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This article discusses how hard it was for companies to stay afloat during COVID. It talked about the struggles of trying to keep employees working and how everyone's working conditions were drastically changed.

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In March, as the spread of coronavirus accelerated, threatening to overwhelm our medical system and decimate our communities, American business abruptly ground to a halt. Restaurant owners laid off their workers. Hotel chains instituted furloughs. Supermarkets tried to keep up with the sudden demand for toilet paper and eggs.

Two months later, the pandemic rages on. Even as some businesses attempt to reopen, COVID-19 threatens future closures and thrusts the economy into a near-certain recession. It is, by most accounts, the threat of our lifetime.

At key moments in history - financial panics and depressions, global conflicts and catastrophes - companies shoulder responsibilities that go far beyond meeting earnings targets and satisfying shareholders. Some step up to help stabilize the financial and social systems that made their businesses possible in the first place. This type of private-sector leadership will be crucial to weathering the pandemic and, ultimately, jumpstarting our economic recovery. As former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault wrote in mid-March, "How our businesses, chief executives and other corporate leaders respond now will play a large part in determining whether we can defeat coronavirus without paying a huge price in lives and national wealth."

What does this type of leadership look like? Here at LinkedIn, my colleague Scott Olster and I spent the last month tracking the actions of big and small companies to distill its traits. We spoke with business professors and historians. We tapped the insights of members of LinkedIn's Top Voices, as well as some of our most thoughtful Influencers. And we interviewed people attempting to contribute while staying in business, from a bookstore owner in Ann Arbor, Michigan to an American car manufacturer in nearby Detroit; from a Mississippi blue jeans company to the largest grocery store chain in the world.

What has emerged is a rich portrait of individuals taking action through uncertainty, acting quickly to put their resources to work.

These are just a few examples of industries and companies that have acted quickly to help their employees, customers and communities. They have gone Beyond the Call.

"How our businesses, chief executives and other corporate leaders respond now will play a large part in determining whether we can defeat coronavirus without paying a huge price in lives and national wealth." - Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express

So today, we launch an editorial project and regular newsletter that will endeavor to explore business leadership over the course of the pandemic and its fallout. We begin with 20 examples of companies, both large and small, that have demonstrated exceptional leadership through this crisis-grouped by the 10 primary ways we've seen companies step up right now. From here, I'll feature interviews with significant figures in an ongoing newsletter. And I'll showcase businesses and, in some cases, individuals who are attempting to direct their resources to the communities that need help. I invite you to join me for this exploration. Share your own stories and the examples you're seeing in your communities.

This project will depend in part on you. Where do you see business helping? Where is it missing important opportunities? Do you agree with the examples we've chosen to showcase? Jump into this conversation.

East Fork Pottery - Asheville, North Carolina

A decade ago, Alex and Connie Matisse and their friend John Vigeland laid bricks for a kiln in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just outside Asheville, North Carolina, launching an endeavor that would become East Fork Pottery. With its affordable, sustainably produced dishware, the businesshas grown a cult following of customers in Asheville and beyond. Today, they've moved manufacturing to Asheville, where a staff of more than 80 supply pottery to customers across the country. This spring, concerned about inequities in their community in the wake of COVID-19, they jumped into action: People were invited to "buy a mug for a health care worker." All proceeds - $15,025 - went to Vecinos, a nonprofit that offers health care to farm workers and local health care workers, and they gifted the actual mugs to nurses working the night shift on Easter Sunday. They've followed the fundraiser with weekly raffles, in hopes of raising $100,000 for social justice-focused organizations. Says Connie Matisse, "We want to make it as easy as possible for those of us with access to health care, with food to eat, with a safe place to sleep and with a little bit of a financial safety net to help spread that privilege to those of us in our community who don't have those things."

Meanwhile, among large companies, UnitedHealth Group has moved quickly to provide both economic relief and its unique expertise to support heavily impacted communities. It has made nearly $70 million in commitments, with many of the philanthropic dollars directed at initiatives to fight hunger. In mid-April, Andrew Witty left his role as president of UnitedHealth Group and CEO of UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum to spend the year helping lead the World Health Organization's COVID-19 vaccine program. He was the most senior UnitedHealth Group executive to join the cause, but not the only one. In March, as coronavirus hospitalizations began to take off in New Jersey, the company loaned two senior leaders to the NJ Department of Health to help prepare for the influx of patients. Then in early May, the company said it would make $1.5 billion worth of premium credits and fees for doctor's visits available to people enrolled in its plans.

More than two weeks before stay-at-home orders were issued in California, San Francisco-based Fastly became a remote company overnight. In a March 1 blog post, CEO Joshua Bixby explained that out of an abundance of caution, all work travel would cease and offices would close. That move prompted many of Fastly's peers to follow suit. With close to 600 employees, Fastly is a cloud-computing company that helps keep our internet running smoothly. Reflecting on the move a month later, Bixby acknowledged that even with a large number of people already working remotely, the shift had been bumpy; he noted the challenges openly, and explained how the company had responded. From getting tools to employees so they could do their jobs to providing time off for them to set up e-learning strategies and do food shopping for their families, Bixby figured out how to respond in real time. By acting quickly, and then sharing what worked and what didn't at regular intervals, Bixby has been able to protect his employees and set a model for others.

While some types of work are well-suited to a remote approach, others are not. Take cafes and restaurants. Among large employers, Starbucks is just one example of a company that has taken significant steps to protect its workers. Through May 3, employees were given the option to stay home with pay, even if their location was open. Additionally, anyone exposed to or diagnosed with COVID-19 could choose to stay home through the end of May, with pay. Starbucks also introduced service pay, an additional $3/hour for employees who chose to work their shifts through May 31. Employees can also apply for hardship grants through the company's CUP Fund, which supports employees. As stores re-open across the country, CEO Kevin Johnson has offered a strategy for how to do this safely; among other things, all employees are required to wear masks.

