The pandemic has left businesses in confusion time and again. The strategic leaders are now focusing on continuously revamping and reshaping their culture and business operations. All thanks to the pandemic outbreak and the influx of remote working jobs. That’s why it’s important to plan for the pandemic every now and then. Because, let’s be honest, this virus and its variants are going nowhere. It’s our body, mind, and work culture that has to adapt. That is why we pay equal attention to the involvement of HR tech and its evolution.
So let’s explore below five core steps to prepare for a pandemic like situation for workplaces. These steps will help HRs in manpower planning, costing, budgeting, tasks and operations to complete, and resources to allocate and upgrade.
5 Steps to plan for pandemic with HR Tech:
1.Create routines that allow you to work from home when you can
Work-from-home policies have been much more difficult to implement where there is an immense need for front line workers.
However, HR managers ordered employees to complete tasks from home whenever it was possible.
By limiting the number of people in the building at once, HR leaders attempted to lower the risk of an outbreak. Employees who are required to enter the office daily get protected by having non-production work done at home.
2.Limit exposure opportunities and encourage social seclusion
HR executives also provided some advice and examples of the steps they took to lessen exposure at their facilities. Utilise employee mobile phones for mobile clock-in and clock-out to save employees from having to touch keypads.
During lunch, workers are required to eat alone at a table.
More than five people are required to hold a meeting in person, and social distance must be enforced. Remind workers that leaves of absence are possible if they live with relatives who are highly susceptible to COVID-19.
3.Communicate over a social intranet
When you prepare for a pandemic, the first thing that needs to be streamlined is communication. With the HR tech, that’s possible any day, as it offers stable and secure hosting server services. Employees can talk to each other and sort out problems even when working from home. The business operations would not stop. The operations would go on as usual, and employees will also be safe at their homes.
4.Check up on employees for their physical health
Modern HR tech and tools help install and integrate COVID metre into the virtual biometric system. This helps employees to record their daily temperatures in the system. So, if anyone is in need of immediate medical assistance, others can reach out to them without hesitation or fear.
That develops a culture of mutual respect, honesty, and a sense of belonging. It creates a community for all within the organisation. Employees share the pain of COVID like scenarios with each other. And using the HRMS software, they are aware that they are not alone. That is despite working from offshore locations.
5.Adopt sensible PTO and sick leave regulations.
In this challenging period, it becomes crucial to manage considerate PTO and sick policies that support employees.
The HR leaders did some of the following things.
- Reduce work to the absolute minimum necessary to keep health insurance. This has temporarily assisted in preventing layoffs while preserving everyone’s health insurance during the pandemic, which is essential for employee wellbeing.
- Provide a more flexible PTO policy that enables employees to take time off without requiring many approvals and permits employees to combine PTO and sick leave.
- Employees in “essential businesses” should be given hazard pay.
- If employees have high-risk family members at home who may be exposed to COVID-19, give them a choice to take an unpaid leave of absence while maintaining their health insurance.
Conclusion
With daily updates and an ever-changing situation, businesses are scrambling to incorporate as much fresh information into their decision-making process as possible.
We uncovered a few tips that helped make sense of the chaos with the help of HR tech. Try to retain as much of your workforce as possible after implementing the above listed tips and strategies.
It’s important to remember that economic uncertainties like these are temporary. And it’ll be harder to find trained employees familiar with your business when we get past this crisis. So keep a check on their mental and physical health scores with smarter HRMS tools when there’s a pandemic like situation. This will help you earn your employees’ trust from day one.