By Stephanie Osorno, Marketing Copywriter at Alertus Technologies

After over a year of operating in a primarily remote environment, many organizations are starting to plan for a transition back to in-person work. The return, however, will require thoughtful and extensive consideration to ensure employee safety. 

So what exactly should that planning entail? Alertus recently teamed up with Control Risks for a webinar specifically focused on a safe return to work.

Matthew Hinton, Crisis and Resilience Consulting partner for Control Risks, offered his insight on building a successful, long-term return to work plan during the webinar. He talks to us about the importance of building trust among employees and shares some of his presentation highlights below.

Name: Matthew Hinton
Title: Partner, Crisis and Resilience Consulting
Organization: Control Risks

Can you tell us about Control Risks and your role within the organization?

We are a global specialist risks firm that helps organizations with a wide variety of risk related matters before, during, and after a major crisis occurs such as COVID-19. 

I run our North America crisis and resilience consulting business; I look after all things crisis management, business continuity, product recall, and cyber and kidnap for ransom preparedness. In addition, I’ve been leading all Control Risks’ client-facing COVID-19 activities in the Americas for over a year. 

Why do you think it’s important for organizations to have a return to work plan?

There are a lot of reasons, but I think one of the biggest ones — which we touched on a lot during the webinar — is building trust with employees. Organizations need to convince employees that it’s not only safe for them to return to work, but also that it’s worthwhile. 

The tricky part is that most companies have spent the last year and a half insisting on employees staying at home, not only for their safety but for the productivity and continuity of business operations. Now they’re asking them to do something very different. These kinds of factors drive the need for having a holistic return to work framework in place. 

Should employees be a part of the framework development process?

When thinking about returning to work and setting up the framework, it’s incredibly important to get feedback from employees and understand where their heads are at. 

Since no two people have had the same reaction or experience, everyone's response to COVID is going to be quite individualized. While that adds a layer of complication, it also presents an opportunity for organizations to use those individualized responses to inform their framework development. I’m not implying in any way that the entire employee base should ultimately dictate the organizational direction, but they should absolutely be a stakeholder in helping leadership with decision making. 

What did attendees learn from your presentation? Can you give us a preview of the topics you covered?

I kicked off the discussion around the employee trust equation and how organization leaders can gain it through a return to work framework that goes far beyond PPE and hygiene. An effective framework will look at the employee experience from the minute they leave their house in the morning for work to the minute they get home at the end of the day — and everything in between. 

During the webinar, I explored what that means, what it looks like, and what key questions leaders need to ask before they even contemplate building one of these frameworks. I then broke down some of the key functions of the framework that help make it effective and sustainable in the long run, and again, help to build trust among employees. 

For organizations that might be feeling overwhelmed about preparing to return to work, what is a good first step they can take? Can you touch on those key questions leaders should be asking? 

A lot of organizations immediately jump to the “how” portion of the plan. In doing so, they skip over really important, strategic questions that ultimately guide the how. 

The questions should be things such as, “When should we return?” or “When can we return?” That may sound overly simplistic, but it’s important to set up triggers around what those scenarios look like. Depending on an organization’s location, triggers may include current infection rates, vaccine rates, and hospitalization rates.

Taking a step back to answer these questions will take away some of the overwhelming pressure on the return. 

What did you enjoy about this webinar? What do you think was the biggest value for attendees? 

I always enjoy the Q&A part of webinars. Usually, it’s not just people asking questions, it’s also people sharing what they’ve experienced and learned. It’s more of a community-wide, interactive experience than a lecture. 

This was also an opportunity for attendees to learn from us. Control Risks is in a unique position — we’ve helped over 150 companies now globally with COVID-19. Along the way, we’ve gained a lot of lessons learned and insight on what works and what doesn’t. I think people took away some things they may not have thought about, including this holistic return to work framework, which we don’t often see from our clients. 

Watch the on-demand replay!

You can catch the on-demand webinar — “Return to Work: Fostering Long-term Employee Confidence for a Safe Return to the Office,” — here.