Post COVID19 – where and what next?
Prof Richard Kerley
We’re now at a stage in the Covid19 crisis when public bodies both have to be doing different things in the short term, and should also be thinking about what they could and probably should be doing in the longer term
What I try to outline below are some specific ideas for public bodies, RSLs and voluntary sector organisations to consider over the next few days, weeks or months – and in the longer term over a few years. Indeed, below are both things public bodies should be doing and some things they should probably not be doing.
During the Covid19 crisis public and third sector organisations have arranged for various staff to be redeployed from roles that temporarily have no function, or are not needed. It is really important to recognise that while for some that may have been very stressful and uncomfortable, for others that might have been an eye opening and a career expanding change, even a supercharged one. When staff experience that kind of enforced change experience some are delighted to revert to their old role, yet others are energised and keen to try on new roles permanently. There is a key role for HR teams and line managers to have near term open-ended discussions to assess whether some staff would like permanent redeployment / re-training to a new role and whether it is possible to do that.
All organisations have had to put various emergency measures into place since February/March. Some of those changes may have been an acceleration of already planned options; others ad hoc and immediate with very little scope for pre-planning. Some may have worked well; some have worked less well at first so that those initial changes themselves may have further change. All organisations should assess how well temporary working patterns and arrangement operated in order to understand if it would it be beneficial for such changes to be made permanent? What might the implications be for staff; for the strategic decision makers; the public and budgets. So, for example; what proportion of your staff ‘worked from home ‘; how were they supported; how were they equipped; how was effectiveness monitored? It’s clearly much easier to work from home if you have space, some storage, and the ability to close a door on noisy children; less easy for people in cramped and smaller properties; impossible in some roles. Did your organisation monitor that and treat employee conditions at home as an integral aspect of their working contract?
On return to something approaching normality, that is with some staff back in the usual offices, this will require detailed discussion with large groups of staff. What is the balance between home and office-based work for the staff who have been commanded to work at home over the short term? Can the organisation accommodate different staff preferences in the future? I have no doubt that the right [ and probably much greater] incidence of properly supported and resourced home working in the future will open up employment opportunities to many people currently limited in their employment opportunities. What we should not do is to attempt to switch to a rigid ‘we all now work from home ‘protocol unless we build in flexibility that suits both the staff and the organisation. In any event how long might this arrangement continue? I have spoken to people in several organisations who are being given an earliest timescale of late autumn, or even end of year before the full possibility of ‘going in ‘is available again .
Organisations will probably have monitored all ICT usage over lockdown to assess whether smart phones or tablets have been used more than lap-tops; how much cloud storage and remote file swapping was used; not forgetting how secure this has all been. Did your organisation do that? Agree protocols for recording staff /public exchanges are necessary, so all staff /service users are clear on such arrangements. So, for example record all interviews and discussions for accuracy and a defined record of oral or electronic exchanges between staff and the citizens they provide services to. If you operate Scotland wide, this could also signal to you very clearly those parts of the country where connectivity is not yet good enough, and put pressure on providers to remedy that quite quickly.
People will return to work spaces, some of which will be shared, some of which will be hot desks, used in one week by several people. How did that work before; how differently does it need to work in the future? How can we accommodate the need to ensure appropriate hygiene measures and physical distance? What does any of this tell us about our requirement for accommodation, equipment, effective communication etc? We should use immediate post lockdown workarounds to assess longer term work space use. So, if perhaps the home /office balance is 2/3 days per week in the office, the rest of the week at home how are desks, chairs, filing, personal storage etc used and deployed. Do you remember all those discussions about the paperless office? That needs to be put into place now, both enabling people to work that way in offices and at home. That also suggests that organisations should be discussing with their staff how people working from home for at least part of the week might be compensated for the additional costs and inconvenience that flows from that in terms of space occupied, storage at home, heating and electricity costs incurred and so on.
Given the disastrous experience we have had over supplies and services necessary for such a pandemic crisis, all organisations must be reviewing resilience supplies of all forms. Where are the plans for a PPE supply store to support front-line workers next time round?
It may be time to think about property and premises . Post-Covid19 there will be distressed property assets in all our urban areas and owners ready to consider disposal. This potentially provides a good chance for some organisations to acquire such assets through negotiation and possibly shared acquisition. This is also likely to be a period when capital borrowing for acquisition and construction related work is cheaper than in a very long time. Does that seem pertinent to your organisation?
What I have argued for elsewhere [ Times 1st June 2020] would be a cash incentivised architectural competition for the design of a new model care home that allowed socialisation most of the time and hygienic segregation when required. Every recent press and TV image we have seen of care homes where countless numbers of deaths have occurred has shown us relatively new buildings with contemporary design, often surrounded by grass. However, that model of single rooms, narrow corridors and limited social space probably won’t survive. This is a time for RSLs and Integrated Joint Boards to be joining the debate about what kind of physical ‘supported’ accommodation we need for older people and some of those people who have different disabilities. The previous arrangements have not worked well and there must be lots of room to do things differently.
