Reopening Your Office? Make Sure You Cover Your Compliance Bases!
Around the world, companies are either in the process of reopening offices, considering reopening offices, or in some cases already have. I know we have done a “soft” re-opening at ETHIX360, with about 25% of the workforce. Like most of you, we needed to “rethink” things to incorporate social distancing, follow the CDC guidelines for returning to work, and the safety and health of our employees.
As we began discussing our eventual reopening in late April, we tried to consider every angle to make sure that we were abundantly cautious. In fact, our blog at that time was focused on other critical considerations but mainly those unique challenges brought on from working at home in the blog post Ethics and COVID19, or is it COVID-1984?
After several months of working at home, it was time to begin the discussion about returning to work. The first part of the preparation were the obvious things – take half the chairs out of the conference rooms, sanitary cleaning material in every room, hand sanitizer all over the place, masks…gloves… you name it, we do it. CHECK!
The second part was communication. Communication to employees about religiously following CDC and state guidelines for reopening. Employees committing to follow them to protect all of us. No visitors in the office. We set clear expectations for employee behavior and updated relevant policies to cover work at home issues and office safe practices. CHECK!
But there was one final wrinkle – we have employees based in California and New York, and along with Washington, Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan, there are state specific training requirements when employees go back to work. So being a compliance company, we created those video training assets with the various state requirements, and we dynamically update them as state requirements change so that they are always current. That courseware is now available for our clients, as we know that like us, you have a long list of to-do’s to reopen.
This course, titled COVID-19: Returning to the Workplace is a new e-learning course designed to prepare your employees physically and psychologically to deal with the changes from their first day back through any ongoing adjustments as the guidelines and recommendations around COVID-19 evolve.
So let us know if we can help you reopen safely and comply with state training requirements, and make sure that base is covered!
The ETHIX360 blog brings you weekly updates on all things human resources and compliance.
MEET THE AUTHOR
J Rollins is the co-founder and CEO of ETHIX360. J is a well known leader and innovator who has served on senior leadership teams ranging in responsibility from Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, SVP of Product Strategy and Chief Operating Officer.
ABOUT ETHIX360
At ETHIX360, our goal is simple: to provide an affordable, flexible, and comprehensive answer to employee communication, policy management, corporate training and case management on issues related to corporate ethics, code of conduct, fraud, bribery, and workplace violence.
