Concerns are many and varied with perhaps the most common being around toilets, kitchens and public transport.
There is no point pushing everyone back if you cannot physically fit them all in. By taking a business centred approach to numbers returning and a common sense approach to people you may be able to come to a comfortable compromise. Survey or poll your workforce find out their anxieties then speak to people on a one to one basis explaining your policy and expectations. The choices and actions you take now may come back and bite you if you try to strongarm people or fail to listen to their genuine concerns. There will always be someone who milks the situation but do not fall into the trap of treating everyone the same just to deal with one issue. Once your business has survived it needs to thrive so be true to the values and behaviours you encourage and expect. Starting point How many people can we accommodate back in the workplace whilst still complying with 2m rules and other issues identified by our risk assessment. No doubt employees have been telling you that Boris has said they should work from home if they possibly can and they are ‘following government advice’. Realistically this advice will probably be the last bit of ‘easing’ as while it is still in place people get paid, business continues and no furlough is paid and there are less people milling about [ winner, winner ] If you genuinely need people back at work because specific tasks are piling up or the work can be done more efficiently and more quickly from the workplace then you have every right to ask people to return. The guidance about working from home is advisory only. A roadmap for bringing people back to the workplace
Use all your resources to show the workplace is safe and ready, share new protocols, invite questions, take polls, speak to people, set up a Zoom meeting. What about the people who are shielding ? paradoxically those who have been shielding would probably have been safer going out in the early weeks of lockdown rather than now when streets, roads and public spaces seem back to normal ! Shielding has always been advisory so if someone want to come back to work and they are comfortable with the COVID safe precuations you have in place, they can return. However, government advice has not been to go back to work so it is best to consider this group as exempt and continue to treat them as vulnerable. The question I get asked the most is around how robust you should or can be … us HR folk will talk about the employment contract and will tell you that if necessary you can make people take holiday or unpaid leave if they do not want to return. Yes you can, but why would you want to put the working relationship at risk if there are genuine concerns ? The only way to work this through is talking to people, listening and working together. Make sure people know they will be given notice unless of course you have decided that everyone can work from home forever, and that will open a whole new set of questions about suitability, policy, measuring productivity etc. One size fits all is no longer the answer.
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October 2020
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