Last March, the Government’s first Covid-19 lockdown had an instant impact on the business community. Millions of employees in organisations across the country were dispatched from their offices to begin working from home. For some businesses, the enforced separation has had some positive benefits. For many others, the effect on productivity and mental health has been highly damaging. Yet, businesses are struggling to understand wellness issues, longer-term damage, and how best to mentor and develop their workforce in the wake of this pandemic. As a result, — with rapid vaccine roll out and the end of lockdown in sight — almost every business in the country is assessing how to facilitate a quick, but safe, return to the office.
According to exclusive research conducted by Yonder on behalf of Cignpost ExpressTest, just one in four businesses know how to return to work safely after lockdown, and only half have formulated a plan to return to the office. While it is true that there are some organisations that will simply wait until every adult has been vaccinated, many others will wish to return some, or all, of their employees to the office sooner. What is not clear are the practical steps to ensure a safe environment.
While the government has provided detailed guidance for how weddings, night clubs and sporting events can restart, there has been little information on how the vast majority of office-based organisations should proceed, other than the recommendation that working from home should continue as the norm until at least 17th June. After that date, many businesses will be unsure of safe programmes to implement for a phased return.
Moreover, businesses have a legal duty of care to protect their staff from harm. What CEO would want to ask —or even insist— that everyone returns to the office only to see a Covid-19 outbreak that led to massive workforce disruptions, hospitalisations and worse? Additionally, there is confusion over the merits and costs of different Covid-19 testing that is a critical part the solution.
So, what should businesses do? Many companies have announced that they will wait Covid-19 out, delaying an office return until the autumn. This may suit a few business operating styles, however, if new mutations of the virus appear and modify the efficacy of the vaccine programme, or cause an upsurge in infections and deaths later in the year, businesses could find themselves delaying their return indefinitely.
Perhaps looking to the experience of the organisations that have already begun to return critical workers to the office is the best way to understand the options available. For those organisations, the starting point was understanding which employees have been vaccinated and given this, working out how to create a safe working environment for everyone through testing.
It is also important to have a complete understanding of the different types of tests available. According to our research, four out of 10 businesses currently lack that knowledge. At one end, there are lateral flow tests that are cheap and produce results in minutes. The issue with lateral flow tests is that they miss a very significant proportion of positive cases and can only give a red light not a green light to a safe working environment, meaning masks, social distancing and viral hygiene remain in place. The alternative is the gold standard PCR test. These can produce results within a few hours. They are more costly but have significant advantages, in that they offer the highest level of certainty.
Twice-weekly testing regimes have been introduced effectively across major banks and film sets and in elite sporting events, as a practical and sensible way to give staff and their families continuous protection. Consistent testing allows companies to create their own Employee Passports: a document that provides details of testing history and vaccination. This then allows those testing negative the ability to work normally in the office again and provides employers confidence in their duty of care provision in terms of COVID and wellness. The added benefits to employee retention, mental wellness and competitive advantage are yet to be estimated.
However, it is not enough just to test employees and send those testing positive back into isolation. Companies will also need to provide those testing positive and their line managers and contacts with an assessment of risk. The person with COVID will also need to be provided with immediate access to medical advice regarding their condition and, potentially, rapid follow-up COVID tests, before they can return to work. Retesting those who have been in contact with the individual is also necessary to ascertain that all can continue to work safely.
Companies don’t exist in a vacuum. Even when businesses have created safe bubbles within the office, visitors or contractors are still a real consideration and possible threat. To deal with this, a number of companies are developing different regimes for those tested, allowing them to return to work normally, and a separate regime for anyone else, where social distancing, mask wearing and access to strictly limited parts of the buildings is required.
The economic and social damage caused by COVID-19 has been immense, but with the successful roll out of the vaccine, it is becoming possible to imagine a brighter future. Now, businesses need a plan that brings their employees back to the office, thereby helping them return to normality as soon as possible.
Professor Denis Kinane is a Professor in Immunology and a co-founder of Cignpost Diagnostics.
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Source: http://hrnews.co.uk/employee-passports-are-the-way-back-to-the-office/