Literati Bookstore - Ann Arbor, Michigan

Seven years ago, Hilary and Mike Gustafson launched Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, MI. It was meant to be as much a community gathering place as a bookshop, and it took off. In mid-March, as the stay-at-home order shut businesses across the state, the Gustafsons had tough decisions to make: How could they pause operations without going under? "We were looking at massive layoffs. And before making any huge changes, I thought, 'Let's just put it to the community to see what they think'," wrote Mike Gustafson in an email exchange, explaining that they launched a GoFundMe campaign. "They rallied and it kept us afloat and gave us some breathing room."

"We were looking at massive layoffs. And before making any huge changes, I thought, 'Let's just put it to the community to see what they think.'" -Mike Gustafson, Literati Bookstore

The Gustafsons got an online ordering system going, and they developed a digital events series. Since the Gustafsons didn't receive a federal PPP (payment protection program) loan during the first round, the GoFundMe funds have allowed them to keep things going with minimal layoffs - they've managed to maintain 24 of their 28 employees. While it's a testament to their ingenuity, Literati is not in the clear yet. "Our costs and liabilities are far greater than what we've raised on GoFundMe," writes Gustafson. The store just launched curbside pickup. And the Gustafsons are "throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks," as they experiment with other revenue-generating projects. Says Mike Gustafson, "The biggest thing we're realizing is, we're becoming an online company in 2020. So we need to completely reinvent what we do."

In many cases, large companies have had more leeway to weigh layoffs without missing payroll. In late March, just as the potential of the economic devastation ahead was sinking in, Salesforce cofounder andCEO Marc Benioff turned to Twitter to call on companies to pledge not to make any "significant" layoffs for 90 days. In the same tweet, he committed Salesforce to continue paying hourly workers while offices were closed. Speaking on CNBC, Benioff said, "This is a moment where business has to be the greatest platform for change."

"This is a moment where business has to be the greatest platform for change." -Marc Benioff, Salesforce

Benioff, who has also spearheaded an early corporate effort to produce and deliver PPE (personal protective equipment), was putting the challenge out to his peers, and many signed on: Bank of America and Morgan Stanley followed suit. "Don't make these layoff decisions yet," he told CNBC's Jim Cramer. "Wait until we get into the recovery phase so we can see what the economic possibilities are."

Wit's End - Cambridge, Massachusetts

Just as in restaurants and bars across the country, the tony craft cocktail bar Wit's End in Cambridge, MA, had to close its dining room to customers in mid-March. "Revenue went to zero in a day," says owner Peter Stein. He had to lay off a dozen employees as he frantically applied for PPP loans. His landlord still needed the rent. "That got me thinking," says Stein. "I had the space. My brother is a physician with a practice in Manhattan. What else could we do with it?" He and his brother, Dr. Benjamin Stein, spent the next two weeks setting up a medical practice in the former dining room to offer COVID-19 antibody tests. Stein hired back any interested employees: his bartender had gone to nursing school, and she made a great phlebotomist. His dishwasher became the cleaner. A server signed on as a medical assistant. He's also hired several new employees to keep the place running. Stein takes walk-in appointments and charges $139 for the test. He has no idea how long he'll keep the clinic running. But for now, the new business keeps a few Wit's End employees working, helps him make rent and offers a needed service to the community.

UPDATE 5/13: Cambridge City officials have ordered Wit's End to shut down while it further evaluates whether the bar can transform into a doctor's office. Its future remains tbd.

In mid-March, a group of CEOs approached GM about getting into the ventilator business. The company partnered with a small Washington-based medical device company called Ventec. Their goal was to speed up production. Ventec normally makes 200 ventilators each month; GM wanted to 10x that. GM cleared out an idling plant in Kokomo, Indiana, replacing machines that made electrical components for cars with an assembly line for manufacturing ventilators. GM and Ventec had the Kokomo plant up and running by the start of April. On April 8, the Trump administration ordered 30,000 ventilators under the Defense Production Act, in an attempt to quadruple the strategic national stockpile. The automaker has said it doesn't plan to make a profit on the ventilators, looking only to cover costs.

Dry Diggings Distillery - El Dorado Hills, California

At Dry Diggings Distillery in El Dorado Hills, CA, not far from Sacramento, the tasting room has closed, and tours are no longer available. But owner Cris Steller is busier than ever. The distillery, which sells spirits like vodka, gin and rum, is now making disinfecting sprays and hand sanitizers. Steller, who is also executive director of the California Artisanal Distillers Guild, started production on the day that California Governor Gavin Newsom required restaurants and bars to close. It's just one of dozens of distilleries around the country from Kailui, Hawaii to Borden, Ind. that have repurposed some of their facilities to manufacture disinfectants. Dry Diggings has raised $60,000 through GoFundMe to cover the cost of the necessary supplies-the plastic bottles, for example-to produce the goods. Steller is donating the products to first responders in local counties.

Meanwhile, as Gilead Science's antiviral drug, Remdesevir, proves to be the only treatment approved for use with COVID-19 patients, the company is also stepping up. It has donated its entire existing supply-enough to treat 140,000 patients-to the U.S. federal government to use for severely ill patients. The distribution of the drugs has been haphazard with little transparency around how the government determines which hospitals are most in need of it. There's not enough to go around. But Gilead is stepping up its production, with the aim of having enough to treat a million people by the end of the year.

Mario Salerno - Brooklyn, New York

As March began to wear on weary New Yorkers and many feared for their health and the stability of their jobs, Brooklyn landlord Mario Salerno began to hear from concerned tenants that they couldn't make ends meet. So, he canceled rent for the month of April at all 18 of the apartment buildings he owns. He hung signs announcing the news at each of the buildings, adding "STAY SAFE, HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS & WASH YOUR HANDS!!!"

