Large-scale emergencies like natural disasters, economic collapse and disease outbreaks can unilaterally bring global business to a halt.
Some sectors, like tourism or those with international supply chains, are distinctly in the eye of the storm.
The novel coronavirus, a previously unidentified virus now commonly referred to as COVID-19, is a recent example of unforeseen events forcing business owners to rethink their approach to staffing, inventory and workplace standards.
Moving to a remote workforce is a primary mechanism employers are using to manage such crises.
Let’s look at how businesses are managing to implement interim telecommuting policies, where applicable:
State of affairs
Medical experts, employers and officials at various levels of the government expect the coronavirus situation to worsen, as entire cities have been quarantined and institutions like schools, universities, churches and restaurants have indefinitely ceased operations.
Enterprises with global footprints, like Twitter® or Apple®, have already enforced work-from-home policies within their organizations. Small and medium-sized businesses, however, are harder-pressed to enact such sweeping change, as they might be starting from scratch without existing remote-work policies on record. Additionally, disparate paid leave policies mean some workers can call in sick, while others can’t.
Another vector adding to the operational challenge at large is that some types of work simply can’t be done remotely. Labor-intensive fields, such as manufacturing or hospitality, require round-the-clock on-site personnel: Cross-training, upskilling or telecommuting simply don’t compute in these spheres.
Less than one-third of American employees can or have worked from home, Time™ noted. But that, under the circumstances, is exactly what needs to happen. So what happens next?
Planning, reorganizing and financing
Businesses not already accustomed to flexible employee work arrangements may benefit from investing in alternate stopgap measures as early as possible. Should those measures prove successful, they can be rolled out as part of a larger business transformation at a later time.
In either case, those investments require time and resources - and fast.
Employees that show any symptoms of COVID-19 should absolutely stay home, per the CDC.
At the employer level, owners and third-party providers may need to review the following company-specific programs:
- Employee benefits packages, with respect to paid sick leave.
- Furlough policies if worksites and offices need to be formally closed.
- Video conferencing. 47% of employers are increasing work-from-home flexibility and 13% plan to soon - video conferencing will facilitate this transition to remote work without disrupting necessary meetings from occurring, albeit virtually. (Check out this post on successfully operating a virtual business.)
- Supervisor training and health communications. Who is relaying new data on the virus and its updated impact on company plans? Are supervisors sure how to respond to employee inquiries appropriately and support human resources to prevent panic and adjust workflows?
Employers may also need to make the call now: What lines of business are most important right now? What services can be temporarily triaged without causing undue harm? Which employees are most mission-critical, and can other colleagues pick up work if called upon? What work can be done remotely if absolutely required?
Remote work for the future
Officially switching to a remote workforce, in some capacity, affords businesses a number of benefits that extend beyond the current year or outbreak, according to Global Workplace Analytics™:
- 46% of companies say remote work has helped reduce employee turnover.
- 78% of workers who call in sick do so not because they are medically ill but because they need to attend to personal issues such as family or stress. Remote work can allow these workers to accommodate both: their work and their personal lives. Telework has been cited as the force behind 63% fewer unscheduled absences.
- Remote workers don’t infect the rest of the workforce even if they are sick.
- About 60% of businesses have realized cost-savings as a result of work-from-home policies.
Making the decision to transition staff to telecommuters requires strategic planning, real-time insights into COVID-19 developments and, likely, cash flow to offset the time and labor now devoted to creating these plans.
Business owners must then also ask the questions: How sustainable will these policies be once put into place? Can we formally prioritize telecommuting next year and beyond? If COVID-19 is contained faster than expected, was the disruption and transition to telecommuting worth it?
As mentioned above, sector- and company-specific considerations take precedent long term. A remote workforce may only be possible should future technologies allow it to be. And in the long arc of business automation and software sophistication, it’s not yet obvious how immediate telecommuting could become the norm at scale across the entire economy - especially if employers’ hands aren’t forced by future pandemics or emergencies.
Some starting points, both now and in the future, include:
- Deploying chatbots for customer-service tasks.
- Allowing a certain percentage of each team or business unit to work from home one or more days a week to measure the impact and feasibility of scaling a remote or semi-remote workforce.
- Running any meeting virtually that doesn’t have a firm reason for being conducted in person.
- Merging existing workflows and data-management practices with cloud-based services, so business information can be accessed and stored anywhere, anytime.
