This is a guest post written by Launchways partners Rada Yovovich and Chanté Thurmond, representing The Darkest Horse, a next generation Diversity & Inclusion consulting firm.
The Long-Awaited “Future of Work” Has Come Early, and Brought Surprises Galore
Particularly in the last few years, Thought Leaders have been heralding the approach of “The Future of Work,” imagining a model of what “work” would look like in a world of abundant emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation. That future vision has typically focused on the need to manage a shift of the workforce to virtual, remote, and alternative models to full-time staff (gig-based, contract-based, and part-time labor, for example).
Enter COVID-19, and the timetable has changed, and brought with it a number of unexpected features. In a matter of weeks, we’ve seen non-essential workers being told to work from home (WFH) while sheltering-in-place. Organizations, in an effort to recalibrate their budgets in tightened consumer and supply chain markets, have done their best to be creative by adapting HR policies and employment contracts to allow for safer working conditions, flexible hours, and many have reduced their workforce resulting in employees being shifted to subcontractors, part-time status, or have simply been laid off, forcing them to seek new income opportunities from home.
Who would have guessed that these disrupting shifts to work-from-home would coincide, hand-in-hand, with equally disrupting shifts to school-from-home, making working parents into teachers as well? And who would have predicted the explosive and breathtaking speed of almost-universal adoption of Zoom and other web-conferencing services?
This is not the graceful, opportunity-driven entrance into the future we may have envisioned. In fact, initial waves of surprises produced longings for a “return to normal.” But, more recently, subsequent waves of signals from the future have pointed toward possible shapes of things to come. Many uncertainties remain, but some things have become quite clear. We most certainly aren’t going “back to normal!” The past has passed, and it is not coming back. Winners and losers will be defined by their agility in adopting new technologies, by the ability to learn and innovate quickly, and by how well they attract and retain top talent.
Competing for Talent in the Future of Work
In a world where more companies’ workforce is remote/virtual, the geographic and financial constraints of recruiting melt away. Suddenly, teams have an opportunity to pursue a truly global talent pool in a more democratized way—allowing them to expand their talent search beyond their local zip codes.
The expansion goes beyond geography. Entire populations of people for whom a traditional office role is challenging, unsafe, or even impossible are finally able to access the labor market in a more equitable and inclusive way. These include, just to name a few:
Individuals with significant physical disabilities
Individuals who are gender nonconforming or going through a gender transition
Individuals with phobias or other mental health challenges
Individuals with chronic or acute health conditions
Neurodiverse individuals
Caregivers, whether for children or aging/ill family members
These types of barriers to workplace accessibility can be easier to accommodate in a remote-work context. Individuals can curate their space and constraints to meet their own needs, particularly if their organization provides proper technology, infrastructure and policies to support them.
The Best Talent is Diverse
The greatest talent in the world includes members of populations who are suddenly gaining access in this new normal. If your organization is hiring the best talent without bias, members of your team will represent a wide array of cultures and identities.
Not only is diversity an inevitable outcome of unbiased recruitment practices, but the data shows diverse teams far outperform homogenous teams. This ROI has been proven time and time again — reports by Forbes, Mercer, the Harvard Business Review, and many more demonstrate that a diversified workforce drives innovation and business growth — bottom line: diverse organizations perform better.
Here’s How: Practice Inclusion and Equity Throughout your Employee Lifecycle
It starts with Attraction.
Inclusive employer branding, content marketing, events and continuous networking
Talent Acquisition and Recruitment.
Engaging diverse talent, identify diverse sourcing opportunities, curb unconscious biases, reduce barriers to application process, create transparent process and develop culturally intelligent communication practices
Hiring and Onboarding
Transparency, over-communication and personalization can make all the difference
Combat bias by building a fair and consistent processes
Build interview guides and scorecards that are clear and objective
Promotion of wellness programming is more important now than ever before
Re-evaluate and optimize for equity and gender parity
Employee Engagement and Training & Development
Make it a regular practice to check-in with your employees. Conduct pulse-surveys that specifically gauge inclusion, equity and belonging. Click here to learn how The Darkest Horse can help your organization with this!
Cultivate an inclusive culture
Offer inclusive and accessible learning experiences and develop clear learning/career pathways
Performance Management
Here’s your opportunity to acknowledge, celebrate and reward for each team member’s cultural contribution, unique ways of working, and fostering a culture of inclusion!
This is also an opportunity to re-evaluate your performance metrics. Some questions you may want to ask yourself includes:
Is your process fair, equitable and inclusive?
Are your policies unintentionally punitive or do they lean towards corrective action?
Foster Community
Create, support, and invest in Employee Resource/Affinity Groups
The Future is Yours!
Now is the time to catch the wave of change and surf it to success—don’t get pulled into the undertow of clinging to old ways of working! Here are a few steps to move your organization towards the future of work:
Harness the inclusion capacity of your organization. Identify the innovative, forward-thinking, and inclusion-minded changemakers in your organization. Activate them toward a goal of fostering inclusion. Empower them to set audacious goals and affect disruptive change when needed, and support them with leadership buy-in.
Get help. When you have reached the bounds of your team’s capacity for in-house inclusion efforts, partner with inclusion experts like The Darkest Horse to bring in external support for consulting, training, facilitation, and events/experiences.
Use the right tools. Work with an HR and Benefits expert like Launchways to ensure your HR processes and benefits packages meet the needs of a modern workforce.
About The Darkest Horse: The Darkest Horse (TDH) is a women and minority-owned next-gen consultancy firm helping the workforce and organizations explore the intersections of Radical Inclusion; The Future of Work; Emerging Technology; Health, Well-Being and Human Potential.
The Darkest Horse partners with organizations to empower diverse talent to thrive by embracing emerging technologies and instituting strategies that maximize human potential.
For the last two months, businesses and professionals around the nation have held their breath waiting for the go-ahead to reopen and get back to work. Now that those orders are in place and the dates to resume business are nearing, it’s essential that physical workspaces across America are ready to support employees and keep everybody safe and healthy under the rules of the new reality.
