How do I prepare my small business for a winter lockdown if Plan B happens
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  3. How do I prepare my small business for a winter lockdown if Plan B happens

As we are now firmly into the colder months, many of us are beginning to think about the government plans for Covid-19 this winter, and how we can prepare our small businesses to deal with which ever plan is put into place.

England’s proposals contain two plans: Plan A, if the number of Covid-19 cases remains manageable, and Plan B, if the number of cases becomes a strain on the NHS and they begin to struggle.

With two contingency plans in place, many small businesses will need to adapt quickly, if Plan A is not sufficient to manage the pressure on the NHS, to Plan B, which includes:

• compulsory face coverings in some settings,
• encouraging people to work from home,
• acting more cautiously in public settings.

Having steps in place to make a smooth transition to Plan B if necessary is vital and our software offers many features to help you if you and your team need to switch to homeworking again, implement social distancing in the workplace, or how to manage returning to the workplace in the new year.

What citrus HR tools can help you with the transition?

Desk booking

The book a desk feature will allow you to manage office working in a safe and seamless way. You can set a workplace capacity limit and allow your team to book a desk to track how many people are working where.

This will allow you to safely manage social distancing and ensure that your team know how many people can safely work in the office at any one time. From this, you can also see who is working from home, so all your staff are accounted for.

Time tracking

Time tracking and timesheets will allow you to monitor the work being completed by your team, especially if they are working from home, or hybrid working.

This can help you track information for different clients and projects, so that you can easily map developments and understand progress made by your team even when you can’t see them regularly.

Monitoring your team can be tricky when deciphering what is reasonable and what privacy rights you need to be aware of. To maintain a culture of trust when monitoring your employees, make sure to be open and clear about your expectations and what measures you are putting into practise.

One-to-one meetings

Our new one-to-one feature will enable you to book, record, and review one-to-one meetings with your employees, and keep track of workload, and is a great way to ensure you are supporting your people well.

As your team might be working from home, or hybrid working, regular one-to-one meetings will allow you to have a less formal discussion with an employee and can be useful for boosting employee engagement, team moral, and productivity. We know mental health can be harder in the winter and especially if Plan B makes us feel more isolated again, so this is a great way to have an open discussion with your team and check-in.

Learn more about our one-to-one tool here and here.

Absence tracker

Understanding how to manage scenarios of sickness absence or self-isolation periods is crucial as you and your team deal with Covid-19 sickness or other winter illnesses and return to stricter working measures.

The self-isolation tracker will enable any of your staff to report their absence separately from another sickness and log the relevant dates that the isolation period will take place. This will be shown on the staff calendar which shows who’s in, out and off at any time, helping you manage your team seamlessly.

 

Our software offers many tools to help you manage Covid-19 and different working scenarios and is here to help you navigate the transition to remote working in the coming months and further.If you like what you’ve read, why don’t you get in touch so we can sort out a full software demo, to help you to get more of a feel for what else our HR software can help you with!

If you need any advice about managing your employees get in touch on 0333 014 3888 or email info@citrushr.com for friendly, expert HR support.

The content of this blog is for general information only. Please don’t rely on it as legal or other professional advice as that is not what we intend. You can find more detail on this in our Terms of Website Use. If you require professional advice, please get in touch.

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