Corporate

4   PANDEMIC MANAGEMENT OVERALL – No one could have foreseen that procuring and distributing PPE, screening and tracing employees, managing constantly changing protocols and regulations, communicating new safety procedures and organizational changes, re-engineering work schedules, and, sadly, too often, managing layoffs would subsume employers and health and safety managers. However, making accommodations to the new normal the biggest challenge for half of survey respondents. And this is just the beginning. As employees and customers return to the workplace in a more fulsome manner these activities are likely to increase. In addition, going forward, employers will need to spend time on tracking and managing the issue of vaccination policy in their workplaces. REMOTE WORK In this year's survey, 49% of respondents indicated that remote work was an emerging issue. This isn't surprising given the mass exodus from workplaces that has occurred as the result of stay-at-home orders and lockdowns. The McKinsey report, What's Next for Remote Work highlights, "The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some…Companies are pondering how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety, among a host of other thorny questions raised by COVID-19." 6 WSPS Senior Account Manager, Jack Minacs, says he has received a number of questions from his customers about how to meet health and safety obligations, how legislation applies to home-based employees, and whether the rights of employees around issues such as work refusal still apply. "I've also had a lot of questions about inspections, ergonomics, mental health and dealing with isolation." Minacs notes that employers are amping up communication and outreach activities in groups and one-on-one. Some organizations are going a step further in helping staff maintain healthy boundaries by putting policies in place to avoid meeting and video fatigue. " It forced us to expand on our remote work toolkit and ensure staff were provided with tools and ergonomic resources for their remote worksite." —Reactive respondent ©2021 Workplace Safety & Prevention Services. All rights reserved. 28 EMERGING ISSUES

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