"STAY SAFE, HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS & WASH YOUR HANDS!!!" -Mario Salerno, Brooklyn landlord

Salerno owns about 80 apartments, home to more than 200 tenants, and he worried they'd be unable to cover other basic costs like food or health care atop their rent. He told a local blog, Greenpointers, "I didn't think it was much on a person like me, who god was good to, to help them all out."

For many American families trying to work from home and help their children with school, connectivity has become nearly as important as food and shelter. In early March, the FCC launched a Keep Americans Connected pledge: Wireless companies commit not to charge late fees or disconnect service and to open WiFi hotspots for those who need them. All four of the largest wireless firms signed on to the pledge, which has been extended through June 30, and many have gone a step further. AT&T, for example, has added a new low-cost plan starting at just $15 a month, and also offered all customers additional data.

What's more, AT&T built and maintains the dedicated first responder public safety communications network called FirstNet. It's providing three months of free wireless service on the FirstNet network to doctors and nurses helping with the response to COVID-19. And it has deployed more than 57 portable cell sites to support the pandemic response. In Dallas, when public safety agencies from multiple jurisdictions transformed a major sports venue parking lot into a testing center, AT&T equipped them with devices.

Blue Delta Jeans - Tupelo, Mississippi

The seamstresses operating in the back warehouse just outside Tupelo, Mississippi have spent years sewing jeans for the moderately rich and often famous as employees of Blue Delta Jeans. Since Josh West and Nick Weaver started this custom blue jeans company in 2011, their made-to-order pants have become staples in the closets of everyone from the actress Nicole Kidman to Chicago Cubs pitcher Jon Lester (who reportedly owns dozens of pairs). Then COVID-19 set in. Business paused as the sporting events where they often fit and sold their pants were called off. Demand for their $500 jeans stopped overnight. But if demand for jeans had fallen, the need for masks was suddenly significant. "We thought, 'Let's try to plug as much gap of the need as we can,'" said Weaver.

"We thought, 'Let's try to plug as much gap of the need as we can.'" -Nick Weaver, cofounder, Blue Delta

Blue Delta retooled its factory in a matter of days, installing partitions to protect workers who'd once worked in open spaces and testing new materials to make masks. Now, the company manufactures 10,000 masks a week, which they sell to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and other local government agencies. They've been able to keep people employed and even hire a few additional staff, while providing necessary materials to keep people safe.

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts - Toronto, Canada

Like many hotels in NYC, the Four Seasons closed on March 20. The following week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asked hotels to loan their rooms to health care workers. The Four Seasons was the first to offer up its inventory. Five days later, it had transformed into an upscale dormitory for those who lived too far from a hospital, or among too vulnerable a population, to go home. The rooms are completely free; the billionaire who owns the New York Four Seasons, Beanie Baby mogul Ty Warner, is covering the expense through his company, Ty Warner Hotels and Resorts. The Plaza Hotel, The St.Regis and The Wythe Hotel were among many others that followed the Four Seasons' lead.

SF New Deal - San Francisco, California

In mid-March, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear gave $1 million to local baker Lenore Estrada, owner of the Three Babes Bakeshop (amazing blackberry crumble!). The pair were close friends, having met in college decades earlier. The goal was to keep small business in business during the pandemic and its aftermath, and the project blossomed into theSF New Deal. The volunteer-run organizationhelps restaurants and their teams stay solvent by paying them to deliver food to many of SF's most vulnerable, through a network of shelters, community centers, SROs and services to the housebound. Supported by private donations and now a partnership with SF's Human Rights Commission, SF New Deal has struck a partnership with the self-driving car company Cruise, and paid out more than $1 million so far.

The COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium brings together federal government agencies, private companies and universities to make supercomputing available for free to help speed research. Launched in March by IBM, the U.S. White House's Office of Science and Technology Police, and the U.S. Department of Energy, the consortium now includes more than a dozen private industry partners. All in, the 30 supercomputing systems represent more than 40 petaflops of computing capacity, with each petaflop costing between $2 million and $3 million, according to IBM Research director Dario Gil, speaking to the Wall Street Journal. (In case you, like me, didn't know what a petaflop was, here's a definition: it's a unit of computing speed equal to one thousand million million operations per second.) Researchers submit projects, which are reviewed by a panel of experts. Proposals include one from Michigan State University that aims to use artificial intelligence to reposition existing drugs for COVID-19 applications. Another one, from NASA's Ames Research Center, analyzes the genome of patient groups with a higher risk of coronavirus infection. There are currently 46 active projects.

Chef Ed Lee - Louisville, Kentucky

When restaurants were shuttered in March, restaurateurs had to lay off staff overnight. In Brooklyn, Olmsted chef Greg Baxtrom terminated all 60 of his employees. Baxtrom then got involved in the Restaurant Workers Relief Program. Founded by Louisville chef Ed Lee, the program set out to transform restaurants across the country into relief centers. Working through a nonprofit called the Lee Initiative, which he helped establish in 2015 to empower diversity among chefs, and with support from Makers' Mark, Lee launched the Restaurant Workers Relief Program. Restaurants like Olmsted in Brooklyn and Eugene & Elizabeth's in Atlanta have committed to offering meals and supplies to laid-off restaurant workers as long as their funding and food donations last. The operation has spread to 16 cities. Now, as restaurants begin to reopen, Lee is spearheading the Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, which will direct $1 million to purchasing food from local farmers over the course of the next year. The food will be distributed to restaurants that have taken part in the initial relief effort.

