4/21/2020 - By Saltmarsh, Cleaveland & Gund
As the response to the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, many companies have established operational crisis management teams and adjusted to global restrictions on work and movement. Executives are now beginning to ask the question: How are we going to return to work?
As of April 2020, some countries are starting to ease restrictions, allowing for more freedom of movement and the reopening of specific industries. In the United States, The White House has announced guidelines for re-opening the nation in a three phased approach. These guidelines include thresholds for states to satisfy in the following areas: trajectory of reported symptoms; trajectory of reported cases; and ability for hospitals to care for patients and provide ongoing testing.
Additionally, multiple groups of governors have formed regional coalitions to coordinate reopening their states in a unified way. While it is challenging to predict when each country and U.S. state will begin to return to the workplace, many predictions point toward restrictions being lifted gradually over the next few months, depending on your location.
Regardless of precisely how governments decide to ease their restrictions, companies need to plan for an orderly and thoughtful approach to returning to work. There are three crucial steps to accomplishing this:
By doing this carefully and methodically, businesses can begin the process of restoring operations while also ensuring that they do not take one step forward and two steps backward in returning to work.
Companies first need to consider the structure in which a return-to-work plan will be created. That structure will need to include identifying stakeholders; outlining authorities and decision trees; defining critical information requirements; identifying assumptions and variables; and, of course, creating detailed execution checklists for individual business units.
It’s essential to examine each part of the return-to-work program in detail:
A return-to-work plan should account for four main stages and allow for a clear roadmap in moving from a (1) current state, to a (2) partial or limited opening, to a (3) full resumption of operations at capacity. The fourth stage accounts for the need to continue to monitor for virus resurgence. This allows for a diagnosis of how the company performed during the crisis and how it will improve going forward.
The situation, objectives, indicators, and actions should be clearly defined for each of the four stages that a company expects to move through during the return-to-work process. Those elements are detailed as follows:
According to World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “The last thing any country needs is to open schools and businesses only to be forced to close them again because of a resurgence.” Source
The final stage of the return-to-work plan is to monitor and prepare. Here it is incumbent on companies to continue to monitor for any resurgence in the virus, identify changes to government restrictions and agency guidance, and better prepare the company to be more resilient toward future disruptions. This is also the stage where companies should do a “look back” to evaluate if any controls were relaxed during the work-from-home period.
There is growing concern among academics that a second wave of virus infection cases may occur later this year. Given that possibility, companies should take full advantage of the expected break over the summer and early fall months to begin to perform after-action reports and outline a plan for improvements. Those in highly regulated industries (e.g., Financial Services, Pharmaceutical) should further prepare for regulatory inquiries on how they are planning to address gaps. Regardless of industry, it is always better to show the Board and regulators (if any) that gaps have been self-identified, remediation programs outlined, and resources allocated.
This will also be the time for companies to build a consolidated operational resiliency function. In this environment, resiliency components are no longer siloed but are integrated and provide end-to-end recoverability regardless of the next business interruption.
As companies continue to navigate these uncharted waters, it is essential to understand that business may fundamentally change when we come out of this. A return to “business as usual” may also be a return to a new normal where we re-evaluate how we work, where we work, how we interact with customers, and where our products are made. Supply chains and concentration risks will be reassessed, and executives will begin to evaluate outsourcing and the use of low-cost locations with more of a risk lens and not merely a cost-cutting lens.
Like every systemic shock to the economy, winners and losers will emerge. One need only look to the long list of defunct internet companies from the late 1990s or the more recent list of white-heeled boutique banks that didn’t make it out of the 2008 financial crisis. In most cases, the firms that emerged had strong risk management programs and decisive leaders who executed on clearly defined recovery plans.
That is why now is the time for companies to begin working on the following three return-to-work steps:
If you have specific questions, please reach out to your engagement shareholder, manager or another member of COVID Recovery Response Team. General questions and inquiries can be directed to Jayme Terrell.
Visit our COVID-19 RESOURCE HUB for ongoing updates and information. Due to the ever-changing nature of this event, you should always consult the appropriate professionals.