Ensuring employees’ readiness to return to the workplace
After more than a year, Filipinos are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic still paralyzing many aspects of life and business, vaccination programs across the Philippines are helping Filipinos boost their immunity against the virus and ultimately gain confidence to finally return to the workplace.
However, until the country achieves complete herd immunity, companies must continue to practice caution when reopening offices and ordering employees to physically report to work again. HR leaders must be able to develop and administer a system of work resumption that protects employees and ensures that their organization follows regulations.
Here at Q2 HR Solutions, we were able to efficiently and effectively return to the workplace by June 2020 by completing three steps.
Step 1: building phases
The first is building phases in consideration of three major factors meant to dictate how these phases will run once they’re operationalized in the workplace: government regulations, operational requirements, and office size.
In terms of government regulations, we reviewed DOLE-DTI guidelines, which contains the mandated minimum health standards to prevent and control the spread of the virus in the workplace. As for operational requirements, our division managers classified employee roles into two: E1 for employees who can work from home and E2 for employees who are required to make a physical appearance at the office.
Lastly, we reviewed our office size so that our Facilities and Admin could strategize an office layout that could accommodate the number of required headcount and amount of manpower support for health protocol stations, foot traffic, and workstation layout.
After reviewing those factors, we were able to develop three phases for our return to the workplace once Metro Manila was put under General Community Quarantine status. We allowed only 15% of our workforce to report to the office during the first phase. As for the succeeding phases, we increased our workforce capacity to 30% then 50%.
Step 2: executing Phase 1
When implementing the first phase of our office resumption, we adhered to guidelines made by DOLE and DTI, the Department of Health, and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF). Since only 15% of our workforce were physically reporting at work, we closed half of the office to contain employees in specific areas, allowing us to save energy and costs from electricity and aircon use.
Moreover, we assigned single entry and exit points to ensure unidirectional movement around the office. We also strategically placed alcohol posts, in-trays, manning stations, and employees in different areas of the office. We implemented a “free seating” arrangement on all working areas, marking desks that can or cannot be used by employees to ensure that social distancing is practiced indoors. We also digitized our physical forms such as approval documents and surveys to minimize contact from one employee to another. In cases where physical documents need to be signed manually, we prepared in-trays for every division where employees can place papers in.
Step 3: planning for phase 2
After seeing the success of Phase 1, we proceeded to plan for Phase 2. We continued to stay on top of government announcements that may affect our return to the workplace. Since Phase 2 will involve 30% of our workforce in the office, our division managers created teams to accommodate the incoming employees while maintaining a safe distance from each other. Additionally, grouping employees can ensure that other teams will remain in the office if a member of one team contracts COVID-19 and all members need to be quarantined for 14 days.
When it came to utilities, we took into account the number of additional employees to determine what aircon units we could use within the office. By doing so, we’d be able to lower utility costs.
In all of the aforementioned steps, we also implemented various work arrangements to cater to our employees’ needs. For instance, we continued to implement flexible work arrangements such as “Work From Home”, “Rotation” (shifting skeleton workforce), and “Reduction of Workdays on Various Roles”. When it came to work hours, E1 employees were given a fixed schedule while E2 employees were given the wi-flex schedule in consideration of transportation challenges they may encounter.
In terms of workplace safety, we placed disinfection and health declaration protocols at the entrance of our office and observed social distancing and sanitation practices inside the workplace. To minimize contact with other employees and clients, we resorted to virtual meetings and online platforms to deliver our core services and internal activities.
In the event that an employee contract COVID-19 in the office, they would be first led to the isolation area then assisted by clinic personnel to the nearest hospital. The office would then be decontaminated, while the other employees would be required to be quarantined for 14 days.
Modifying business operations at such an unprecedented time is never easy. Based on experience, we found that focused leadership is the key to weathering crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. As we move forward into the new normal, companies should begin planning their return to the workplace. More importantly, they need to assign competent leaders to direct their recovery in the right direction.