What To Pulse When Returning to Work from COVID-19

Like many of you, we felt challenged with managing the RTW (return to work) process from COVID-19. There is no one size fits all for organizations, especially ones in different locations and with different types of workers. Since necessity is the mother of all inventions, we partnered with Dr. Brooks Holtom to come up with a two part RTW survey. 

The first part focuses on gathering team feedback before they return. Their critical inputs enable leaders to make better decisions to manage the RTW process. The second part focuses on the feedback after they have returned to see how well we did and what we need to fine tune. 

The 10 Pre RTW Assessment Questions:

1. I feel confident that my organization will manage the return to work well.

2. Overall, I feel confident that the leaders of my organization will consider all inputs (e.g., employees, managers, partners, government, etc.) in crafting our return-to-work process.

3. I feel confident that I have safe channels to share my concerns when returning to work.

4. As we prepare to return to work, I feel confident that I will be able to attend to my personal responsibilities (e.g., child care, elder care, etc.).

5. Currently, I feel confident about the long-term future of my organization.

6. Currently, I feel confident in the future of my job at my organization.

7. While working from home, I feel I am:  (a) Much less productive, (b) Slightly less productive, (c) Similarly productive, (d) Slightly more productive, (e) Much more productive, (f) N/A - I did not work from home

8. I'm confident that my organization will take appropriate measures to keep me as safe as possible when we return to work.

9. I feel a sense of control over when I return to work.

10. As we plan to return to work, what feedback or concerns would you like to share with us?

Employees feel more productive working from home

We just pulsed out these questions last week, and it was enormously insightful to help us make a better decision taking into account all the team's feedback. Three things popped out immediately:

First, we're fortunate to all be able to work from home, and the team definitely feels they were as productive if not more during this WFH period. An amazing 63% felt they were more productive at home than in the office, which helped us be more conservative with our RTW plans.

And crave more control over when they can return safely

Second, from this data we know it is important for people to have a sense of control over the situation. We scored the lowest on this question at 2.9. So we'll have to investigate more on this front to see where our opportunities to improve are.

Third, we scored the highest for, "Overall, I feel confident that the leaders of my organization will consider all inputs (e.g., employees, managers, partners, government, etc.) in crafting our return-to-work process" and "I feel confident that I have safe channels to share my concerns when returning to work." 

I think one of the reasons why we did well on these two questions is because we did this Pre RTW survey to get their input (while also asking during 1-on-1's, Town Halls, etc). Another reason why we did well was because Virtual Suggestions is a strong, safe, anonymous channel for folks to provide feedback. We have been very vigilant in Private Messaging these folks back as much as possible. 

Start asking the right questions BEFORE making decisions to return to work

In hindsight, our leadership team and I were very grateful we were able to ask this Pre RTW survey to get insights from the team. In particular, we were armed with data points and feedback to make better decisions. 

If you want to also utilize this Pre RTW or Post RTW (for those who have returned already), just email your Customer Success Manager, who will be able to turn this on complimentary for your account right away.

And once you have your insights, we'd be happy to help you interpret them as well since these are certainly challenging times we'll navigate together. 

READ MORE

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