In light of these emerging needs, Launchways is proud to announce our partnership with ATrend Safety, a local Chicago-area company that has been reborn with the purpose of enabling employers and employees to get back to work in the safest possible environment.
In this post we’ll:
Introduce Atrend Safety and their approach to workplace safety
Describe the services available to Launchways clients through Atrend Safety
Explain how you can learn more
Meet Atrend
Before COVID-19, Atrend was one of the industry’s most respected international manufacturers of electronics and audio equipment, especially for vehicles. However, with the coronavirus crisis, Atrend decided to retool their production facilities to create personal protective equipment (PPE) and other workplace safety equipment to support social distancing.
If you’re interested in learning more about Atrend’s electronics and audio empire and their community-focused reemergence as Atrend Safety, click here!
What Can Atrend Safety Do for Launchways Clients?
Atrend Safety provides end-to-end workplace COVID-19 safety services, including assessment of your current environment, recommendations for PPE and safety strategy based on CDC and WHO recommendations, and assistance creating your new employee safety policy.
Once that assessment and plan articulation are completed, Atrend Safety can connect you directly with the PPE you need, including:
Disposable face masks
Reusable/washable facemasks (with your company logo or preferred pattern)
Face shields
Gloves
Vinyl floor graphics to communicate foot traffic patterns
Thermometers and body temperature checking stations
Hand sanitization stations
Safety screens for cabs and ride shares
Launchways and Atrend Safety
Atrend’s pivot toward PPE is a perfect example of how Chicago-area businesses are coming together and problem-solving in new ways in the wake of COVID-19. Their dedication to enabling the work of their colleagues in the Midwest business community stands as an example for all of us.
At Launchways, we were eager to partner with Atrend, both because of their community-focused response and because of their ability to provide clients with a streamlined consultative experience that demystifies the workplace safety questions that have so many business leaders looking for answers right now.
The fact that Atrend can deliver the PPE businesses require in addition to assessing their environment and making recommendations streamlines the reopen process significantly, limiting the number of vendors and consultants businesses leaders have to turn to.
How to Learn More
If you’re a business owner, finance leader, or HR professional trying to figure out how to adapt your physical workspace for social distancing and incorporate PPE best practices into your approach, Atrend Safety can help you today.
To learn more about a consultation or PPE purchases from Atrend, enter your information here and a member of the Launchways team will be in touch to discuss all your business’ COVID-19 workforce needs.
Takeaways
During these unprecedented times, it’s important to keep our eyes and ears open for stories about businesses who are finding new ways to thrive, serve their customers, and adapt to the new normal in the world of COVID-19.
Atrend Safety is a great example of an organization that adapted to meet the needs of the community and serve Chicago-area businesses in ways that will simplify and power the economic revitalization of our metro area in the coming months.
Remember:
Atrend, an audio and electronics leader here in the Midwest, has retooled as Atrend Safety, a workplace safety consultant and PPE manufacturing company
Atrend Safety provides end-to-end services, helping you scope your environment, devise a new workplace safety plan, and providing you with the PPE you need
Atrend Safety’s services are currently available to all that are part of the Launchways community!
As the majority of states transition toward some level of economic reopening, many professionals are scared that the economy is claiming priority above their health and wellbeing. If not addressed directly, this perception could easily lead to a disconnect between leadership and the ground-level team, significantly hampering our collective ability to make a strong economic recovery.
Addressing and reducing reasonable employee anxieties in the wake of COVID-19 is absolutely essential to our new way of business. Moving forward, we’ll explore:
The increased importance of clear and humanistic communication
How health screenings can provide employees with reassurance
Why it’s crucial to articulate a vision for the “new normal” of each role
How you can connect with impactful resources to aid your reopen
Explain Your COVID-19 Response Strategy Ahead of Time
In an information vacuum, panic is the default setting. The less your employees know ahead of your reopen, the lower their morale/enthusiasm/buy-in level will be. That means communication is the first cornerstone to a successful transition back to business.
Before you order employees back to their workstations, you need to clarify how you’re adapting or modifying the way you do work to protect everybody’s health. You also need to explain why you’re returning to work – why it’s the right choice for the business as a whole as well as your team in general.
If you fail to address either of those two concerns, your employees will probably have trouble believing you have their best interests at heart. If you aren’t making modifications, it seems like you’re taking them for granted. If you can’t explain why this is the right time to reopen, how can they be sure leadership is being strategic and not just reactionary?
Use Screening Questions & Temperature Checks
Your employees’ main concern about reopening is that they will be exposed to COVID-19 or bring it home to their families. In order to earn their trust, you need to show them that transmission isn’t going to happen in your workplace.
By creating a screening protocol to use before and during your reopen, you communicate that you’re dedicated to keeping COVID-19 out of the office and maintaining a safe, healthy environment.
Screening Before Reopen
While it’s true COVID-19 is frequently spread by people who are not yet feeling symptoms of the virus, you can still take major steps to protect your team collectively and as individuals by preventing as many symptom-positive individuals and recent exposures from entering your office or workspace.
Before your official reopen date, you should contact your employees to determine:
Who is currently ill with COVID-19 or similar symptoms
Who has been exposed to or cared for someone with COVID-19 in the last 14 days
Who has been advised by a doctor to stay home due indefinitely due to increased risk (i.e. who requires ADA accommodations?)
Who is currently the only source of childcare for a minor
Those questions will help you determine the scale of your re-open and identify areas of HR need in terms of transitioning employees to expanded sick or FMLA leave under the FFCRA. If responses indicate that staffing is not currently feasible, you may need to consider delaying your reopen or considering alternative staffing solutions.
Temperature Checks as Your Reopen
Temperature checks at the door prove to employees that nobody in the building currently has a fever (one of the most common COVID-19 symptoms). That reassurance goes a long way to helping people feel like they’re in a COVID-free environment.
However, if you’re going to administer temperature checks, you need to think about things like:
What is the exact temperature threshold for denying an employee entry?
How will you transition employees with fever to paid leave or work-from-home?
Who will administer the temperature screenings?
How will send-homes be documented?
How will you address employees who come to work with other symptoms but no fever?
What about Customers? What about Visitors? What about the Public?
