Chapter 2: How to Create A Return-To-Work Plan

Social distancing in the office goes beyond keeping a 6-foot distance from your co-worker. It involves completely reimagining normal office life. This may include daily wellness checks, mandatory face coverings, and scheduled shifts for each team. You’ll need to walk your employees through all of these changes and more. Below are some tactics that Salesforce is using:

Flexible Work Policies

Just because the company has decided to reopen the office doesn’t mean all of your employees feel comfortable returning. Consider adopting a flexible work policy that allows those who want or need to remain at home to do so. This creates two benefits:

• Fosters a safer environment: Fewer people will be in the building, making it easier to allow for the required physical distances between colleagues.
• Maintains employee satisfaction: Showing flexibility highlights an employer’s ability to empathise and care for its staff. It demonstrates that you’re willing to prioritise the health and wellness of individuals over your need for them to be in the office.

Work Shifts

To ensure that the number of employees who return to the workplace does not exceed the reduced capacity, you may need to split the workforce into groups that work alternating days or weeks and assign staggered arrival times to avoid crowding in lobbies and elevators.

Be careful to put those who perform similar job functions or are on the same team on separate shifts. This can help allow for business continuity should a positive case be reported on one shift and not the other.

Salesforce uses Work.com to plan and manage our shifts. The app helps us determine who is eligible to return to work based on health and safety standards and who would like to return. It also helps us communicate and coordinate those shifts with employees, who receive messages in the app.

Daily Wellness Check-Ins

As part of confirming their shift, Salesforce is asking employees to complete a daily wellness questionnaire before they head into the office to ensure they do not exhibit signs of COVID-19.

Questions might include:

• I have not tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 14 calendar days.
• I have measured my body temperature within the last 3 hours and the reading was lower than 100.4℉ or 38℃.
• I am not experiencing any symptoms consistent with COVID-19, including but not limited to fever, persistent dry cough, chest pain, loss of sense of smell/taste, body aches, and so on.
• I have not had contact in the past 14 days with anyone confirmed or suspected of having COVID-19.
• I have not traveled internationally or traveled outside my state/province in the past 14 days (other than for my regular work commute and daily activities).

Make sure to check local laws before requiring this type of questionnaire.

Temperature Checks (as local laws allow)

In addition to the self-reported temperatures during daily wellness check-ins, Salesforce has installed kiosks where employees can take their temperature at the office. Our goal is to make these easy to use and accessible for all employees.

Learn how Trailhead can help skill up your team as you return to work.

The design of your office plays a critical role in keeping your employees safe. Design may include everything from spacing out workstations to adding hand-washing or sanitizing stations. When rethinking your space, pay attention to the following areas:

Workstations

The 6-foot rule should extend to desks and space around them. For Salesforce, this means reducing floor capacity by 40% to 50%, removing chairs and desks, and installing plexi dividers to safeguard workstations.

To make it easier to deep clean, consider eliminating assigned seating and asking all employees to take home their personal items.

Shared Spaces

Again, capacity is the name of the game. Consider keeping it low in shared spaces (for example, kitchens, restrooms, meeting rooms) to maintain distance between employees. We’re encouraging employees not to gather in groups larger than 10 people.

Signage

Visual cues, such as signs and stickers, can serve as friendly reminders for employees to keep their distance and help manage the flow of foot traffic in potential areas of crowding. Below are a few signs we’re using at the Salesforce offices.

Elevators

It’s an enclosed space. And if you’re in a tall building, it’s often unavoidable. Welcome to the elevator. Here are the new Salesforce rules of the ride:

• Allow fewer people per elevator to maintain physical distance
• Require staggered employee arrivals to avoid long lines backing up into the lobby
• No talking while inside

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. It’s so important, we’re saying it three times. Reopening an office impacts everyone who works inside the building, and each person plays a role in keeping the entire community safe. Maintain active participation with a regular communication cadence. Below is a sample timeline for sharing your return-to-work plan to return to the workplace:

• Two weeks before reopening:
  • Announce the date the office will reopen.
  • Share the reopening plan in a central place employees have regular access to.
  • Offer digital training using Trailhead to ensure employees understand the new workplace setup before they enter the office.
• One week before reopening:
  • Hold a town hall with local leadership, health officials, and human resources to review the plan and answer questions. Follow up with an email that includes a summary and a video for anyone who missed the meeting.
  • Identify who is qualified (based on the phases you outlined above) and who is interested in returning to work. Tell employees their new shifts and arrival schedules.
• Opening day:
  • Send a message before an employee’s shift to welcome them back and include the daily wellness questionnaire.
  • Survey employees about how their first day went.