Most business leaders have not yet had a chance to take stock in 2020. Crisis management has been the overwhelming priority, having to deliver customer service to a demanding customer base during a time of huge fluctuation in volume across all channels. In an article earlier this year, we talked about the need for good Business Continuity Planning for a considered approach to getting back into the office as lockdown eased.

A summer of discovering the very real challenges of mass homeworking and having to deal with them has accelerated the learning process for the entire sector. It is now clear that working from home is a viable technical option for many more employees than most businesses imagined, although some critical processes such as payments still carry significant risks if dealt with incorrectly when handled outside centralised business systems. New ways of communicating with colleagues and teams via Zoom, Microsoft Teams and similar tools have complemented remote data networks to enable services to be carried out without massive disruption. At the same time, customer expectations have begun to align with the realisation that things have changed in the world of work.

We saw as national restrictions eased that businesses started to bring workers back into their offices and contact centres. Then the threat of a second wave has brought on tighter government restrictions, which has, in turn, created a new set of challenges for managers and leaders to deal with.

New challenges

Many businesses have successfully put social distancing measures into their places of work to protect staff, ranging from hygiene regimes to split working patterns and more regular, complete shift changes. Coupled with homeworking, this has allowed businesses to maintain links with employees, whilst monitoring their welfare and performance. It has also facilitated safer working practices.

Social distancing and strict hygiene recommendations are likely to remain well into the future, so it has been important to build these new working routines to make work not just possible but productive.

However, the reality of the pandemic continuing whilst people return to work means that there are new challenges to face. For example, lack of availability of testing in times of high demand is resulting in additional time off for many people. What were once simple issues like minor illnesses and routine medical outpatient procedures now require employees to be tested and, in many cases, periods of self-isolation. How does your business deal with a workforce where many employees need to take 2 weeks out of the office unexpectedly?

The upgrade of recommendations and guidance into statutory instruments means that businesses who fail to account for Covid protection are now liable for fines up to £10,000 (as this article is written), so it is essential that your business keeps up to date with the laws relating to your workplace.

A policy for essential workers?

Recent changes to regulations and guidance say that people who can work from home, should do so. ‘essential workers’ are permitted to attend the workplace. What is your policy to define essential workers? What are the consequences of not having a policy?

For many businesses, the period between March and July 2020 was spent finding ways to provide a viable service from teams who were forced to work from home, then to improve productivity by investing in new or existing systems and refining processes. Since restrictions were eased, bringing employees back into the office safely has been the priority for some businesses. Now that the government is asking only ‘essential workers’ to go to work, how do you decide what proportion of your workforce is needed in the office and what defines an ‘essential worker’ within your organisation?

There is a dilemma – how do you reconcile all the effort in finding ways to facilitate people working from home and then counter that by telling them they ‘need’ to work from the office? What will you do if team members challenge your decisions? In smaller organisations, flexibility can be a positive experience in times like this. However, with larger teams and contact centres, there is a need for a considered and robust policy to provide some governance and guidance for your management team to follow.

Practicalities of returning to the workplace

During the period of complete lockdown, when the furlough scheme was fully active, most staff were either working from home or put onto enforced furlough leave. Now businesses need to decide who should be in the office and who should work from home. For example, are there teams who need to be in the office every working day? Or can you successfully split your workforce into teams who rotate office time?

If you have regular office workers, what is the business’ liability if they contract or pass on Covid-19 after being asked to come into work? On the other hand, are you fulfilling your duty of care to employees in terms of mental health if they are working from home? You might consider that some employees are not only more productive but healthier if they are encouraged to spend more time in the office.

There is no doubt that team leaders and managers need to give staff liaison a higher priority than before this pandemic hit. Employee health will likely emerge as one of the major victims of the Coronavirus pandemic, and businesses that fail to check in with their team members may face the consequences with high churn, poor performance and potentially even health-related claims.

Where hands-on work is essential, this is already causing headaches for employers. Thankfully in the customer service sector, there are practical solutions available.

How do you resolve these challenges?

As usual, there is no single magic bullet. However, a combination of strategies can minimise the disruption caused by working through the pandemic.

Firstly, there are technology solutions available that can enable your workforce to transition easily between working in the office and at home. They can help your business to manage staff self-isolation, split shifts and flexible working to cope with childcare and school issues. Systems can be rolled out rapidly and effectively using cloud-based platforms, which need not render your existing data handling regimes obsolete. Such systems can also handle payment processing in a compliant way, minimising your exposure to fraud and potential intervention by regulatory authorities.

If you need help finding the right systems for your business, we can help. CCP has built a technology network of over 40 leading providers and is able to use their deep understanding of contact centres, CX and technology to accurately assess your requirements.

