Are all facets of your business prepared to reopen? From our point of view, there are multiple zones of readiness to be considered to prepare your company to re-open its doors.
In the state of Pennsylvania, businesses will begin to reopen soon. Workers will trickle into office buildings and workplaces that have been closed for over two months. While it’s easy to think a few, small changes will suffice, it’s critical to review every angle of your workplace readiness before you crack the doors.
If you’re planning to restart, your top priority is to ensure a smooth and safe transition for all employees. Tackling the following four zones of office readiness now can guarantee your workplace is equipped to welcome back employees and operate in a COVID-sensitive environment.
Zone 1: Personnel Readiness
Each member of your workforce has endured a unique stay-at-home experience. Some of them might not feel safe coming back into the workplace while others might need to remain home due to lack of childcare or even self-quarantine. Will you need to hire short-term, temporary help while these employees are not available? Can some employees continue to remain at home while others return? Consider options for staggering the days your employees return to work to enable social distancing and help ease the re-entry period for everyone.
Zone 2: Technology Readiness
If your employees have been working from home, you will want to ensure their devices have been updated and scanned to eliminate the risks of malware. If part of your workforce comes back to work while another part remains home, is your technology set up to handle the differences in data access and communication capabilities across locations? If you have furloughed employees during COVID19 and want to bring them back onboard, technology and devices will either need to be returned to them or updated to ensure a smooth transition back to work.
Zone 3: Facility Readiness
Many new guidelines have been put into place to make sure offices and places of work are prepared to monitor employee health and safety every single day. Reviewing such protocols and ensuring you prepare workplaces with proper sanitization measures, socially-distanced work stations, masks, handwashing facilities and testing recommendations are just a few of the greatest priorities right now as businesses reopen. Also assess whether you might need to hire additional cleaning support or secure supplies in bulk ahead of time.
Zone 4: Leadership Readiness
Preparedness always starts with a detailed plan. It’s imperative to thoroughly develop and document a plan for your entire team—including what steps to follow if something doesn’t go as planned. Continually adding to and updating your business continuity and response plan is equally as important in the weeks ahead, as stay-at-home orders may be delivered again if cases of the virus spike. Consider options for limiting leadership in the office, such as staggering the days that C-Suite staff work from the office versus home, if possible.
It’s also a good idea to prepare communications for your workforce so they understand expectations, available options should they need them, health protocols for the office moving forward, and what they should do if they are sick. Above all else, leadership should provide genuine support of every employee’s health and well-being as they make their way back into the workplace.
Next-Level Readiness: Continual Improvement
Readiness must take the form of documented and measured preparations to begin to engage the “next normal” for our businesses and workplaces. Working through the four zones of office readiness can prepare leaders with the efficient planning, thorough safety guidance and thoughtful leadership needed to reopen and look toward business progress. However, each zone must be reviewed and coordinating plans updated as state and local mandates change and employee needs shift.
Our team at enkompas Technology Solutions is already working beside clients to help discuss and implement specific readiness solutions customized to their business goals. From business resiliency technology to managed security services, we can help facilitate your technology readiness as you prepare to reopen your doors.
