Safety and Security

If the first stage of the pandemic was primarily proactive, we are now safely in the reactive stage.

For the first few months of the pandemic, unknowns were everywhere. We did not know how to test for the disease at scale, how it spread, or how deadly it really was. Because of all these unknowns, we made it our mission to flatten the curve—hoping to limit the initial surge and give us time to learn about the disease and prepare accordingly. Read More

An effective hurricane response requires a lot. You need to be quick to identify the storm as a threat. You need to plan accordingly—and update that plan as the forecast changes. And you need to communicate that plan to your employees, so that they know what is expected of them and what your organization is doing to keep them safe. Read More

As businesses start to reopen—bringing employees back to the physical workplace— decision-makers are having to wrestle with the questions of how and when to reopen. Even as more and more companies decide to do so, however, it is with the realization that it will be a long time before things are truly back to “normal.” In fact, some things may never go back to the way they were before the pandemic.

One of those things is business travel. Business travel was one of the first things that halted when the pandemic hit, and it will almost certainly be one of the last things to restart. There are inherent risks that come with travel of any kind—since disease transmission is both more likely and more dangerous while traveling.

All the same, travel never fully ceased, and some companies are starting to consider how and when to restart their business travel. For some companies, business travel is the lifeblood of their operations. The process will obviously be gradual, but travel managers need to start thinking about when it makes sense to wade back into the world of business travel.

This article will unpack the key questions your organization needs to be asking when planning necessary or future business travel. Specifically, your company will need to decide:

• IF to travel
• WHERE to travel
• WHO should travel
• HOW to travel

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While most of the country has been under stay-at-home orders for the better part of two months, essential workers have continued to show up for work every day to keep our communities running. As many states begin easing lockdown restrictions and organizations start considering a full return to work, many more employees will soon find themselves back in the workplace.

But with over 1.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. alone at the time of writing, it’s not just behemoths like Amazon and Walmart that have had to (or soon will) deal with coronavirus in the workplace. 

If your organization hasn’t yet had a confirmed case of COVID-19 in your workforce, chances are that you likely will at some point. So, do you know what to do if an employee tests positive for COVID-19? Read More

In a matter of weeks, the Coronavirus pandemic has transformed remote working from a rarity into the norm. Before the pandemic, only 3.6 percent of American workers worked from home. Today, it is nearly half. 

Now that millions of Americans are working from home, however, it is turning out to not be quite as glamorous as many had envisioned it. Spending day after day between the same four walls, from morning to evening, has its challenges. Remote working for long stretches of time can lead to loneliness, weariness, and reduced productivity.

Unfortunately, though, remote working is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Even if some businesses begin to re-open in a limited capacity over the next several months, it will likely be a while before things can return to normal. As an employer or manager, that means that you need to make sure you are doing everything in your power to make your company’s remote working environment as sustainable as possible.  Read More