As hard as COVID-19 has been for restaurants, it has also decimated the travel industry. Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson knew he was going to have to furlough and lay off most of the company's people. So, on March 20, he spoke directly to his employees in a remarkably candid video message. He'd just completed chemotherapy and had no hair. Nonetheless, he chose video so that he could deliver the news face-to-face: the pandemic had cut into the company's business by as much as 75% in many of its markets. Cutting staff was inevitable, and Sorenson was committed to doing it with compassion. The company furloughed two-thirds of its 4,000 employees at corporate headquarters and most of its U.S. workers. A furlough offers more flexibility than a layoff as employees can retain some benefits while being able to draw from unemployment-and makes it easier to bring them back when business ramps back up. Meanwhile, Sorenson gave up his salary: both he and executive chairman Bill Marriott took a 100% cut, and his executives took a 50% cut.

Cali Dumpling Delivery - Irvine, California

While many restaurants may not reopen for a long time, some entrepreneurial owners are making plans to launch related services, getting people working and customers fed again. Candace and Allan Tea launched Cali Dumpling Delivery overnight, literally, after the dim sum chain their family runs, Capital Seafood, shuttered. Tea partnered with a wholesale dumpling supplier to establish the new service in Irvine, California, and it has been expanding to adjacent neighborhoods. For a flat fee of $10, the service will deliver hand-folded dumplings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Put your order in 24 hours in advance. All profits go to employees in the hospitality industry who have lost their jobs. The company has been able to hire back 10 people so far, and it has sent checks and groceries to 40 others.

As many larger companies begin preparations to reopen safely, grocery store chain Kroger has had to figure out in real-time how to operate in the time of COVID-19. While many industries saw demand shrivel in March, grocery stores saw the opposite: Kroger's same-store sales soared 30%. In late April, CEO Rodney McMullen offered a blueprint for operation during the pandemic based on the company's experiences. Inside the 17-page blueprint are actions and lessons that Kroger has applied this spring to protect employees, customers and the communities it serves, from strategies for enforcing social distancing to modifying store hours to administering regular health checks. The plan also includes a round-up of lessons Kroger has learned from watching its Asian business partners reopen.

A special thanks to LinkedIn Influencers Arianna Huffington, Deepak Chopra, James Citrin, Whitney Johnson, Brené Brown, Daymond John, Jeffrey Pfeffer, and Mark Cuban, who weighed in on this process and helped with our reporting. Thanks also to members of our LinkedIn Top Voices for offering nominations. And thanks to Just Capital CEO Martin Whittaker, the University of Toronto's Roger Martin, and Copenhagen Business School researcher Maha Atal.
What companies do you believe are going above and beyond during the pandemic? Weigh in with a comment below. #BeyondTheCall

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Beyond the Call: How companies have stepped up during COVID-19

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In March, as the spread of coronavirus accelerated, threatening to overwhelm our medical system and decimate our communities, American business abruptly ground to a halt. Restaurant owners laid off their workers.

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This article discusses how companies like McKinsey & Company had to adjust the working conditions and environment during COVID-19. It talks about the positive and negative outcomes of the pandemic. The obstacles they had to adjust around, and the everlasting effects.

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The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives. In this McKinsey webinar, experts highlight four primary challenges in making the leap to managing a remote team: people, structure, process, and technology. Managers must address all four dimensions to create an efficient working model.

People. In addition to setting direction and helping employees work effectively, managers should focus on energizing the team and providing psychological safety-reiterate a shared purpose, encourage levity and informal videoconference get-togethers, and get to know one another as people.

Structure. Remote working amplifies any existing lack of clarity and difficulty navigating the organization. The answer is to shift from large, siloed teams to smaller, cross-functional teams of five to nine people with clear, outcome-based objectives.

Process. Establishing a clear cadence of scheduled daily and weekly meetings is crucial for remote working. This approach usually requires a culture shift, and managers must adapt to dealing with more ambiguity.

Technology. Managers must ensure employees have the basics-for example, enough bandwidth for a full family online all day-as well as tools spanning content creation, video conferencing, file sharing, channel-based communication, backlog management, and team culture. All of these tools need to meet security requirements.

For more, see " A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China. "

The contents of this site, including any statements, articles, graphics, charts, checklists, and other materials ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or constitute medical advice. This content was previously posted on McKinsey's COVID Response Center and is subject to our commitment to the Open Covid Pledge under these Terms of Use.

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How to lead and manage remotely: Adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic | McKinsey Live

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The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology. As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives.

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This article talks about the effects that covid 19 had on the working class. It dicussed the struggles of transtion from remote workspace to home and back to an office setting.

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Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace

Purpose
This guidance is designed to help employers protect workers who are unvaccinated (including people who are not fully vaccinated) or otherwise at-risk (as defined in the text box below), including if they are immunocompromised, and also implement new guidance involving workers who are fully vaccinated but located in areas of substantial or high community transmission.
This guidance contains recommendations as well as descriptions of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) mandatory safety and health standards, the latter of which are clearly labeled throughout as " mandatory OSHA standards." The recommendations are advisory in nature and informational in content and are intended to assist employers in providing a safe and healthful workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm.

OSHA emphasizes that vaccination is the most effective way to protect against severe illness or death from COVID-19. OSHA strongly encourages employers to provide paid time off to workers for the time it takes for them to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects. Employers should also consider working with local public health authorities to provide vaccinations for unvaccinated workers in the workplace. Finally, OSHA suggests that employers consider adopting policies that require workers to get vaccinated or to undergo regular COVID-19 testing - in addition to mask wearing and physical distancing - if they remain unvaccinated. People are considered fully vaccinated for COVID-19 two weeks or more after they have completed their final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine authorized for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the United States.

Executive Summary

This guidance is intended to help employers and workers not covered by the OSHA's COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for Healthcare, helping them identify COVID-19 exposure risks to workers who are unvaccinated or otherwise at risk even if they are fully vaccinated (e.g., if they are immunocompromised). See Text Box: Who Are "At-Risk" Workers?