Secondly, having access to flexible outsource solutions gives you the option to rapidly deploy additional personnel resources to meet fluctuating demands or to cope with planned initiatives to raise sales or deal with enquiry backlogs. CCP has a large network of specialist contact centre outsources, experienced in precisely this sort of work across multiple sectors.

Finally, in terms of the wellbeing of staff who work remotely, we have produced a series of guidance videos in which Nathan Dring offers powerful advice on how to cope when working from home, including tips for managers on how to get the best out of individuals and teams who work remotely. Watch them here.

The impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on business operations has been unprecedented. No one could have predicted the rapid move to home working and the enormous impact the virus has had on business volumes and customer service provision, with some companies having to ramp up operations and others drastically ramp down.

With restrictions gradually easing in the UK and with the furlough scheme expected to end in October. It is essential that businesses, if they haven’t done already, make definitive plans to get their workforce fully operational.

Social distancing and strict hygiene recommendations are likely to remain well into the future, so it’s important to plan how your organisation will make work not just possible but productive, as 2020 moves through its second half.

Returning to full operation – why is your Business Continuity plan critical?

Most businesses were not ready to send all their staff home when the UK’s pandemic response was announced in mid-March. However, with a huge amount of hard work and adaptability, many contact centres and customer service operations managed to keep operational throughout the crisis. There were certainly big challenges and some major brands struggled to cope with demand from their customers. After several weeks of improvements and a lot of late nights for many people, the industry appears to have dealt with the crisis admirably overall.

Getting employees back into the right routines will be the next critical stage of the industry’s response to the Covid 19 pandemic, and now is the time to make sure your organisation is ready to embrace the future.

How will your business be viewed after the pandemic is over?

In PWC’s Global Crisis Survey 2019, 95% of CEOs said that they expected to face a crisis in their working lives: now 100% of them are facing that crisis. Most crises are not preceded by a warning, and the swift spread of coronavirus was no exception.

Your customers, staff and suppliers will judge you based on how well you handle this pandemic. If you do not believe that, look at Wetherspoons, Virgin and JD Sports and the damage that their decisions have made to their reputations in a few short weeks. Poor choices about how to deal with staff, as activities were put on hold, may have far-reaching effects on what happens when things get back up to speed.

The coming weeks are an opportunity to redesign aspects of your operation, not only to react to changes in the business caused by Covid 19, but to improve your business generally. In years of ‘normal’ business, changes have often been incremental and difficult to implement. The radical changes to working practice forced on many businesses by the pandemic have opened up opportunities for companies to make positive long-term changes to their working processes to adapt to ‘new’ ways of working.

What does this mean for your Business Continuity plan?

Many Business Continuity professionals, myself included, love the adage ‘never waste a good crisis’. Your business has probably made errors in handling the current situation. Hopefully, they’ve not had a negative effect, but if this is the case make sure you take away any learnings. Use your new-found insight to build an effective Business Continuity plan for the future. Making sure whatever the next crisis is, your business is fully prepared and has reduced its exposure to risk.

Your Business Continuity plan may not have been appropriate for the type and scale of the crisis caused by this pandemic. For many organisations, Disaster Recovery planning has been limited to flood, fire and failure of data & communications systems. It is important to build a plan which enables you to cope with several different scenarios, some of which will be happening at the same time. For example, relocating everyone to work from home whilst protecting customer data and moving all office systems into the cloud probably had been legislated for by many companies three months ago. Now every business needs to be ready to do that again, with very little notice.

How can we get back to office working?

There are several critical questions to answer before you start to move staff back into the office. Among the most important are:

Write a Return to Work Policy if you don’t already have one. If you do, check it, and make sure it allows your business to make sensible decisions in a procedural way. Inconsistency may cause further problems down the line, not just in employee relations but potentially in liability for your company. Employees value consistency and a written policy should increase trust and give your managers good guidelines to make fair decisions.

Clearly communicate

Clear communication with your teams is essential. Many peoples’ lives have been turned upside down by the effects of this health crisis. It is important that they are valued and kept in the loop about how the easing of lockdown restrictions might affect them and their work. Making communication two-way also gives your staff an opportunity to voice any concerns or to highlight any unusual cases which need to be dealt with. Solve problems now to avoid bigger problems later.

Are you ready?

I hope that your business is well prepared for this next crucial phase of the country’s Covid response. If you are unsure about how robust your Business Continuity plans are, or if you need a structured approach to your Return to Work Planning, we can help, simply complete our ‘get in touch’ form and we will be in contact shortly after.