To this point, we’ve been discussing screening your employees to keep the environment safe. With that said, the members of your team probably trust each other fairly well; it may be potential outsiders they’re nervous about.
If you run a hospitality, retail, healthcare, or other business where there’s frequent interaction with customers/the public, you need screening procedures in place to prevent your employees from becoming sick. Similarly, if you maintain an office where business travelers are often hosted, you need to reassure your core team members that you don’t have an open-door policy for the virus.
Whether it’s temperature checks, sneeze guards/partitions, or some other solution that makes sense for the work you do, it’s absolutely crucial you let your employees know you’re thinking about protecting their health from others.
Provide a Clear Vision for Every Role
In order for each employee to feel safe and empowered continuing their career in general and role in your organization specifically after COVID-19, they must feel like there is a specific plan in place for them.
Right now, professionals are hungry to know what their day-to-day work will look like moving forward for the next year or two. The more information and transparency you can provide, the better you can win your team’s trust and buy-in.
That means getting together with departmental and team leaders to make sure you’ve addressed what work will look like when you re-open for each individual employee. If that sounds like a challenging task, that’s because it is – but it’s absolutely a best practice for getting return-to-work right on a level that allows you to leverage the full productivity and enthusiasm of the team you’ve built.
For each role within the company, you need to address:
How their physical workspace needs to/will be modified to keep them safe
How their interactions with colleagues, customers, and the public need to/will be modified
What kind of personal protective equipment (PPE) they’ll need on a daily basis and what you will supply
What new cleaning/disinfection responsibilities they’ll have, both for individual workstations and common/shared spaces they use
A chain of command for reporting concerns/issues about reopening, adherence to new policies, etc.
Takeaways
Returning to the office in the aftermath of the unexpected coronavirus pandemic is truly the great challenge of our time. If we just flip the switch back to “on” and act like nothing’s changed, we’re sure to lose the employee buy-in that makes productivity and innovation happen.
If you’re hoping to reopen in a way that rallies your team and sets the tone for safe, positive work moving forward, it’s important to remember:
Your employees need advance notice of new policies and procedures to feel safe
You need to be able to explain how you’re protecting employees from potential COVID-19 exposure
Your approach to reopening needs to address every role and business process that’s directly or indirectly affected by COVID-19
How to Learn More
If you’re an HR or business leader looking to guide a successful reopening as COVID-19 continues, be sure to download Launchways’ Complete Return to Work Toolkit. The toolkit provides a variety of checklists and other resources that help you consider every aspect of reopening, including:
Recalling furloughed or laid off employees
Modifying your physical workspace
Best practices for employee safety
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
New policies for meeting, communication, shared space, etc.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) launched last month, temporarily expanding paid sick and FMLA leave for employees of businesses with headcounts of fewer than 500 as part of the national COVID-19 response. The follow-up CARES Act provided payroll tax credits for employers to offset the cost and impact of the leave expansion.
The quick but piecemeal rollout of legislation has created some confusion as to how employees should declare their eligibility/need for leave and what documentation trail needs to exist to ensure employers are eligible for tax credits.
In this post we’ll cover:
What conditions or situations justify paid leave under the FFCRA
What documentation employees should submit as part of an application for leave
What documentation employers need to maintain to qualify for tax credits
Clarifying Who is FFCRA Leave Expansion Eligible
The FFCRA establishes three specific situations in which an employee working for a business with 499 or fewer employees qualifies for two weeks of paid sick leave at their regular rate, up to $5,110:
If the employee is subject to a federal, state, or local quarantine or isolation order
If the employee has been advised by a healthcare provider to self-quarantine
If the employee is experiencing symptoms associated with COVID-19 and seeking a medical diagnosis
The act also establishes three other scenarios in which an employee working for a business with 499 or fewer employees qualifies for two weeks of paid sick leave at two-thirds (2/3) their regular rate, up to $2,000:
If an employee is caring for an individual subject to a quarantine or isolation order
If an employee is experiencing any substantially similar condition identified by the HHS
If an employee is caring for a child whose school or daycare is closed or unavailable due to COVID-19
Finally, the act also provides extended family leave for situations in which schools or childcare facilities remain closed beyond the two weeks of leave above. During that 10-week period, employees earn two-thirds (2/3) their regular rate, up to $10,000 (in addition to the $2,000 from their two initial weeks of leave).
Documentation Requirements for Employees Requesting Leave
The DOL did not codify any single approach to transitioning employees toward COVID-19 leave, instead saying that employees should file their request as soon as possible and follow reasonable documentation procedures as soon as practical. Here are the specific pieces of information/documentation the DOL stipulates employees must provide:
In their signed request for leave, employees must provide:
Their full legal name (as it appears on IRS records)
Their qualifying reason for leave (from the above list)
A clear statement that their illness or responsibilities prevent them from working from home during this time
Their anticipated date for return
If the employee is requesting leave due to a quarantine order, they must also provide:
The name of the government entity who issued the order
If an employee is requesting leave because a healthcare provider has instructed them to, they must also provide:
The name of the healthcare provider
If an employee is requesting leave to care for a child without school or daycare, they must provide:
The child’s full legal name as it appears on school rosters
The name of the school, childcare facility, or provider who is closed or unable to provide care due to COVID-19
A clear statement that they are the only option to provide care for this child at this time
As long as you’re requiring, collecting, and maintaining the above documentation, you and your employees are compliant in the eyes of the DOL.
What About a Doctor’s Note?
Generally speaking, a doctor’s note is the gold standard for medical leave and should be provided in COVID-19-related ADA accommodation requests. However, the DOL is not requiring one as part of their leave documentation procedure, in part because the strain of the pandemic is putting on the medical community.
That means if an employee believes they have COVID-19 or needs to care for someone who does, waiting to get a doctor’s note could actually put more of your employees at risk. That’s why the best guidance for now is to keep your application protocol relatively straightforward and stick to the DOL’s documentation requirements.
Documentation Requirements for Tax Credits
While the DOL’s documentation requirements are crucial to executing the FFCRA correctly, the IRS’ documentation requirements are equally important to getting the payroll tax credits available to help your business weather this storm.