This guidance is also intended to help employers and workers who are located in areas of substantial or high community transmission, who should take appropriate steps to prevent exposure and infection regardless of vaccination status. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports in its latest Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People that infections in fully vaccinated people (breakthrough infections) happen in only a small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant. Moreover, when these infections occur among vaccinated people, they tend to be mild, reinforcing that vaccines are an effective and critical tool for bringing the pandemic under control.

However, preliminary evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people who do become infected with the Delta variant can be infectious and can spread the virus to others.

This evidence has led CDC to update recommendations for fully vaccinated people to reduce their risk of becoming infected with the Delta variant and potentially spreading it to others, including by:

wearing a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission;

choosing to wear a mask regardless of level of transmission, particularly if individuals are at risk or have someone in their household who is at increased risk of severe disease or not fully vaccinated; and

getting tested 3-5 days following a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wearing a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until a negative test result.

In this guidance, OSHA adopts analogous recommendations.

CDC has also updated its guidance for COVID-19 prevention in K-12 schools to recommend universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. CDC's Face Mask Order requiring masks on public transportation conveyances and inside transportation hubs has not changed, but CDC has announced that it will be amending its Face Masks Order to not require people to wear a mask in outdoor areas of conveyances (if such outdoor areas exist on the conveyance) or while outdoors at transportation hubs, and that it will exercise its enforcement discretion in the meantime.

Who Are "At-Risk Workers"?

Some conditions, such as a prior transplant, as well as prolonged use of corticosteroids or other immune-weakening medications, may affect workers' ability to have a full immune response to vaccination. To understand more about these conditions, see the CDC's page describing Vaccines for People with Underlying Medical Conditions and further definition of People with Certain Medical Conditions. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), workers with disabilities may be legally entitled to reasonable accommodations that protect them from the risk of contracting COVID-19 if, for example, they cannot be protected through vaccination, cannot be vaccinated, or cannot use face coverings. Employers should consider taking steps to protect these at-risk workers as they would unvaccinated workers, regardless of their vaccination status.
COVID-19 and Prevention
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, is highly infectious and can spread from person to person, including through aerosol transmission of particles produced when an infected person exhales, talks, vocalizes, sneezes, or coughs. The virus that causes COVID-19 is highly transmissible and can be spread by people who have no symptoms. Particles containing the virus can travel more than 6 feet, especially indoors and in dry conditions (relative humidity below 40%), and can be spread by individuals who do not know they are infected.

Vaccines authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the United States are highly effective at protecting most fully vaccinated people against symptomatic and severe COVID-19. OSHA encourages employers to take steps to make it easier for workers to get vaccinated and encourages workers to take advantage of those opportunities. However, CDC recognizes that even some fully vaccinated people who are largely protected against severe illness and death may still be capable of transmitting the virus to others. Therefore, this guidance mirrors CDC's in recommending masking and testing even for fully vaccinated people in certain circumstances.

OSHA also continues to recommend implementing multiple layers of controls (e.g. mask wearing, distancing, and increased ventilation). Along with vaccination, key controls to help protect unvaccinated and other at-risk workers include removing from the workplace all infected people, all people experiencing COVID symptoms, and any people who are not fully vaccinated who have had close contact with someone with COVID-19 and have not tested negative for COVID-19 immediately if symptoms develop and again at least 5 days after the contact (in which case they may return 7 days after contact). Fully vaccinated people who have had close contact should get tested for COVID-19 3-5 days after exposure and be required to wear face coverings for 14 days after their contact unless they test negative for COVID-19. Additional fundamental controls that protect unvaccinated and other at-risk workers include maintaining ventilation systems, implementing physical distancing, and properly using face coverings (or other Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and respiratory protection such as N95 respirators when appropriate), and proper cleaning. Fully vaccinated people in areas of substantial or high transmission should be required to wear face coverings inside (or other appropriate PPE and respiratory protection) as well. Employees may request reasonable accommodations, absent an undue hardship, if they are unable to comply with safety requirements due to a disability. For more information, see the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC's) What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws.

Finally, OSHA provides employers with specific guidance for environments at a higher risk for exposure to or spread of COVID-19, primarily workplaces where unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers are more likely to be in prolonged, close contact with other workers or the public, or in closed spaces without adequate ventilation.

Scope

OSHA provides this guidance for employers as recommendations to use in protecting unvaccinated workers and otherwise at-risk workers, and to help those workers protect themselves. This guidance also incorporates CDC's recommendations for fully vaccinated workers in areas of substantial or high transmission. Employers and workers should use this guidance to determine any appropriate control measures to implement.

While this guidance addresses most workplaces, many healthcare workplace settings will be covered by the mandatory OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard. Pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act (the OSH Act or the Act), employers in those settings must comply with that standard. All employers must comply with any other applicable mandatory safety and health standards and regulations issued and enforced either by OSHA or by an OSHA-approved state plan. In addition, the Act's General Duty Clause, Section 5(a)(1), requires employers to provide their workers with a safe and healthful workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Employers who are not covered by the OSH Act (like public sector employers in some states) will also find useful control measures in this guidance to help reduce the risk of COVID-19 in their workplaces.

This guidance is not a standard or regulation, and it creates no new legal obligations. It contains recommendations as well as descriptions of existing mandatory OSHA standards, the latter of which are clearly labeled throughout. The recommendations are advisory in nature and informational in content and are intended to assist employers in recognizing and abating hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm as part of their obligation to provide a safe and healthful workplace.

About COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is highly infectious and spreads from person to person, including through aerosol transmission of particles produced when an infected person exhales, talks, vocalizes, sneezes, or coughs. COVID-19 is less commonly transmitted when people touch a contaminated object and then touch their eyes, nose, or mouth. The virus that causes COVID-19 is highly transmissible and can be spread by people who have no symptoms and who do not know they are infected. Particles containing the virus can travel more than 6 feet, especially indoors and in dry conditions with relative humidity below 40%. The CDC estimates that over fifty percent of the spread of the virus is from individuals with no symptoms at the time of spread.

