3 things you need to consider when you restart your business and get your staff back to the office

I have seen a number of things about how to restart your business and get your staff back to the office.  This includes the idea of an A or B team, a red or blue team and alternate people in and out of the office over the near term.

To me this 2 team approach is fraught with danger and may actually increase the risks to the business and the staff. 

Here are 3 things you should consider when determining the return of staff to the office.

Age Demographic of your staff

Currently there are 4 deaths for people under 60 from COVID-19 in Australia.  Workers under 60 represent 90 percent of the workforce in Australia and 79 percent of the total population.  That equates to 1 death per 5.0 million people under 60.  The risk to the under 60 year old is minimal and close to the risk of dying from a lightning strike.

For 60 and over, there has been 99 deaths.  This equates to 1 death per 55,000 people and clearly the risks are higher.

If you don’t treat your 60+ year old staff differently than say a 20 year staff member, you may be putting your business at risk.

Home Work Environment

From what I seen on social media and Zoom etc, there are currently a lot of people working from home in inappropriate and sometimes dangerous situations.

For example, working from the dining room table with power cords across walkways is dangerous.  Working on from the kitchen bench without a proper ergonomic chair is not appropriate.  Working from home and not having proper security over documents may breach privacy laws.  Having business phone calls at home may breach client or business confidentiality.

We may have lived with this when everyone was told to work from home, but this will not be acceptable on an ongoing basis.  Do not forget your obligation is to provide a safe workplace, and this means at home as well.

Employee Preferences

There will be staff that prefer working from the office.  For example, they may have at home young children who interrupt the work they are doing.  They may be sharing a house with others and the internet speed is inadequate or other factors such as noise may be an issue.

Here is what I would suggest to restart your business if you are office based

Step 1 – determine your risk profile based on age of the worker.

Step 2 – communicate with all your staff and see what preferences they have.

Step 3 – for all staff who have expressed a preference to work from home, have them provide proof that their working conditions at home are safe and appropriate.  Review this determine if you agree.  For those whose working conditions are not acceptable, consider if, and how you can help them make those working conditions acceptable.

Once you have done this you now have up to six different cohorts of staff.  Those who want to work from home and a set up for this, those who want to work from home but are not set up for this and those who don’t want to work from home, split between under 60 and those 60 and older.  Hence why I saw just having 2 cohorts may be inappropriate

You can then start to make decisions on how you restart your business and bring staff back to work.

If you want a confidential discussion on your business situation, contact me below

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