In order to maintain eligibility for your tax credits, you must maintain:
Any other documentation related to filing for credits with the IRS
Documentation of how you calculated FMLA/sick leave pay for employees
Documentation of how you determined the amount of qualified health plan expenses that you allocated to wages
In terms of documentation from your employees, the IRS’ requirements are extremely similar to the DOL’s, but there are a few key differences, specifically involving childcare scenarios.
The IRS requires documentation of the following information for employees requesting leave under the FFCRA to care for a child or children whose school(s) or place(s) of childcare are closed due to COVID-19:
The full name of each child as they appear on school rosters
The name of the school, childcare facility, or provider no longer able to provide childcare due to COVID-19
A clear statement that they are the only option to provide care for this child at this time
In the case of a child over 14 who would only be alone during daylight hours, employees should provide a statement explaining the special circumstances that require childcare
Takeaways
The goal of the FFCRA is to protect individuals and families across America during the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act backs up the FFCRA by providing businesses with the tax credits they need to make the considerable leave expansion feasible. Getting those credits requires documentation of the right information, however.
Remember:
There is no official leave documentation process for the DOL, but they do require a few specific pieces of information
The IRS has slightly stricter requirements for documentation of childcare-related leave
IRS forms 7200 and 941 are essential to receiving your tax credits
Be ready to explain how you calculated wages for employees on leave and determined your health plan expenses
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), IRS, and Department of the Treasury issued a joint announcement on April 28th stating that they are extending a variety of timeframes related to employer sponsored healthcare coverage, portability, and continuation under COBRA.
Generally speaking, these extensions are designed to maximize healthcare accessibility during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, continue coverage for as many Americans as possible, and loosen up claims negotiating windows in a way that prevents a processing bottleneck from weakening the system as a whole.
In this post we’ll explore:
Extensions of employee healthcare deadlines under ERISA Section 518
A few examples of what the extensions mean for employers
The meaning of the HHS “measured enforcement period”
ERISA Section 518 Relief
Section 518 of ERISA allows for the extension of certain benefits-related filing and documentation deadlines by up to one year in the event of a presidentially declared national emergency.
With this week’s joint announcement, the government has declared that all employee health plans, disability plans and other employee welfare plans must disregard the period from March 1, 2020 until sixty (60) days after the announced end of the COVID-19 national emergency (“the Outbreak Period”) when determining the following periods and dates:
The 30-day special enrollment periods for employees
The 60-day COBRA benefit continuation election
Dates for making COBRA premium payments
The date for individuals to notify the provider of a qualifying event or determination of disability
The date range within which individuals can file benefit claims
The date by which claimants must file an appeal for an adverse determination
The date range within which individuals can request an external review of an adverse determination
The date range within which individuals may file information to perfect an external review of an adverse determination
For employers, this means that your plan administrator can’t count dates occurring during the Outbreak Period against employee deadlines. The spirit of these extensions is extremely employee-friendly, but it’s also HR and administrator-friendly, as it significantly reduces the pressure to process claims and push laid off or furloughed employees through off-boarding as quickly as possible.
To see the full text of the joint announcement’s final rule, click here.
What Will This Look Like in Action?
Open-Enrollment Examples
If an employee has a baby during the Outbreak Period, the child can be brought onto employee healthcare via special enrollment until 30 days after the Outbreak Period ends (90 total days after the announced end of the national emergency).
Similarly, if an employee got married shortly before or during the Outbreak Period, the new spouse’s special enrollment period will last until 30 days after the Outbreak Period ends (90 days total after the announced end of the national emergency).
COBRA Election Example
If an employee has been furloughed to the point where they no longer work enough hours to qualify for employer-sponsored coverage due to the national emergency, their COBRA election period must remain open until 60 days after the Outbreak Period ends (120 total days after the announced end of the national emergency).
COBRA Premium Payments Example
If an employee was receiving COBRA coverage at the beginning of the Outbreak Period, premium payments for COBRA coverage during the Outbreak Period will be considered timely if the payments are made within 30 days of the end of the Outbreak Period (90 days total after the announced end of the national emergency). As long as premiums for all months during the Outbreak Period are paid in a timely manner, the employee is eligible to continue coverage.
Claim Filing Example
If an employee has a 365-day filing window for any claim, that window will not begin for any claims made during the Outbreak Period until the Outbreak Period ends. Similarly, the entire date range of the Outbreak Period should be excluded from claims deadline calculations for care that occurred shortly before the national emergency.
The “Measured Enforcement” Period
The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) officially concurs with the relief announced by EBSA in the joint statement and is relaxing enforcement for public healthcare, while encouraging states to adopt the spirit of the extensions EBSA is creating for private employer-sponsored programs.
No official end date has been announced for this period.
Takeaways
EBSA’s COVID-19 employee benefits deadline extensions are designed to help as many Americans as possible maintain their access to employer-sponsored healthcare during the coronavirus outbreak. While they’re largely employee-friendly, the extensions also help HR departments and benefits administrators reduce the bottleneck that COVID-19 has created.
Remember:
The “Outbreak Period” is defined as March 1, 2020 until 60 days after the COVID-19 national emergency is declared over.
Dates falling within the Outbreak Period should not be counted against employees for:
With some states cautiously reopening non-essential businesses before the COVID-19 national emergency has been officially declared over, it’s crucial for the owners and managers of those businesses to get reopening right from a wellness and employee/public protection standpoint.
If we as a business community can execute this properly, then we’ll be bringing what normal looks like after COVID-19 to employees and the public at large, stimulating the reemergence of our strong American economy. However, we desperately need to talk about what reopening “right” actually looks like.
This is why Launchways created our Complete Return to Work Toolkit, a resource any business can use to plan for a successful return built on best practices and up-to-date information.
Moving forward, we’ll explore some of the concepts from the toolkit including:
Key policy & procedural concerns related to screening employees & visitors for COVID-19
Crucial questions about expectations for personal protective equipment that must be addressed before employees return to the office
Modifications you need to make to your physical workspace and way of fostering collegial collaboration in order to reopen safely
Health Screenings
The most important aspect of a proper reopen is getting your team members back in their traditional workplace in a way that ensures talent is returning to the building without introducing the spread of COVID-19 within your workforce.