More information on COVID-19 is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What Workers Need To Know about COVID-19 Protections in the Workplace

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, spreads mainly among unvaccinated people who are in close contact with one another - particularly indoors and especially in poorly ventilated spaces.

Vaccination is the key element in a multi-layered approach to protect workers. Learn about and take advantage of opportunities that your employer may provide to take time off to get vaccinated. Vaccines authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are highly effective at protecting vaccinated people against symptomatic and severe COVID-19 illness and death. According to the CDC, a growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people are less likely to have symptomatic infection or transmit the virus to others. See CDC's Guidance for Fully Vaccinated People; and Science Brief.

You should follow recommended precautions and policies at your workplace. Multi-layered controls tailored to your workplace are especially important for those workers who are unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk. Many employers have established COVID-19 prevention programs that include a number of important steps to keep unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers safe. These COVID-19 prevention programs include measures such as telework and flexible schedules, engineering controls (especially ventilation), administrative policies (e.g., vaccination policies), PPE, face coverings, physical distancing, and enhanced cleaning programs with a focus on high-touch surfaces.

In addition, the CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people wear a mask in public indoor settings if they are in an area of substantial or high transmission. Fully vaccinated people might choose to mask regardless of the level of transmission, particularly if they or someone in their household is immunocompromised or at increased risk for severe disease, or if someone in their household is unvaccinated. Ask your employer about plans in your workplace. In addition, employees with disabilities who are at-risk may request reasonable accommodation under the ADA.

Even if your employer does not have a COVID-19 prevention program, if you are unvaccinated or otherwise at risk, you can help protect yourself by following the steps listed below:

You should get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as you can. Ask your employer about opportunities for paid leave, if necessary, to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects.

Properly wear a face covering over your nose and mouth. Face coverings are simple barriers worn over the face, nose and chin. They work to help prevent your respiratory droplets or large particles from reaching others. Individuals are encouraged to choose higher quality masks so that they are providing a greater measure of protection to themselves as well as those around them. CDC provides general guidance on masks, including face coverings.

If you are working outdoors, you may opt not to wear face coverings in many circumstances; however, your employer should support you in safely continuing to wear a face covering if you choose, especially if you work closely with other people.

Unless you are fully vaccinated and not otherwise at-risk, stay far enough away from other people so that you are not breathing in particles produced by them - generally at least 6 feet (about 2 arm lengths), although this approach by itself is not a guarantee that you will avoid infection, especially in enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces. Ask your employer about possible telework and flexible schedule options at your workplace, and take advantage of such policies if possible. Perform work tasks, hold meetings, and take breaks outdoors when possible.

Participate in any training offered by your employer/building manager to learn how rooms are ventilated effectively, encourage your employer to provide such training if it does not already exist, and notify the building manager if you see vents that are clogged, dirty, or blocked by furniture or equipment.

Practice good personal hygiene and wash your hands often. Always cover your mouth and nose with a tissue, or the inside of your elbow, when you cough or sneeze, and do not spit. Monitor your health daily and be alert for COVID-19 symptoms (e.g., fever, cough, or shortness of breath). See CDC's Daily Activities and Going Out and CDC's Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.

Get tested regularly, especially in areas of substantial or high community transmission.

COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at keeping you from getting COVID-19. If you are not yet fully vaccinated or are otherwise at risk, optimum protection is provided by using multiple layers of interventions that prevent exposure and infection.

The Roles of Employers and Workers in Responding to COVID-19

Under the OSH Act, employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm.

CDC's Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People explains that under some circumstances, fully vaccinated people need not take all the precautions that unvaccinated people should take, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. However, in light of evidence related to the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the CDC updated its guidance to recommend that even people who are fully vaccinated wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission, or if they have had a known exposure to someone with COVID-19 and have not had a subsequent negative test 3-5 days after the last date of that exposure. Schools should continue to follow applicable CDC guidance, which recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.

Employers should engage with workers and their representatives to determine how to implement multi-layered interventions to protect unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, including:

1. Facilitate employees getting vaccinated. Employers should grant paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects. The Department of Labor and OSHA, as well as other federal agencies, are working diligently to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccinations. CDC provides information on the benefits and safety of vaccinations. Businesses with fewer than 500 employees may be eligible for tax credits under the American Rescue Plan Act if they provide paid time off from April 1, 2021, through September 30, 2021, for employees who decide to receive the vaccine or to accompany a family or household member to receive the vaccine and to recover from any potential side effects from the vaccine. Employers should also consider working with local public health authorities to provide vaccinations in the workplace for unvaccinated workers. Finally, OSHA suggests that employers consider adopting policies that require workers to get vaccinated or to undergo regular COVID-19 testing - in addition to mask wearing and physical distancing - if they remain unvaccinated.

2. Instruct any workers who are infected, unvaccinated workers who have had close contact with someone who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and all workers with COVID-19 symptoms to stay home from work to prevent or reduce the risk of transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19. As recommended by the CDC, fully vaccinated people who have a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should get tested 3-5 days after exposure and should wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result. People who are not fully vaccinated should be tested immediately after being identified, and, if negative, tested again in 5-7 days after last exposure or immediately if symptoms develop during quarantine. Ensure that absence policies are non-punitive. Eliminate or revise policies that encourage workers to come to work sick or when unvaccinated workers have been exposed to COVID-19. Businesses with fewer than 500 employees may be eligible for refundable tax credits under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act if they provide paid time off for sick and family leave to their employees due to COVID-19-related reasons. The ARP tax credits are available to eligible employers that pay sick and family leave for qualified leave from April 1, 2021, through September 30, 2021. More information is available from the IRS.

