12/6/2023 0 Comments Corona usa todayYet even if some businesses and employees may be well positioned for change at a moment's notice, Piltch-Loeb says the story may be different for essential workers and people in frontline jobs. Now, rather than solely trying to protect employees from contracting the virus as they did initially, "employers are trying to balance the physical risk with the emotional risk". "We saw a lot of implications of being remote – not only on people's physical health, but also their social and emotional wellbeing," says Perry. Part of this, she believes, is because business leaders are now more attuned to their workers, both physically and psychologically. "It's important that the "'playbook', so to speak, is written down somewhere, so that we are not reinventing things if another threat should emerge."Įlissa Perry, organisational psychologist and professor of psychology and education at Columbia University's Teachers College, US, doesn't believe this fall's rise in cases will bring the same level of disruption we felt in 20, especially for businesses that are able to be flexible. She adds those who are thinking beyond the next Covid-19 wave will also be better poised to succeed. The essential infrastructure needed for businesses to operate remotely is largely already in place companies won't be scrambling to maintain business continuity amid unprecedented shifts.Īs cases rise, "businesses that have some institutional memory are poised to fare better", says Francesca L Beaudoin, professor and chair of epidemiology at Brown University, US. Many office workers already know how to work from home – many still do, even years after initial lockdowns were lifted. Since the height of the pandemic, companies have put remote-work policies and crisis-operational modalities in place in some cases, she adds, they've also updated or added sick leave and parental leave policies.Įssentially, employers are more prepared to be nimble than they were in the past, now familiar with handling changes in policy and restrictions. Importantly, says Piltch-Loeb, "businesses have adapted to working in different disease environments … The way work is done has changed for the majority of the workforce". Even if a proliferation of cases keeps people at home or changes business operations, the shift won't quite be the same shock it was in 2020. But now, after facing several waves of closures and shifts in guidelines throughout the past few years, most companies and employees have a blueprint to work from. Essential workers, however will still be on the frontlines, and with some CEOs drawing a hard line on return-to-office policies, the next wave of cases won't affect all businesses or workers equally. The upside: with more than three years of pandemic-related experience, "we have tools at our disposal to mitigate the consequences of Covid-19 on the population", says Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a research scientist at Harvard T.H. Now, companies are wondering whether their workers will hesitate to go back to the office, and if consumers will once again abandon brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants and hotels. Many firms transitioned to remote work and closed storefronts – in some cases, forever. The emergency pushed them to make rapid-fire decisions with major implications for both company profits as well as the health and safety of the workforce. Still, the rise in cases reopens the question: what happens if we're once again faced with an overwhelming global health crisis?Įntrepreneurs and executives are particularly concerned, since businesses were woefully unprepared when the pandemic arrived in full force in 2020. Two new variants of note – BA.2.86 (Pirola) and EG.5 (Eris) – have already shown up around the world, including in the US and UK.Įven as we head into cool-weather months, experts aren't yet predicting new lockdowns. As students return to school and employers call their workers back to offices, Covid-19 cases are once again rising globally.
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