0820_AUG Comstock's Magazine 0820 August | Page 15

SHUTTERSTOCK ILLUSTRATION • Since you’ve been working at home, your performance has slipped. • Working at home was fine in an emergency, but it’s taking us twice as long to get our projects approved with everyone working remotely. • Our clients strongly prefer face-toface meetings. • You have been difficult to reach when you’re working at home. • We were mostly building plans during the shutdown, but now that we’re reopening, we need to execute those plans, and you need to be in the office for that. Let your employees come up with a solution to the problem. They may not be able to, and, as the boss, you can require someone to work in the office. Not everyone is suited for work at home, even if it’s possible to do the job at home. Some solutions may include having the employee work one or two days from home and the rest in the office, or creating a flexible schedule. Listen to your employees’ ideas. If they genuinely do need to come into the office and are anxious about doing so because of the health hazards it poses, it’s up to you to implement safety measures to protect your staff and help relieve some of those fears. Make sure you are following all federal, state and local guidelines. Do your best, communicate what you are doing to your employees and ask them to let you know if you can do better. Make sure work stations are far enough apart for social distancing. Consider getting rid of open-office situations (you can add barriers to help reduce germ transmission), make sure you have plenty of sanitizer and soap, and use masks as recommended by the CDC. As long as the CDC and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission classify COVID-19 as a “direct threat,” you can ask your employees to undergo testing. This can include daily temperature checks or having employees certify daily that they don’t have symptoms. While this does not guarantee that no one is infected (they could be asymptomatic), it can help people feel more comfortable about coming into the office. Also, make it clear that anyone who is sick should go home and stay there until their doctor says it is OK to return. Ask your employees what will make them feel comfortable, and listen to them. Giving them each their own corner office won’t be possible, but making sure there is distance between them is possible. Providing daily COVID-19 testing isn’t practical, but providing disinfecting wipes so people can clean their work space and equipment can easily be done. It may be a great time to evaluate how your company operates. Working from home may be in your company’s best interest. Suzanne Lucas spent 10 years in corporate human resources, where she hired, fired, managed the numbers and double-checked with the lawyers. On Twitter @RealEvilHRLady. Send questions to [email protected]. How are you planning to allow your employees to return to work after the shelter-in-place orders? TWEET US @COMSTOCKSMAG August 2020 | comstocksmag.com 15