3. Implement physical distancing in all communal work areas for unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers. A key way to protect such workers is to physically distance them from other such people (workers or customers) - generally at least 6 feet of distance is recommended, although this is not a guarantee of safety, especially in enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces. In a workplace, workers often are required to work in close proximity to each other and/or customers or clients for extended periods of time. Maintaining physical distancing at the workplace for such workers is an important control to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Employers could also limit the number of unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers in one place at any given time, for example by implementing flexible worksites (e.g., telework); implementing flexible work hours (e.g., rotate or stagger shifts to limit the number of such workers in the workplace at the same time); delivering services remotely (e.g., phone, video, or web); or implementing flexible meeting and travel options, for such workers.

At fixed workstations where unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers are not able to remain at least 6 feet away from other people, transparent shields or other solid barriers can separate these workers from other people. Barriers should block face-to-face pathways between individuals in order to prevent direct transmission of respiratory droplets, and any openings should be placed at the bottom and made as small as possible. The height and posture (sitting or standing) of affected workers, directional airflow, and fire safety should be considered when designing and installing barriers, as should the need for enhanced ventilation.

4. Provide workers with face coverings or surgical masks, as appropriate, unless their work task requires a respirator or other PPE. In addition to unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers, CDC recommends that even fully vaccinated people wear masks in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission and notes that fully vaccinated people may appropriately choose to wear masks in public indoor settings regardless of community level of transmission, particularly if they are at risk or have someone in their household who is at risk or not fully vaccinated.

Workers should wear a face covering that covers the nose and mouth to contain the wearer's respiratory droplets and to help protect others and potentially themselves. Face coverings should be made of at least two layers of a tightly woven breathable fabric, such as cotton, and should not have exhalation valves or vents. They should fit snugly over the nose, mouth, and chin with no large gaps on the outside of the face.

Employers should provide face coverings to workers who request them at no cost (and make replacements available to workers when they request them). Under federal anti-discrimination laws, employers may need to provide reasonable accommodations for any workers who are unable to wear or have difficulty wearing certain types of face coverings due to a disability or who need a religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In workplaces with employees who are deaf or hard of hearing, employers should consider acquiring masks with clear coverings over the mouth to facilitate lip-reading.

Unless otherwise provided by federal, state, or local requirements, workers who are outdoors may opt not to wear face coverings unless they are at risk, for example, if they are immunocompromised. Regardless, all workers should be supported in continuing to wear a face covering if they choose, especially in order to safely work closely with other people.

When an employer determines that PPE is necessary to protect unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers from exposure to COVID-19, the employer must provide PPE in accordance with relevant mandatory OSHA standards and should consider providing PPE in accordance with other industry-specific guidance. Respirators, if necessary, must be provided and used in compliance with 29 CFR 1910.134 (e.g., medical determination, fit testing, training on its correct use), including certain provisions for voluntary use when workers supply their own respirators, and other PPE must be provided and used in accordance with the applicable standards in 29 CFR part 1910, Subpart I (e.g., 1910.132 and 133). There are times when PPE is not called for by OSHA standards or other industry-specific guidance, but some workers may have a legal right to PPE as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. Employers are encouraged to proactively inform employees who have a legal right to PPE as a reasonable accommodation for their disability about how to make such a request. Other workers may want to use PPE if they are still concerned about their personal safety (e.g., if a family member is at higher risk for severe illness, they may want to wear a face shield in addition to a face covering as an added layer of protection). Encourage and support voluntary use of PPE in these circumstances and ensure the equipment is adequate to protect the worker.

For operations where the face covering can become wet and soiled, provide workers with replacements daily or more frequently, as needed. Face shields may be provided for use with face coverings to protect them from getting wet and soiled, but they do not provide adequate protection by themselves. See CDC's Guide to Masks.

Employers with workers in a setting where face coverings may increase the risk of heat-related illness indoors or outdoors or cause safety concerns due to introduction of a hazard (for instance, straps getting caught in machinery) may wish to consult with an occupational safety and health professional to help determine the appropriate face covering/respirator use for their setting.

5. Educate and train workers on your COVID-19 policies and procedures using accessible formats and in languages they understand. Train managers on how to implement COVID-19 policies. Communicate supportive workplace policies clearly, frequently, and via multiple methods to promote a safe and healthy workplace. Communications should be in plain language that unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers understand (including non-English languages, and American Sign Language or other accessible communication methods, if applicable) and in a manner accessible to individuals with disabilities. Training should be directed at employees, contractors, and any other individuals on site, as appropriate, and should include:

1. Basic facts about COVID-19, including how it is spread and the importance of physical distancing (including remote work), ventilation, vaccination, use of face coverings, and hand hygiene.

2. Workplace policies and procedures implemented to protect workers from COVID-19 hazards.

For basic facts, see About COVID-19 and What Workers Need to Know About COVID-19 above and see more on vaccinations, improving ventilation, physical distancing (including remote work), PPE, and face coverings, respectively, elsewhere in this document. Some means of tracking which workers have received this information, and when, could be utilized by the employer as appropriate.

In addition, ensure that workers understand their rights to a safe and healthful work environment, whom to contact with questions or concerns about workplace safety and health, and their right to raise workplace safety and health concerns free from retaliation. (See Implementing Protections from Retaliation, below.) This information should also be provided in a language that workers understand. Ensure supervisors are familiar with workplace flexibilities and other human resources policies and procedures.

6. Suggest or require that unvaccinated customers, visitors, or guests wear face coverings in public-facing workplaces such as retail establishments, and that all customers, visitors, or guests wear face coverings in public, indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission. This could include posting a notice or otherwise suggesting or requiring that people wear face coverings, even if no longer required by your jurisdiction. Individuals who are under the age of 2 or are actively consuming food or beverages on site need not wear face coverings.