Here are a few examples of questions you need to be able to answer regarding health screenings before you can plan to reopen:
What screening questions will you ask employees before they return to the office?
What screening questions will you ask customers/clients/office guests before anticipated visits to your facility?
What communication system will you use to transmit and manage screening questions?
Who will be in charge of reading/assessing eligibility to return based on screening responses?
What screening questions will you ask customers/clients/office guests before anticipated visits to your facility?
Will you carry out temperature checks as people arrive to work?
Where will you carry out temperature checks?
Who will carry out temperature checks?
What will be the temperature threshold for denying admittance to the workplace?
What are next steps for employees for are denied entry because of failing a screening?
How will you transition them toward leave?
How can you enable work-from-home for those who insist they can work?
What are next steps for customers/clients/office guests who fail a screening?
What parameters must a COVID-19 positive employee meet before returning to the workplace (for example 14 days from diagnosis, or 72 hours without experiencing a fever)
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Given that COVID-19 is often spread by asymptomatic carriers, PPE is essential to minimizing the spread of coronavirus, even between people who do not feel or appear to be sick. The use of PPE among the public is currently inconsistent, so you need to set clear expectations for usage in your workplace.
Here are just a few different questions you need clear answers to before you recall your workforce and reopen your facility:
What PPE will public-facing employees use?
What PPE will back-office employees use?
Will you be issuing PPE or expecting employees to bring their own? (if employees must provide their own, will they be reimbursed?)
How often will you expect employees to change/sanitize PPE?
What cleaners or approaches will you approve for sanitizing PPE?
How/where will employees dispose of soiled PPE?
Will you require PPE for clients/customers/office guests?
Will you make PPE available to clients/customers/office guests?
How will you address refusal to comply with your PPE policy?
For employees?
For clients/customers/guests?
Social Distancing
Maintaining six feet or two meters of distance between all people remains a best practice until the official end of the outbreak period.
Here are some examples of baseline social distancing concerns you absolutely must have plans and policies in place for as you reopen:
How will you modify the physical space of public-facing areas to enable distancing for employees and customers/clients/guests?
How will you modify your back-office space to enable distancing for employees and guests?
How will you create sensible traffic patterns that allow people to get around the office in ways that support distancing and prevent anybody from “squeezing past” each other in the halls? (for example, some offices are transitioning their layout to use only ‘one-way’ hallways)
What kind of signage will you create to provide distancing reminders and where will you put it?
How will you enable meetings, brainstorming sessions, and other collaborative group work in ways that support distancing?
How will you address distancing with regard to the use of common spaces (kitchens, bathrooms, etc.)?
How will you address refusal to comply with your social distancing policy?
For employees?
For clients/customers/guests?
How to Learn More
If you’re a business leader hoping to reopen your business or transition remote workers back to the traditional office in the coming days and weeks, be sure to download Launchways’ Complete Return to Work Toolkit!
The toolkit covers:
How to Determine Who Should Return to Work & When
Preparing & Modifying Your Physical Workspace
Protocols for Employee Re-Entry & Health Screenings
Building and Enforcing Social Distancing & COVID-Specific Employee Protocols
How to Address Workforce Anxiety About Returning to Work
Sample Return to Work Survey for Employees
How to Identify & Correctly Update Effected Company Policies
Roadmap for a Return-to-Work Communications Strategy
The COVID-19 outbreak is changing nearly everything about how we work and do business. And if changing work conditions weren’t enough for employees to deal with, they also have to navigate a host of new federal policies including temporarily expanded sick leave and FMLA family leave. But, they don’t have to do it alone. Employers can help their team members work more effectively while achieving a healthy work-life balance by setting clear leave policies.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act established Emergency Paid Sick Leave and drastically, albeit temporarily, expanded the scope of the Family Medical Leave Act. But it also left it up to employers to set the terms of how employees can use that leave. That means that employers must educate themselves on how their team members can take advantage of the leave to protect themselves and their families while staying productive, and then provide clear guidelines for their teams.
This can be particularly useful for employees who don’t want to take time off of work but have to take care of children who are now home from school or childcare. These employees are entitled to paid leave if they decide not to work. But they may not know how to take paid leave for time spent caring for their children while working part-time. That’s where employers can help employees navigate the situation so that they can work as much as possible while simultaneously taking care of their other obligations.
In this article, we’ll provide an overview of how employers can set flexible leave policies and help their team members navigate the new leave policies including:
Employees’ leave coverage under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act
How to expand the leave policies to help your team members work more effectively during the outbreak and as businesses begin returning to work
Employees’ Rights Under the Act
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act implemented several employee leave expansions that went into effect at the beginning of April. We wrote a full overview that you can read here, but here is a quick overview of what your employees are entitled to from the FFCRA if you have fewer than 500 employees:
2 weeks full paid sick leave if they are unable to work due to COVID-19 illness, quarantined due to exposure, or are experiencing symptoms and waiting for a diagnosis
Paid sick leave is available to employees who are quarantined but not sick only if they cannot work remotely
2 weeks of paid family leave at 2/3 pay if they need to care for an individual subjected to quarantine or need to take care of minors whose schools or childcare facilities are closed due to the virus
10 weeks of extended family leave at 2/3 pay if employees need to take care of minors and have been with the company for at least 30 days
Notably, if your company has 49 or fewer employees, you can apply for a small business exemption. But unless you receive a small business exemption, you cannot prevent qualified employees from taking leave. Nor, given the current health crisis, should you aim to prevent employees from taking the leave they need. Your leave costs will likely be covered by tax credits under the new CARES Act. It’s often in your best interest to help your employees maximize their ability to leverage the leave policies, especially to discourage the spread of the virus amongst your workforce.
