minimum will also be important.
If employees must share a room, try to face them away from each other (as airborne transmission is directional), and seat them as far apart as feasible for your line of work. In addition, avoid face-to-face conversations that fall within the 6 foot (2 meter) distancing guidelines.
Expect it to be weird
Of course this isn’t business as usual—so it will take some time getting used to the hybrid of on-premise and at-home working. But if this epidemic has taught us anything about ourselves it’s that we can be more resourceful than we often give ourselves credit for.
Who knew that so much of our work could be performed digitally, remotely, and at odd hours when necessary? If there is a silver lining to all of this, it may be that somewhere along the way, we figured out how to fit work around our lives, and not the other way around.
We want to hear from you: What changes are you putting into place right now? What have we missed from our list? Contact us today.
Visit us on Twitter or LinkedIn. Or—to get even better acquainted—give us a call at +1 612 234 1153 (US), +44 7 835 160 205 (UK), +972 3 681 8885 (IL), or info@tamooz.net.
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