If you have already upgraded your office to be COVID-safe, you might think that there’s nothing to worry about, and as life has returned to some state of normal, people are relaxing, but cases are creeping up.
We are all being a bit laxer these days, and this is why it’s important to remember that it hasn’t gone away, but for the sake of our business operating effectively, we’ve got to address some of the common concerns but also adhere to the simplest practices.
Continuous Testing
It may seem like overkill to ask people to test themselves every time they come into the office but as winter is approaching, this is when the cases are going to increase. The great thing is that there are a wide variety of wholesale health essentials like face masks and rapid testing kits you can purchase, so people can continue to test themselves.
A lot of people find it difficult to acquire lateral flow tests, and if you are still concerned about COVID, this is the simplest method to prevent a spike in cases.
Ensuring People Don’t Feel Obliged to Come to the Office
There is still a moral debate around this. Because the rules have been relaxed, in effect, you could go into the office with COVID and infect everybody. The important thing to remember is that when people feel pressure to come into the office, even if they have COVID and come in regardless, we’ve got to have the provisions in place to ensure they feel supported. The problem many organisations have is that they thrive on a culture of fear. Somebody who has COVID and feels that they need to come into the office because their line manager is pressuring them is not going to help in the long term.
This is a very myopic way of thinking, because if everybody comes down with COVID in an office because that one person ventured in with the infection despite feeling okay, this is going to have a major impact on overall productivity and the bottom line. Ensuring that you keep the discussion going around the moral implications of coming into the office with COVID despite it being okay in a legal sense all stems from you. Ensuring you do not have a culture of fear place goes a long way to make people feel confident enough to say that they should stay at home.
Hybrid Working Options
This is something that we all need to keep in place. We all know about the civil servants that felt like they were guilted into coming back to the office by Jacob Rees-Mogg. The reality is that hybrid working options are the best way to ensure that we keep COVID concerns at bay. But of course, the results speak for themselves.
A lot of people are more productive when they work at home. This is something that should not be removed, especially as it has a major impact on people’s quality of life and their work-life balance.
COVID has not gone away, and as cases appear to be creeping up slowly, it’s important to remember that these little things can go a long way.