Expanding Leave Policies for More Effective Work
Under the FFCRA, employees may not be eligible for leave if they are healthy, do not have to care for minors, and can work remotely. While on the other end of the scale, employees who have to take care of minors may be eligible for a full 12 weeks of leave, paid at 2/3 their normal rate. However, many employees who do qualify for leave to take care of minors, but can work remotely, will not want to take three months away from their work. And many employees may be concerned about keeping some of that time in reserve, since no one knows how long the outbreak will last. That’s where employers can help their employees make the most of their paid leave while simultaneously minimizing the disruption to their business.
You have the right to force employees to either work full time or go on leave. But it is often in both of your best interests to work out an arrangement where employees with family obligations work as much as they can while taking leave when they cannot. And the FFCRA gives employers a lot of leeway in allowing employees to take sporadic or intermittent paid leave.
Employers can allow employees to take paid leave in increments anywhere from week-to-week, day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour. That means you could allow your team members to take paid leave to homeschool their children every other day while working full time on the other days. Or they can take a few hours of paid leave every day to take care of their family obligations and work for the rest of the work day. And this does not just apply to remote employees: you can allow employees who have to come into the workplace to work a partial schedule while taking paid leave on their days off.
It’s important to remember that employers are not obligated to provide this kind of flexibility. But it can often be in your best interest to work with employees to find the best arrangement for both parties. Not only will it allow you to retain key employees, on a partial basis, who would otherwise go on full-time leave, thus reducing the disruption to your business from COVID-19, but it can also have a lasting impact on employee relations. Employees will remember it if you work to help them juggle their work and non-work obligations, increasing loyalty and productivity in the long-term. On the other hand, they will also remember if you took an all-or-nothing approach that adhered to the bare minimum requirements of the FFCRA. It’s crucial to consider the optics of your approach to leave during COVID and as employees begin transitioning back to work.
To recap, you are allowed but not required under the FFCRA to let your team members take emergency paid sick leave or family medical leave:
On a day-by-day basis while working a partial schedule either remotely or in-person
On an hourly basis to allow for reduced hours per day, either around a shorter shift or to allow for breaks to care for family
On a weekly or monthly basis
At your discretion, within the limitations of the FFCRA (you can prevent employees from working until they come back from leave but you cannot prevent them from taking continuous leave while they qualify for it)
You should decide which of these arrangements, if any, will work for your business and then set a clear leave policy. Then, inform your entire staff of that policy and work with each employee to help them set up the arrangement that works best for them, within the limits set in your policy. Clarity and flexibility will help your business run smoothly and help your employees balance their work with their other obligations.
Key Takeaways
With the COVID-19 outbreak continuing to disrupt every part of life and business as we know it, we can all benefit from working together to find solutions. The FFCRA requires that employers offer 2-12 weeks of paid leave for qualifying employees at either full or 2/3 pay and you should take responsibility for that obligation. If you create flexible leave policies that enable employees to work as much as they can while taking only as much leave as they need, you can minimize disruptions to your business. Setting clear and flexible leave policies and helping employees take advantage of those policies is truly a win-win strategy. Just remember that:
Healthy employees who do not need to care for minors or sick family members may not be eligible for any expanded leave and can be required to work full time if they can work remotely
Employers are allowed to decide whether and how their employees can take intermittent sick or family medical leave
If they chose to, employers can let their employees take their expanded leave on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis
For more on the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act and running a business during the COVID-19 outbreak, check out Launchways’ comprehensive resources on our COVID-19 Emergency Resource Center.
The COVID-19 outbreak is changing how companies operate. While it is having a profound impact on supply chains and the nature of demand, the most direct impact is the fact that most people are confined to their homes. Many companies are now working fully remote, including some that had never had remote work policies in the past.
There are many considerations around the transition to remote work. The first ones that come to most employers’ minds are generally how to maintain productivity, communication, and morale while team members are working in isolation.
But working remotely also comes with significant cybersecurity risk ramifications. Company networks are inherently spread thin and ultimately rely on employees’ home network security to keep company data safe. Many companies’ cybersecurity practices just aren’t built around remote work and they will have to adapt to keep themselves safe.
Luckily, just a few additional measures can greatly mitigate your cybersecurity risks during the COVID-19 outbreak. Let’s take a look at the risks and how to tackle them, including:
Why the outbreak creates openings for cyberattacks
How to mitigate your company’s risks
Protecting employees and their devices
Business insurance coverage for cyberattacks against remote networks
Why COVID-19 Creates Opportunities for Cyberattacks
The main reason why the COVID-19 outbreak is changing the nature of cybersecurity is that just about everyone that can is now working remotely. Instead of operating as a closed system, companies’ networks now include each employee’s home networks and devices. And a distributed network is inherently harder to protect: you can’t just throw a firewall around it. Not to mention, most existing strategies and policies are focused around protecting the company networks and do not work for distributed or bridged networks.
Employees’ home networks are the most significant gap in your cyber protections. Unfortunately, VPNs and other standard protective measures only cover communications between home devices and company networks. They do not protect the home devices themselves or home networks. That means any company data stored on the devices is much more easily compromised by cyberattacks.
But on top of the technological challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak, the coronavirus is also creating opportunities for successful cyberattacks that rely upon the fear, isolation, and ignorance of people amid the outbreak. Phishing attacks related to the virus have increased more than six-fold in the past month and tens of thousands of people have clicked on malicious links that used the topic of the virus as bait. As a result, the total number of hits on malicious links nearly tripled from February to March.
What this means is that your employees are simply more likely to fall victim to malware, eCommerce fraud, or other cyberattacks thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak. And when they do they may inadvertently compromise their devices and your company data.
Minimize Your Risk
Cybersecurity risk management is a multi-tiered process that starts with avoiding and defending against attacks. If that fails, then you need to mitigate the damage from successful attacks and transfer the risk away from the company. While it is always better to stop an attack from being successful in the first place, you should still have plans and processes in place to handle the situation in the case it occurs.
So, how do you stop cyberattacks from compromising your remote work operations? The first step is to implement strong endpoint protection on all employee devices that will be used for work. Endpoint protection software is a bit like antivirus software evolved and takes a more comprehensive and proactive approach to threat prevention, detection, and defense.
