After a year of facing restrictions, coronavirus fatigue has all of us hoping to put the pandemic in the past as soon as possible. And we are now seeing a tangible path toward normalcy as pharmaceutical companies ramp up production of multiple coronavirus vaccines. However, COVID-19 will continue to drive HR strategies in 2021 and possibly for the next three to five years, particularly as organizations look to protect both employees and their families.
Afterall, even if all adults can obtain vaccinations by this summer, COVID-19 vaccine testing in children just began recently, so broad access to this group will only begin in late 2021 or early 2022. As a result, true herd immunity is unlikely before next year. Then for the following one to three years, it’s highly likely that everyone will need booster vaccines to protect against the growing number of coronavirus variants emerging. Moreover, the research is not yet in as to whether vaccinated people exposed to the coronavirus can infect others even if they do not become ill.
To contain the spread of COVID-19 as we make gains in greater protection, HR professionals need to update their strategies in five key ways if they have not begun to do so already.
- Pivot Toward Prevention
For the past year, organizations have largely focused on mitigating the impact of COVID-19, but mitigation is too little too late. Far too many companies learned that lesson first hand after experiencing the crippling effects of a coronavirus outbreak. There are the obvious and expensive facility closures. But there are also the lost productivity and safety risks from employees experiencing “brain fog,” a common symptom of the virus that can linger for weeks after the illness. Imagine being in that state and trying to make decisions about the business or faulty equipment.
That is why the focus needs to pivot toward prevention, which is often the unsung hero since success is measured what doesn’t happen. Typical measures are focused on the physical worksite with employees wearing personal productive equipment (PPE) and working at reconfigured, socially distanced stations. Some industrial businesses are taking a cue from biotechnology firms and setting up color-coded work zones to minimize interaction between different teams.
However, prevention should start before an employee ever enters the workplace. At offices and facilities, it’s becoming more common to see concierges or greeters check each worker’s temperature and ask a brief set of questions before allowing that person to enter the building.
- Make Risk Assessment Mobile
More recently, forward-thinking companies are asking employees to self-report their COVID-19 risk remotely via their mobile phones. If they get an “OK” response, they can go to the worksite and use their mobile phones to show greeters they have approval to enter. If they get a warning indicator of potential COVID-19 risk, they have to wait for a manager or supervisor to advise them on the appropriate course of action for protecting their colleagues’ health, perhaps by working from home or onsite but in isolation and with additional PPE. This approach significantly cuts the chances of contagious employees coming into contact with others.
Today, this mobile self-reporting is focused on whether an employee has potentially been exposed to COVID-19. But, these same self-assessments could be used, for example, to determine if a worker is too tired to operate heavy machinery and should be assigned to another task for the day. It is one way, coronavirus prevention strategies can be applied help to more broadly improve work environments. Importantly, employees who self-report need to feel that they’re not at risk for getting fired and that the company’s priority is ensuring safe work conditions
- Update Education
As mentioned, one of the greatest challenges organizations face today is coronavirus fatigue as people tire of taking safety precautions. Unfortunately, we’ve already seen how that fatigue led to holiday surges in COVID-19 infections worldwide—and more recently, how decreases in case rates have begun to level off with the emergence of newer, more virulent variants.
For this reason, now is not the time to wind down regular weekly or monthly training on COVID-19 prevention. The key is providing new information to ensure that employees don’t “tune out.” For example, a topic may cover recent guidance on the benefits of double-masking or why company break rooms have become a leading source of viral spread.
As more employees get vaccinated, it will also be important to provide training on why these workers still need to adhere to the same safety practices as others. For example, a teacher recently expressed hope of getting the vaccine in order to teach class without wearing a mask—not realizing a mask would still be required to protect unvaccinated students and their families. This type of misconception is one HR managers across a range of organizations are likely to face among employees.
- Start Vaccine Policy Planning Now
Once all adults have access to coronavirus vaccines, companies can require vaccinations for most, if not all, employees as a condition of working onsite. Although implementation of such a policy may not be feasible until late 2021, organizations should begin putting plans into place now.
In implementing a vaccine policy, HR professionals will need to consider national laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act; local or regional requirements; and any policy or logistical requirements within the organization. There should be “triggers” for moving to certain phases of the strategy based on some combination of internal and external factors, most notably vaccine availability. Additionally, there should be a discussion of if and how the company can facilitate vaccinations and perhaps their families.
Having a strategy for communicating the policy and educating employees will also be critical. A growing percentage of people are eagerly awaiting access to the vaccines. However, there are still holdouts, who are concerned about the speed of the coronavirus vaccine development and approval or mistrust vaccines all together. Even among some groups of healthcare workers and first responders, up to 40% have declined the coronavirus vaccinations offered to them.
- Layer Strategies to Maximize Protection
Finally, no single strategy is likely to be sufficient. So, organizations need to adopt a Swiss cheese approach. The idea behind this concept is to layer different strategies to reduce risk to a tolerable level. For example, implementing four layers—such as social distancing, wearing PPE, monitoring employees’ self-assessments, and providing workforce training—potentially reduces the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak by a factor of 10,000x.
By combining prevention strategies, and being prepared to modify them as conditions change, HR professionals will be well equipped to successfully protect employees and their families.
