The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly put a spotlight on workplace safety, and organisations around the globe are taking measures to create and maintain a healthy, motivated, and engaged workforce. With many considerations, business leaders and HR teams have an ongoing challenge of new workplace safety to both protect employees while also activating a steppingstone to building trust with employees.
A key element of modern workplace safety is contact tracing – a globally recognised method of identifying people who have been in close contact with someone who is presumed or confirmed to be infected with COVID-19. As a government or NHS-led form of contact tracing is yet to materialise, it’s important that organisations take this safety method into their own hands where possible.
In light of this, a survey* was in order to better understand attitudes towards COVID-19 contact tracing. The research covered 3,903 employed adults across Australia and New Zealand, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Netherlands, U.K., and U.S.
Through the research, misconceptions around employee privacy concerns outweighing safety concerns were debunked. In fact, we found that the vast majority of employees surveyed globally (86%) are comfortable to varying degrees with employer-led contact tracing, which, combined with education and transparent communication, may be the key to setting a risk-adverse workforce at ease.
It was discovered that three quarters of U.K. employees (74%) trust their employer to create a physically safe and healthy work environment and the vast majority (92%) of employees are at least “a little” comfortable with contact tracing led by their employer for the purpose of organisational safety.
While public narrative suggests that U.K. workers have been somewhat cautious around privacy concerns relating to contact tracing, the research discovered that, in fact, almost half of U.K. workers (46%) say they are “very” or “a great deal” comfortable with a workforce management approach to contact tracing. This means they are comfortable allowing their employer to use their work schedule records to identify and manage employees who may have been exposed to the virus at work and to help prevent onward transmission.
Essentially, data is key. With a digital tool to analyse that data, organisations can quickly and accurately identify who worked at the same time and same location as an afflicted employee based on time clock punches and attendance data collected by their workforce management system. Automating what would otherwise be a manual (and less accurate) process, this approach allows employers to immediately remove potential contacts – even if they are asymptomatic – from the schedule and give proper direction (e.g., encourage self-quarantine protocols, increase frequency of cleanings) to reduce risk of an outbreak at work. Our research found that only 8% of U.K. respondents are “not at all” comfortable with this approach to contact tracing in the workplace.
Similarly, 71% of all workers in the U.K. stated that they are at least “somewhat” comfortable with their employer leveraging their mobile phone device for organisational safety, with 22% being “very” comfortable and 14% being “a great deal” comfortable. When asked about leveraging mobiles for the purpose of wider public safety outside of the workplace, more than three quarters of U.K. respondents (76%) are at least “somewhat” comfortable with their mobile carrier leveraging their mobile device for contact tracing.
Generationally, younger Millennials and Gen Zers1 consistently report greater comfortability with all forms of contact tracing than do their generational counterparts with at least one third (70%) of the younger generations in the U.K. trusting all forms of contact tracing. However, contrary to popular belief, at least 60% of the elder generation globally – baby boomers – are at least somewhat comfortable with contact tracing practices.
The research also found that the workforce has high expectations for their employers to create environments that are as safe as possible. Despite the vast majority of employees in the U.K. stating that they trust their employer to create a physically safe and healthy work environment (74%), Europeans are less trusting than their North American counterparts, with 67% in Germany, 63% in France, and 63% in the Netherlands in agreement versus 80% in Canada, 80% in Mexico, and 76% in the U.S.. Part-time employees are also slightly less confident in having a physically safe and healthy work environment (68%) compared to full-time employees (77%) worldwide.
These statistics together demonstrate that employees do have safety concerns in the workplace, but generally trust their employer to take care of them.
This should signal to employers that they have a responsibility to step up and employ all methods necessary to protect workers physically and mentally during COVID-19, regardless of whether employees have worked all through the pandemic, have recently come back to the workplace, or won’t be brought back for another few months.
Contact tracing is an essential element to modern workplace safety, and as the data shows, employer-driven methods of contact tracing are not unwanted among the workforce, though education and transparent communication cannot be overlooked when introducing new policies or protocols related to organisational safety.
However, for many businesses, tacitly doing this is no small feat. With many organisations having taken a financial hit during the pandemic, there are further challenges in terms of implementing new technologies to facilitate new safety measures. This is where the utilisation of existing technologies is proving particularly useful for business leaders, enabling them to create a safe and productive environment for employees, without the steep investment at such a critical time of recovery.
A workforce management approach to employee contact tracing does exactly this – leveraging data science to analyse existing labour records and time and attendance data to generate a simple report that organisations can use to quickly identify and communicate to employees who may have come in contact with a co-worker who has tested positive or is presumed positive for COVID-19.
Organisations that are able to quickly and efficiently implement contact tracing capabilities into the workforce stand a better chance of not only protecting those employees greater, but also creating and maintaining a healthy, motivated and engaged workforce.
*Survey commissioned by UKG.
