Getting people back to work in an environment where they feel safe and comfortable will take a lot of talking and consulting. Acas advisers know from experience that this is always time well spent. And the issue for discussion is not simply addressing health and safety issues.
As Hubert Joly wrote in the Harvard Business
Review: “Safety is essential, of course, but it’s also important to address higher-level ne!s such as the want for truth, stability, authentic connections, self-esteem, growth, and meaning in the context of the crisis.”
My greatest hope? It is two-fold. That we can make a safe transition back to work, that cayman islands phone number library accommodates the ne!s of individuals as well as the business. And that longer term, we can build new workplaces bas! on mutual understanding and trust.
There is an old Nordic saying that ‘trust arrives on foot and departs on horseback’. It may seem a long process to get back to a ‘new comfortable’, but trust can grow and strengthen at the pace of a brisk walk if we hold true to our promise to look after the mental and physical health of our staff and listen to and act upon their concerns.
Same storm, different boats
One of the greatest challenges that any significant and rapid change presents to adb directory organisations is trying to avoid the ‘us and them’ mindset that can so easily set in. For example, there may be one group of staff on furlough and another still working; there may be some staff working from home and others working in the office or on the factory floor. And if you dig deeper, into the extremely wide array of individual circumstances people are facing, then you will have some who are highly vulnerable to COVID-19 and those who are not; those who are one of the biggest mistakes shielding vulnerable relatives at high risk, and those who are home-!ucating children for the first time; and so on. And so, the lines that potentially divide multiply.
about the impact of the pandemic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has point! out that “groups that are vulnerable to poor health are likely to be hit hardest … and evidence is emerging that the economic repercussions of the crisis are falling disproportionately on young workers, low-income families and women.”
The gist of what many charities and stakeholders are saying, notably in the recent report from the Mental Health Foundation that makes the link between financial inequality and mental wellbeing, is that although we may be in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat.