How would you communicate to & convince employees that the workplace is safe to return?

With a steady decline in the number of Covid Infections and the rapid vaccination coverage; many organizations have begun contemplating about calling back employees to work from the office. However, it has many industry veterans and savants pondering on an imperative yet bemusing question — “How would you communicate & convince the employees that the workplace is safe to return?”……

PART — I: Exploring 5S

The Japanese are known for their extremely cognitive and practical industrial concepts, that heavily focus on optimal resource utility, process management, and maximum output. The Japanese culture beholds multitudinous concepts and schools of thought, that are derived from their traditions, beliefs, and value systems. One of my personal favorites is the Ishikawa Diagram, the popular concept that illustrates and studies the cause & effect relationship in a given circumstance.

Another very popular Japanese industrial & management concept that commands vehement patronage in the current era is the “5S methodology”. It is the same concept that traces its origination to the process/technique that enabled “Just in Time” manufacturing. Over the due course of time, the 5S methodology has not only attained prominence in the spectrum of Manufacturing and Construction but has also been utilized in rationalizing a countless number of business processes & techniques across a wide horizon of industries, business segments, and functional domains.

Within the scope of facility management, the 5S is a fundamental principle that enthralls the motive of workplace order and management. It predominantly acts as a catalyst towards establishing workplace upkeep practices, obliterating unneeded materials (both in possession and potential procurement), as well as putting elements/things where they belong.

The 5S stands for:

Seiri = Sort

Seiton = Set in order

Seiso = Shine

Seiketsu = Standardize

Shitsuke = Sustain

The objective of 5S as a workplace administration principle is to ensure that the workplace is as orderly and logical as possible. All elements are constantly observed and those considered frivolous are discarded. It also extends the practice of not having anything fatuous in the first place. Lastly, all workplace-related items/inventory are always put in designated areas as well as the ambit of workplace ambiance (including cleanliness) is paramount while exercising day-to-day business operations.

PART — II: Applying 5S in communicating to the Employees that the workplace is safe to return

Seiri = Sort

In normal conditions, this step would essentially mean effacing unnecessary workplace elements (equipment, tools, processes, or people) from day-to-day business operations. With the current context of Covid-19, the “sorting” step would act as a mechanism to reduce contact surfaces by decreasing the amount of surface area in terms of workstations, equipment, or even conference rooms that an employee would physically touch.

It would start by removing unnecessary elements. The elements of the workplace that are necessary such as workstations, desktops, laptops, table-mounted phones, etc. are sorted and cleaned after every individual employee comes into contact with them. The equipment that has already been used has to be shifted to a designated cleansing and sanitization area or the entire workplace where employee movement has happened can be cordoned off for cleansing operations before the next set of employees can use them. This step reduces the risk of an employee unexpectedly or accidentally coming into contact with a surface that is contaminated. With reduced physical interaction with surfaces that are contaminated and increased frequency in cleansing, the exposure that the virus has in the workplace is largely contained. Sorting all the employees who are willing, essential as well as vaccinated, to return to work and grant work from home for those who are unwilling, partially/non-essential, and not yet vaccinated, would help the organization in adjusting cleansing methods and intervals.

Seiton = Set in Order

With the perspective of Covid-19, setting in order would mean enabling employees to identify workstations/equipment that has been used and reserved. The entire workplace can be divided into multiple zones wherein each zone can have a defined limit of Covid relaxation. For instance, all employees who are conservative about covid protocols can be allocated a workstation in a zone where covid norms are strictly followed, similarly for employees who do not feel very sacrosanct about covid norms and would want to enjoy a normal pre-covid workplace can be allocated workstations in a zone designated for covid relaxed protocols.

Additionally, various visual indications can be used to designate zones as well as equipment that is already used or in use by an employee thus, minimizing the extent of surface contact. All employees have to be subjected to progressive education modules that train them on the identification of such signs/indications/tags and ensuring that the activities in the first step are adhered to, without prejudices.

Seiso = Shine

By far the simplest step in 5S. Cleaning and sanitizing all surfaces during day-to-day business operations at regular intervals would inevitably result in the “Shine” step. It is imperative to clean every single piece of equipment, workstation, and surface area that an employee would come into contact with. With sanitization and disinfection at regular intervals, the risk of the virus spreading via physical contact is effectively restrained.

Seiketsu = Standardize

This step serves as the only lance that the Facilities and Administration Team of an organization can wield to help steer employees’ decision to return to office i.e. — Perception Management. If the perception of the workplace for an employee resonates with safety, it would convince them to return to work without dubious notions.

It is hard for individuals to accept the new normal, especially for the Millennials and Gen Z (who currently represent about 38% of the global workforce composition). Nevertheless, this step aims to create a conducive set of standards in the workplace with methods that reinforce the significance of cleaning, sanitization, and disinfection.

Most of the current workforce still does not believe in the seriousness of workplace cleansing practices. Thus, it is important to communicate a workflow of steps that have to be followed without fail by every associate of the organization. These steps in the workflow would include the means to approach the facilities team, arrangement and allotment of workstations, reservation policies, occupancy procedures, timing control, transport arrangements & protocols, etc.

Such forms of communication would alleviate ambiguous thoughts and perceptions about the workplace. Having robust workflows that exhibit the importance of Covid appropriate behaviors would help in persuading employees to return to work and instate a sense of confidence in working from the office.

Shitsuke = Sustain

In this context and as a continuation of the previous step, if the perception of the employees’ safe workplace is blemished, all efforts towards building a safe workplace brand equity are squandered. It is via Shitsuke (Sustain) that all practices that have been established to create a covid appropriate workplace environment have to be sustained. All the above steps have to become an integral part of the routine workplace chores and have to be constantly monitored for enhancements. To maintain the confidence of the employees, this level of cleanliness and organization has to be supported unconditionally. For instance, in the event of employee testing positive, all measures have to be deployed to ensure that the confidence and morale of the workforce that has returned to the office is unaffected.

Even before the employee sets foot at the workplace, the perception has to be driven in a way that instills credence, conviction and reliance in the minds of employees that the workplace is safe to return.

To put it in a nutshell, all practices have to be sorted and set to enable employee ease of work, while the shining process (cleansing) is constantly underway, with progressive standardization and sustaining these practices to not only address the current pandemic but to also be able to accommodate and adapt to any future outbreak. Above all, if the employees begin believing that the means adopted to ensure that the workplace is safe; a major portion of communicating to the employees about a safe workplace, is accomplished.

Dear Reader, if you happen to know any other means of building equity towards attracting employees back to the office and effectively tackling the current requirements of sanitization & cleansing protocols, do let me know in the comment section.

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