How are companies bringing their employees back?

One of the really cool things about what we do at Coordinated is that we get the opportunity to talk to so many different people about their business and how it is run.  I have spent 25 or so years learning about how other people do business with the outcome of helping them be more effective, efficient, and profitable.  

As I don’t get to go out much anymore, I live vicariously through my reps. I ask them about what problems they are seeing in the market, what common questions they are being asked, and what the temperature is out in the market.

The most common question we get lately is “Have you brought everyone back and what steps did you take to do so?” coupled with “What are your customers doing as it relates to bringing people back?”

Answers to these questions are all over the board.  To answer the first question, we have brought everyone back and have a very specific and fluid COVID-19 policy document that outlines social distancing guidelines, cleaning guidelines, travel guidelines, infection response plans, and how to keep yourself and our customers safe.  In addition, we have instituted the use of a thermal imaging kiosk that is used to temperature screen everyone who comes in our building and is also a timeclock for our hourly employees.  It uses facial recognition software to identify who is who and has very useful functionality beyond the pandemic.

In our customer base, I have spoken to customers who have made the decision to go remote permanently.  They have discovered that the current office setting is expensive and their business allows them to shed their brick-and-mortar while going completely remote. When they need to have a meeting they will rent a common space. This of course leads to conversations about printing, accessing information, network security, communication, and how to handle all of those things in a remote work environment.  

We have other customers that need stop gaps until a return date. We have heard as far out as the end of the year and as early as after the 4th of July. The estimates are all over the board, but in the meantime, they need solutions to address how to communicate, print, and be secure doing those things.

Then there are customers who, like us, have returned to the office. I won't say that they have returned to normal but they have returned to the office.  In those situations, the same questions come up about security, efficiency, printing and scanning. In many cases, the people that were doing things are gone and new people have to learn new skills, or technology has to be employed to fill operations gaps.

For the first time in my lifetime, all the world has been impacted by a single event, and based on that event there will be change. When you enter uncharted waters there are no experts and I’m not claiming to be one. What I have is a unique platform to view these events from that give me a differing perspective.  

As devastating as the events of the past few months have been, the dramatic and long-term impact that will linger; We will also see more meaningful change than we have seen in previous lifetimes.  Those changes will be personal, social, and technological throughout every aspect of our life.

I am excited to see the changes that are brought forth, the opportunities that will exist tomorrow that don’t today, and the impact of all of that on business.