Best Practices by Top Employers
Gallup is a company that has been aggregating data regarding some of the best practices that the world's largest companies are following. These companies are those that have an average revenue of $27 billion and 80,000 employees. Obviously, these entities might have resources that smaller companies don't have access to, but this doesn't change that they are trying to be an example to all on how to react to a health crisis.
I'd like to highlight what I found as some themes in my research in bullet point format first and then go into more detail after. So here goes:
- Development of crisis mangement teams
- Additional budgeting for paid time off
- Reimbursement for medical costs
- Deep cleaning of workplaces
- Work from home policies
Development of Crisis Management Teams:
These teams tend to exist only at the largest companies out there, mostly due to the financial burden that comes from assigning a team to the specific task of creating the proper responses to the outbreak. For a global company, this means taking into account the geographic regions that their company operates in and developing tailored messaging to each region. A blanket communication will not necessarily prove successful in this situation. Messages about prevention, hygiene and treatment need to be prioritized so that the spread of the virus might be contained within the company. Additionally, policies regarding what to do if an employee finds themselves testing positive must be agreed upon quickly and communicated to the entirety of the population. Having a sense of collaboration amidst this crisis is important because it will ensure that each individual has a clear understanding of what their role is.
These crisis management teams are also responsible for contingency planning for the major executives within the company. Since these individuals are responsible for much of the decision making within the organization, plans must be put in place to deal with the possibility that these individuals might become infected and therefore be unable to work. These teams will also idetify which roles are critical to business operations and attempt to move those operations to unaffected areas. Some employees may be placed in cross-functional training to learn about other areas so that they can help in the event of a co-worker's quarantine. Those employees that must remain present for critical functions have been asked by the crisis mangement teams to track their interactions at work and disinfect whatever they touch.
When an individual has been identified as positive case, crisis teams are responsible for notfying other individuals who may have been exposed while still maintaining the confidentiality of the diagnosed individual. These teams also develop the communications regarding work from home recommendations and send these out to those that they have identified as non-essential for on site work. In the larger companies, these teams are also responsible for approving additional budgeting for time off.
Additional budgeting for time off + reimbursement of medical costs:
In my research, I have found cases of CEOs and higher mangement players not taking salaries for this year so that they can pay employees who have lost work due to this crisis. These cases tend to come from companies who don't have the ability to simply adjust their budgets to cover the additional cost of paying laid off employees. Gig economy companies, such as Uber and Lyft, are offering to pay their drivers who are unable to work. Uber has urged drivers to self isolate if they are concerned that they may be infected, offering two weeks of pay to quarantine themselves and help reduce the spread of the virus. Lyft is similarly offering two weeks pay, but they are basing the amount paid off of the rides that those drivers have provided on the Lyft platform for the previous 4 weeks. These types of caveats being attached to benefits tend to be the reason that someone might continue to work even when they are concerned about infection.
Much of this budgeting is not seen in companies that can allow their employees to work from home. It is the service industry or companies that have hourly employees that have been grappling with the challenge of aiding those who have lost work. Often these are the employees who rely on their paycheck to survive and would therefore risk infection by going to work because they don't have other options. Many companies have been trying their best to do what they can to incentivize employees to be cautious and smart.
For example, Starbucks is offering employees a 'catastrophe' pay for 14 days if they have been exposed and additional support for up to 26 weeks if that employee can't return to work after those first 14 days. Chipotle is expanding their paid sick leave policy to include part-time workers and is also stocking their restaurants with hand santizer for both customers and employees. Postmates is gathering an emergency fund that employees will have access to for their medical expenses, such as preventative care and testing. Walmart will pay employees for 2 weeks if their store has been quarantined and then up to an additional 26 weeks if an employee is diagnosed or quarantined further. Mark Cuban, of the Dallas Mavericks, has also offered personally to help compensate hourly employees who have been impacted by the virus. Other companies have offered to reimburse employees for alternate methods of getting to work (parking passes/ride-sharing), so that they can avoid public transportation when it is imperative that they come into work.
I personally have many friends who work on an hourly basis. Some of them are continuing to use public transportation to get into work because they won't be able to afford their rent if they aren't working. Others are displaced because the companies that they work for are closing until further notice.
Deep cleaning of workplaces:
Some companies, such as Whole Foods, that wish to remain open during this time, have adapted deep cleaning practices. They have announced that their stores will close an hour or two earlier (based on the size of the store) so that the employees can appropriately deep clean the environment. Other grocery stores have also adopted additional cleaning policies in an attempt to protect shoppers. Many stores have also mandated an 'elderly-only' first hour in which only that vulnerable population can shop. This is because these individuals are more susceptible to the virus and will be exposed to less germs if they are the first individuals in a freshly cleaned store in the morning.
