Well, it’s official. We can all go back to working onsite with the repeal of the public health order to “work from home if practical”. It should be happy days! Right? But is it?
Additional Operating Expenses For Your Business
As an employer, you will still need to follow COVID Safe protocols with regard to cleaning, hygiene and ensuring physical distancing occurs. This includes signage to remind staff and visitors to your premises. (For details, here’s the link to the Safe Work Australia Resource Kit and the NSW Government COVID19 workplace health and safety guidelines.) These are all an additional cost to your business as well as your legal obligation.
Questions You Need To Ask Yourself?
Then there are the practical implications around bringing people back. Do you require:
- Everyone to start and finish at the same time as you did in pre-COVID days?
- All employees to work onsite or will you offer a mix of onsite and remote working?
- Support to manage staff who are reluctant to return to onsite working or perhaps blatantly refuse to return?
- Policies to help you navigate balancing flexible work with onsite working arrangements?
How Has The Repeal Affected Your Business Plans?
For many business owners, the requirement for staff to work from home has made them rethink their business model. This is especially true if productivity was unchanged or improved with the new remote working business model. In fact, COVID-19 has caused some business owners to review their office space requirements. After all, why pay large amounts in rent if staff can work equally well from home, or interstate or remotely part of the week?
As a result, the repeal to the “work from home” order may impact your new business plans and thoughts of reducing overheads.
Don’t Forget You!
Let’s not forget you. How have you found the experience of working from home? Have you enjoyed it as much as some staff? Have you gained extra time in your day because you’ve lost the commute? Are you nervous (or dread) returning to onsite working?
When you are considering how you will be managing your business, don’t forget to consider your needs and preferences, as well as the needs of employees.
It’s A Top-Level Decision
The ability to return to onsite working needs some top-level consideration and decision making by employers. In fact, it could require you to:
- Redefine your business model
- Review how you want to run your business
- Revisit how you wish to interact with customers
Once you have these factors clear, you’ll need the policies and procedures in place for staff to follow. That’s where End2End Business Solutions can help. We can also assist you with how to handle staff who don’t want to return to onsite working.
The End2End team focus on providing practical HR solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. To discuss what’s possible, call 02 8977 4002.