Business owners and leaders must generate revenue, bring back their furloughed or laid-off employees, and re-engage with their customers if our economy is to grow again. Employers are now particularly challenged with returning to some level of “normalcy.” Managing the need to get back to work with the risks presented by COVID-19 is a delicate balance between one’s legal obligations to keep employees healthy and also helping them feel psychologically safe enough to return to work and be productive again.
To further complicate matters, employers must also contend with the fact that employees and customers are exhibiting markedly different attitudes toward the severity of COVID-19 and may link returning to work to those political and philosophical views. A recent NPR poll shows that 40% of Republicans see COVID-19 as a real threat vs. 76% of Democrats. Meanwhile, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 56% of Democrats believe their day-to-day lives will change in a major way in the future vs. 26% of Republicans. Employers may find that some employees scoff at the idea of wearing a mask in the office or having their temperatures taken as a violation of their personal rights, while others experience anxiety about returning to the workplace until there is a vaccine.
A successful return-to-work plan will require a playbook that rises above liberal or conservative perspectives — one that centers on regional and national legal requirements, employee well-being (both physical and psychological), and the company’s pre-established values.
While the discussion around “when” to return to work is a spectrum that evaluates company risk tolerance related to the issues above, the issue of political affiliation and its relationship to consistent work policies should NOT be on a spectrum of personal choice.
Successful companies strive to support diverse perspectives around solving company challenges, improving or building new product or service experiences, cost management, and what the company culture should be.
However, while return-to-work strategies might be developed with diverse input, their application should not be subject to individual choice or “personal choice.” Above all else, the application of these strategies should map to three key attributes: consistency of application, application of values, and value to employees and customers.
By consistency of application, we mean that employers should insist that all employees, regardless of personal belief, adhere to the company’s policies to ensure it meets legal requirements around a safe working environment while reducing stress and anxiety in employees, which often saps them of productivity and focus (a serious problem when companies are in such trying economic times).
By application of values, we mean that employers should ensure that policies are aligned with the company values. If an employer says, for example, their value is loyalty, then the policies should adhere to the idea that we’re all in this together and that our individual perspectives, while considered, must align with a team-based approach for success. If we have a value of accountability, then the policies must adhere to how everyone, from the CEO on down, is holding one another accountable to following these policies to the best of one’s ability.
By value to employees and customers, we mean that the policies must first ensure employees and customers are safe (both physically and psychologically) to first trust that they can return to the environment and, second, engage in operations.
Companies with consistent plans that take into consideration the above planning will outperform many of their peer companies that may succumb to uncertainty due to conflicting guidance. Companies must also have a plan that successfully rises above the sometimes messy political preferences that shape each person’s mindset about a return to work by having clear triggers and guidelines for each stage that align with the perspectives shared here.
Latest posts by Sean Bell (see all)
- Don’t Let Politics Cripple A Return To Work - May 16, 2021