Next, you need to educate employees and set standards for their home networks. Employees should use networks secured by a strong and unique password. Then, you should make sure that only authorized IP addresses can access your data and networks. IP blacklists, multi-factor identification, and identity management solutions can go a long way towards protecting your data during the outbreak. Finally, make sure that all of your standard protection measures are also in place and up-to-date. This includes VPNs and firewalls that protect your company networks from any attacks.
But if these measures fail, it’s time to mitigate the damage. That means implementing effective intrusion detection to discover a breach and start addressing it as quickly as possible. Ideally, these systems will tell you not just that there has been a breach but what systems were accessed. That can help you diagnose the damage and formulate your response. Another option is a managed detection and response system that combines software with hands-on attention from security experts for added protection.
It is just as important to minimize disruption to your systems and workflow. Many attacks try to damage or destroy data not just steal it. So, regularly back up all data in multiple locations to ensure that you don’t lose anything.
Finally, transfer the risks through business insurance coverage. As we’ll explore in detail later in this post, your business insurance will likely cover the damage from a successful cyberattack even if the attack was against an employee’s device or happened while the employee was working remotely.
Protect Your Employees
As we discussed earlier, remote work is not the only driver of cybercrime during the COVID-19 outbreak. Most attacks have to do with the virus itself, using outbreak-related lures to get people to click malicious links or even taking advantage of CARES Act stimulus payments to steal information and money from susceptible businesses.
While many of these attacks will target the individuals themselves – trying to gain access to their bank accounts or vital identity information – employers should still do everything they can to protect employees from falling victim to such attacks. Not only is it the right thing to do to take care of your team members, but the attacks can also compromise employees’ work devices and present cybersecurity risks. Just because an attacker planned to go after an employee’s bank account doesn’t mean that won’t pick up some valuable company data along the way, especially if it is low-hanging fruit.
So what can you do to protect your employees? In addition to providing powerful antivirus software, you need to educate and reassure. COVID-19 cyber-attacks feed on fear, isolation, and misinformation. Providing support and correct information about both the COVID-19 outbreak and common scams is the best countermeasure once your technology solutions are all sound and in place.
Work with your IT team, business insurance broker, HR consultants, and any other stakeholders to put together resources to inform employees about how to identify possible scams or malware attacks, and what to do if they think they may have clicked a malicious link or compromised their device. And work with your HR advisor to create outbreak-related resources that will fill the COVID-19 information gap so that employees are less likely to click the links in the first place. Finally, do everything that you can to minimize fear and isolation by keeping employees connected, engaged, and healthy in mind and body during the quarantine. Not only will this help minimize cybersecurity risks, but it will help your remote team work more effectively as well.
Know Your Business Insurance Coverage
If things do go wrong, will your business insurance protect you from the damages?
By and large, the answer is yes. There are several “triggers” that will cause your business insurance to kick in and which apply in the case of a cybersecurity breach from a remote employee.
A privacy insuring agreement may cover any damages if the attack results in the following privacy triggers. First, illegal access to company information is likely covered because your company will have been the victim of a crime. Secondly, if company information is compromised due to a cyberattack on an employee’s device that may count as violating an NDA, a common privacy trigger in business insurance policies.
But a security insuring agreement will often also apply. When someone is working from home, their computer and network will generally count as the company’s computer and network and thus be covered if attacked. This is especially true if they use a company device while working from home.
Keep in mind, though, that some insurers require a formal “Bring Your Own Device” policy with employees for them to cover the damages. This policy needs to outline safety measures and proper conduct that employees have to follow when using their device. So it is a good idea to have your employees sign such an agreement now that they are working remotely.
When in doubt, ask your insurer and business insurance broker about your cyber insurance to find out the details of your coverage. But if you have the correct policies in place, there is a good chance that you will be covered if your security measures fail.
Key Takeaways
There are many considerations when it comes to protecting company data, networks, and devices during the COVID-19 outbreak. Hopefully this article has given you a solid roadmap to start formulating your defense strategy and helped you figure out the right questions to ask your IT and business insurance providers. Just remember:
Remote work means a distributed network for added security risks and possible entry points for attacks
The outbreak has many people scared and looking for help, creating opportunities for attacks
Educating employees about proper security measures, real information about the outbreak, and how to avoid falling victim to cybercrime goes a long way to protecting their data and the company’s data
IT considerations to protect against cyberattacks during the outbreak include endpoint protection, intrusion detection, regular backups, home network security, and up-to-date antivirus, firewalls, and VPNs
Working with your business insurance broker to ensure you have the correct cyber liability policies in place is crucial during this time
Filling out form I-9 is a standard onboarding procedure for any new hire. The new employee fills out Section 1 and provides supporting documentation of their identification and work-eligible status; then an HR professional makes copies of that documentation, completes Sections 2 and 3 (as applicable), and retains the form.
Generally speaking, it’s expected that the I-9 is completed in person, with the new hire and a HR professional exchanging physical documentation and verifying information face-to-face.
However, given the CDC’s social distancing guidance for COVID-19, that procedure obviously isn’t appropriate for this moment. In order to enable strong businesses to continue hiring and providing meaningful work for new employees, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has temporarily deferred in-person I-9 verification.
Moving forward, we’ll explore:
Hiring/operating procedures during the current COVID-19 I-9 deferral period
The term of the deferral
Compliance expectations at the end of the deferral
The value of this deferral period for businesses
Modified Procedures for COVID-19
The DHS has temporarily suspended the need for in-person I-9 verification. That means businesses can continue to hire and onboarding new employees remotely during this time without fear of non-compliance.
For now, documents pertaining to identity verification and employment eligibility can be submitted and reviewed remotely (i.e. by scanning and attaching documents to an email or submitting through an HR portal). Copies of those files should be retained in your internal HR records.
DHS’ verification deferral has also loosened up the time window for I-9 completion. Temporarily, employers have three working days to complete the paperwork and confirm documentation instead of just one day.
How Long Will This Deferral Last?
The I-9 verification deferral period will end either sixty (60) days from March 20, 2020 or three (3) days after the end of the COVID-19 national emergency has been announced, whichever comes first.
What Do We Need to Do to Comply When This is Over?