It is interesting to note that while Whole Foods is forward thinking regarding the customers, they don't show the same gusto for their employees. The CEO of the company was recently quoted saying that perhaps employees should donate some of their PTO to their colleagues who have become infected with the virus. The policy of donating PTO was in existence long before Amazon had acquired the company, but the spirit with which the CEO spoke has been said to come off as selfish to many Whole Foods employees. The employees have claimed that it shouldn't be put on the retail workers to figure out how to help their colleagues stay safe. But I digress....
Before many schools decided that closing was the best option, they were also attempting a similar method. A roommate of mine, who is a school counselor, told me that the principal of their school disclosed that cleaning crews took 9 hours to disinfect the entire school overnight. This principal then stated that there was no way that the crews would be able to keep up with that type of schedule.
Work from home policies:
This might be the most interesting section of all for me due to the fact that I have recently spent a lot of time looking into psychological well-being and flexible working arrangements (FWAs). Working from home, otherwise known as telecommuting, was one of the FWAs discussed in 1 on 1 interviews that I conducted with individuals working in the tech industry in the greater Boston area. [See full report here on my personal website.]
In MA, one of the first companies to mandate that employees work from home (so long as their job function allowed) was Takeda. I heard about the communication that employees received from a friend of mine who works there. I later read an article in the Boston Globe that spoke more about the topic. Most of the first cases in the state stemmed from a conference that the company Biogen was hosting in downtown Boston. Once cases were announced to be connected to this gathering, Takeda was one of the first to respond with a company wide work from home policy for anyone with the ability to work from home. A spokeswoman for the company noted that most employees take their laptops home any night anyways, so that the employees did not feel the need to scramble once the stay-at-home initiative was announced (in a middle of the night email over the weekend). Most meetings have always been accesible off-site for employees and the spokeswoman said that she couldn't recall the last time that she had a meeting where there wasn't someone videoconferencing in.
This Boston Globe article brought up some concerns about remote work for companies that, unlike Takeda, were not already primed for remote work. The founder of the Remote Work Association, Laurel Farrer, says that anybody can work from home for a day with absolutely no effect whatsoever. She suggests that a company should conduct a two-week trial to really understand the scope of potential problems with remote work. Unfortunately for us, this has become a forced two-week trial, with no end in sight.
Studies have found that companies can actually find an increase in productivity from remote work, but these studies caution that highly collaborative work can suffer. This collaborative work does not have to suffer though, if the policies take into consideration the five coversations that drive performance. Gallup has found that addressing the following five interactions can allow for positive opinions on remote work: (1) the quick connect, (2) check-in, (3) developmental coaching, (4) progress review and (5) role and relationship development. These can be framed specifically for remote workers, such as: Is it too quiet at home? Do you miss having people around? Do you feel left out?
There are concerns surrounding the potential loneliness and isolation that remote workers could feel if companies are not careful about how they implement these policies. Research has shown that these feelings are not typical for workers and are often preventable. It is important to note that loneliness is emotional, while isolation is structural. An employee can feel lonely in an office filled with people, but isolation comes from when that employee can't get the information that they need, think their achievements are ignored or feel cut off from their company. To combat both of these issues, it is recommended that communication to employees is frequent and ongoing. It is important that a manager knows their people in these remote situations, because different personality types will need different styles of communication in this remote world. Moving work to a remote platform will truly be a test for most managers - do they truly know their people well enough to develop individual strategies to keep them engaged? Only time will be able to tell on that matter.
Another important aspect of remote work is that productivity depends on an individual's working style as much as it does the level of communication that individual gets from their manager or company. Some people are more productive when working alone and choose to work remote because they will get more work done that way. For example, when IBM called back its' remote workforce recently, those individuals who were accustomed to remote work either isolated themselves in the office or looked for other jobs where they could work remotely and maintain their preferred working style.
Before this outbreak, 43% of U.S workers were already working remote some or all of the time. As more individuals begin to work from home now, it is important to recognize that they will be missing out on some physical aspects of working at an office. Some employees may have commuted via walking or biking and will no longer be getting that movement every day. Additionally, these individuals will no longer be climbing stairs, walking the halls of their office or having access to a fully loaded salad bar that they had in their work cafeteria. Physical well-being is an important aspect of health that may be effected by this change to remote work.
Companies can remind their employees who are now working remotely to take frequent breaks from sitting at their computers. They can be encouraged to practice some in-home exercise, as gyms are closed, or engage in some daily home upkeep to get moving. Walking over-the-phone meetings could be suggested, both to stretch one's legs and get some vitamin D from the sun outside. These phone calls with colleagues would also offer some social lift, as the calls do not have to be one hundred percent work relevant. The calls could become opportunities to see each other as human and connect on a basic level. All of these things will help employees adapt to the remote working style that is necessary at this time. You never know - this forced experiment could end with employers and employees loving remote work and not wanting to change back to in-office work.
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Sorry for the long post, but I'm clearly passionate about learning what employers are doing and suggesting improvements where I see opportunities.
That's all for now!
-Vicky
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