North Carolina’s coronavirus cases exceed 1,000; Gov. Cooper’s stay-at-home order begins Monday. South Carolina governor shuts down non-essential businesses statewide.
Non-essential workers don’t have the option to work in the office anymore. Unless you are going to grocery store, hospital, or liquor store – the local police are enforcing the new order.
Working in the office is a preference for some people. Socializing and building relationships throughout the day was their normal routines. After going in the office was no longer an option for them, a few came to meetings consistently with complaints about how uncomfortable their new working environment was making them feel.
Surprisingly the people who work with us overseas were expected to take a dive in productivity but actually increased their workload. Removing the commuting time and providing them with laptops to work from home allowed them to do more than before. In hindsight, that makes a lot of sense.
Each state has been making their decisions around enforcing a order they feel people with common sense would be able to do if only recommended. Without enforcing; cities were having a large amount of crowds at parks, beaches, and even different house parties were popping up.
People weren’t taking this serious.
At work, the label COVID-19 has started to be the buzzword for all projects to use to make sure everyone in the business would consider your work as essential during this time of emergency. By the time the directives make it down to the front-line the messages are interpreted and twisted different ways; making it difficult to determine the best decisions to support customers who are feeling the same emotional stress and reached out to help them translate all the changes.
How does the change impact them? What should they do now? When should they make decisions?
Some people seem to be tone def and continue as normal operations – ignoring the chaos around them. Others have been paralyzed by the changes. Mental health support is starting to be publicized more as it’s starting to be very apparent – some people are going through trauma.
My approach is to make sure everyone in the house keeps a routine or a rhythm to their day. In such an unpredictable time, the routines are a sense of comfort I can control. Although chaos is going on out there, we know what time to expect everyone in the kitchen for breakfast and when to expect to smell food cooking for dinner. We all have our dedicated work spaces and know where to find each other throughout the day.
Routines are also what I use to support my team at work, consistent meeting times and being available during the same hours creates a sense of security for them. Everyone really just wants something to depend on because the world around us is changing at such a rapid speed – we all don’t know what to expect each hour of the day.