Once the deferral period ends (as described above), employers have three business days to complete standard in-person I-9 verifications for any employees they have hired and onboarded during the deferral.
Under “Additional Information” on Section 2 of form I-9, the employer must note that COVID-19 temporarily prevented them from a detailed physical review of the original documentation and provide the date they physically examined the documents. From there, the forms can be filed and retained as usual.
Why is This Deferral Good for Business?
In-person I-9 verification would prevent many businesses from filling the holes in their depth chart created by COVID-19, as employees must take leave for their own health, to care for a family member, or to supervise children. By enabling streamlined remote hiring, the DHS is providing support to businesses who are doing their best to continue the work and provide paychecks to their teams during this time.
Furthermore, remote hiring has the potential to connect great talent with jobs where they can be impactful faster than ever, fighting back record unemployment to help jumpstart the economy once again.
Takeaways
The Department of Homeland Security is deferring in-person I-9 verification during COVID-19-related social distancing. This is a great opportunity for businesses to fill out their teams and keep the work going without slipping into noncompliance, but it’s important to remember:
The deferral window will end on May 19 or 3 days after the national emergency is declared to be over
Employers still need to review digital versions of identification/eligibility documents within three days of hire
When the deferral period ends, employers will have 3 days to complete traditional in-person I-9 verification
The COVID-19 outbreak is changing the way that America works. Even companies that had never had a work-from-home policy are now going fully remote. And companies with flexible work policies are having to expand those policies dramatically. Whether you have always allowed some remote work or you are new to this way of work, odds are that you are having to reinvent just about every aspect of your operations.
And with the virus taking a heavy toll on growing businesses, the stakes have never been higher to get remote work right.
That’s why Launchways gathered a panel of experts to help growing businesses transition to remote working effectively. Our panelists drew upon their experience to outline clear best-practices that any business can implement to help their company run more smoothly in the era of COVID-19 quarantines and fully remote work. If you missed the original webinar, you can still stream it on demand. The hour-long webinar covered important topics that included:
How and why companies should put together remote work agreements
General best practices and pitfalls of remote workforce management
Why communication is more important now than ever and how to get it right
How to support your managers in their new role managing a remote team
How to interview and onboard new hires remotely
How to maintain your company culture while remote
Webinar Overview
Our panelists shared best-practices and pitfalls in setting up and managing a remote workforce. They started by stressing the importance of updating company policies to help remote work run smoothly from the get-go. That includes both creating an explicit remote-work agreement with each remote employee and the key considerations in creating remote work practices, including:
Expectations for work hours, communication, availability, and overtime
Approved and required channels of communication and work
Workflow and accountability systems
Throughout the webinar, the message from all five panelists was clear. In every aspect of remote management, employers need to:
Set clear expectations in advance and establish accountability for those expectations
Communicate clearly, explicitly, and more proactively than ever before
Prioritize employee engagement and connection
Since so much relies on effective communication when teams are working remotely, the panelists addressed how to set up the proper communication channels and routines before exploring the specifics of managing a remote team.
Communicating for Effective Remote Work
Perhaps the biggest risk when transitioning to remote work is how easy it is to lose track of projects, employees, and team progress. Without the routines and casual connections of the workplace, it’s very easy for teams and productivity to stagnate and for damaging miscommunications to arise. When working remotely, it’s more difficult to get a read on how things are going in general.
Our panelists especially stressed the risks of allowing gaps in communication that employees will naturally fill. For example, if an employee is not getting feedback and input on their progress while working from home, they are very likely to interpret it one of two ways: either that the project is not very important and their work is simply adequate or conversely, that they are underperforming. Either scenario will result in reduced productivity and morale.
In addition to exploring the communication risks inherent to remote work, our panelists laid out easy best practices to minimize those risks and maximizing productivity and collaboration, including:
Prioritizing synchronous communication such as phone calls and video meetings over asynchronous communication including emails and texts which carry a higher risk of miscommunication
Implementing and utilizing an integrated chat system such as Slack or Microsoft Teams
Using project management software to maintain and track workflows
Establishing a consistent meeting cadence including team-wide and one-on-one meetings
Always being proactive rather than reactive in your communications strategy
Other Top Topics for Remote Work
After addressing overall remote work strategy and effective communications, our panelists explored several common areas of concern when transitioning to remote work. The first of these was how to properly support front-line managers during the COVID-19 crisis. Employers face the difficult task of creating business and workforce strategies that will get their companies through the current crisis. It can be easy to forget that your managers face equally daunting and uncharted territory navigating their teams through the outbreak and the transition to remote work. They can easily become lost, which can be crippling to team morale and productivity. Leadership needs to work as closely as possible with managers to create a cohesive approach to remote work, provide necessary resources and feedback, and simply let them know that they aren’t going through this alone.
Next, the panel tackled the topic of interviewing and onboarding new hires in the era of remote work and quarantine. While some businesses have frozen hiring, others are continuing to grow and hire. But fully-remote hiring and onboarding isn’t something that most managers have vast experience with. For both processes, our panelists emphasized the importance of replicating the in-person experience as closely as possible. That means being truly present in video interviews and making “eye-contact” with the camera. More importantly, it means being as personal and hands-on during onboarding as possible. Get the paperwork and IT setup out of the way in advance as much as possible and focus on integrating new hires into the company culture and their teams by creating interpersonal connections within the digital realm. Set up one-on-one and group meetings with key stakeholders, including more casual hangouts and virtual lunches or happy hours to help new teammates integrate.
Finally, the panel explored how to keep your team connected and engaged while working remotely. Largely, this means fostering the social connections that make a workplace alive by creating spaces for people to interact digitally. Schedule digital coffee breaks, all-team lunches, happy hours, and team activities. Many employers are also encouraging interaction by calling on employees to share pictures of their home offices, pets, culinary creations, and more. The panel also explored the importance of deliberate and compassionate leadership during this difficult time and providing actionable strategies for leaders to craft their management approach during COVID-19.
Stream the Full Webinar Today
We have barely scratched the surface of all the insights our panel shared on the complete 60-minute webinar. Luckily, we recorded the webinar for you to stream on-demand. Stream the complete webinar now.