7. Maintain Ventilation Systems. The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads between people more readily indoors than outdoors. Improving ventilation is a key engineering control that can be used as part of a layered strategy to reduce the concentration of viral particles in indoor air and the risk of virus transmission to unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers in particular. A well-maintained ventilation system is particularly important in any indoor workplace setting and when working properly, ventilation is an important control measure to limit the spread of COVID-19. Some measures to improve ventilation are discussed in CDC's Ventilation in Buildings and in the OSHA Alert: COVID-19 Guidance on Ventilation in the Workplace. These recommendations are based on American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Guidance for Building Operations and Industrial Settings during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Adequate ventilation will protect all people in a closed space. Key measures include ensuring heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are operating in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions and design specifications, conducting all regularly scheduled inspections and maintenance procedures, maximizing the amount of outside air supplied, installing air filters with a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) 13 or higher where feasible, maximizing natural ventilation in buildings without HVAC systems by opening windows or doors, when conditions allow (if that does not pose a safety risk), and considering the use of portable air cleaners with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters in spaces with high occupancy or limited ventilation.

8. Perform routine cleaning and disinfection. If someone who has been in the facility within 24 hours is suspected of having or confirmed to have COVID-19, follow the CDC cleaning and disinfection recommendations. Follow requirements in mandatory OSHA standards 29 CFR 1910.1200 and 1910.132, 133, and 138 for hazard communication and PPE appropriate for exposure to cleaning chemicals.

9. Record and report COVID-19 infections and deaths: Under mandatory OSHA rules in 29 CFR part 1904, employers are required to record work-related cases of COVID-19 illness on OSHA's Form 300 logs if the following requirements are met: (1) the case is a confirmed case of COVID-19; (2) the case is work-related (as defined by 29 CFR 1904.5); and (3) the case involves one or more relevant recording criteria (set forth in 29 CFR 1904.7) (e.g., medical treatment, days away from work). Employers must follow the requirements in 29 CFR part 1904 when reporting COVID-19 fatalities and hospitalizations to OSHA. More information is available on OSHA's website. Employers should also report outbreaks to local health departments as required and support their contact tracing efforts.

In addition, employers should be aware that Section 11(c) of the Act prohibits reprisal or discrimination against an employee for speaking out about unsafe working conditions or reporting an infection or exposure to COVID-19 to an employer. In addition, mandatory OSHA standard 29 CFR 1904.35(b) also prohibits discrimination against an employee for reporting a work-related illness.

Note on recording adverse reactions to vaccines: OSHA, like many other federal agencies, is working diligently to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations. OSHA does not want to give any suggestion of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination or to disincentivize employers' vaccination efforts. As a result, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR part 1904's recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination at least through May 2022. OSHA will reevaluate the agency's position at that time to determine the best course of action moving forward. Individuals may choose to submit adverse reactions to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

10. Implement protections from retaliation and set up an anonymous process for workers to voice concerns about COVID-19-related hazards: Section 11(c) of the OSH Act prohibits discharging or in any other way discriminating against an employee for engaging in various occupational safety and health activities. Examples of violations of Section 11(c) could include discriminating against employees for raising a reasonable concern about infection control related to COVID-19 to the employer, the employer's agent, other employees, a government agency, or to the public, such as through print, online, social, or any other media; or against an employee for voluntarily providing and safely wearing their own PPE, such as a respirator, face shield, gloves, or surgical mask.

In addition to notifying workers of their rights to a safe and healthful work environment, ensure that workers know whom to contact with questions or concerns about workplace safety and health, and that there are prohibitions against retaliation for raising workplace safety and health concerns or engaging in other protected occupational safety and health activities (see educating and training workers about COVID-19 policies and procedures, above); also consider using a hotline or other method for workers to voice concerns anonymously.

11. Follow other applicable mandatory OSHA standards: All of OSHA's standards that apply to protecting workers from infection remain in place. These mandatory OSHA standards include: requirements for PPE (29 CFR part 1910, Subpart I (e.g., 1910.132 and 133)), respiratory protection (29 CFR 1910.134), sanitation (29 CFR 1910.141), protection from bloodborne pathogens: (29 CFR 1910.1030), and OSHA's requirements for employee access to medical and exposure records (29 CFR 1910.1020). Many healthcare workplaces will be covered by the mandatory OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard. More information on that standard is available on OSHA's website. Employers are also required by the General Duty Clause, Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act, to provide a safe and healthful workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm.

Appendix: Measures Appropriate for Higher-Risk Workplaces with Mixed-Vaccination Status Workers

Employers should take additional steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 among unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers due to the following types of workplace environmental factors, especially in locations of substantial or high transmission:

Close contact - where unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers are working close to one another, for example, on production or assembly lines or in busy retail settings. Such workers may also be near one another at other times, such as when clocking in or out, during breaks, or in locker/changing rooms.

Duration of contact - where unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers often have prolonged closeness to coworkers (e.g., for 6-12 hours per shift). Continued contact with potentially infectious individuals increases the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

Type of contact - where unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers may be exposed to the infectious virus through respiratory particles in the air-for example, when infected workers in a manufacturing or factory setting cough or sneeze, especially in poorly ventilated spaces. Confined spaces without adequate ventilation increase the risk of viral exposure and transmission. It is also possible, although less likely, that exposure could occur from contact with contaminated surfaces or objects, such as tools, workstations, or break room tables. Shared closed spaces such as break rooms, locker rooms, and interior hallways in the facility may contribute to risk.

Other distinctive factors that may increase risk among unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers include:

In these types of higher-risk workplaces - which include manufacturing; meat, seafood, and poultry processing; high-volume retail and grocery; and agricultural processing settings - this Appendix provides best practices to protect unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers. Please note that these recommendations are in addition to those in the general precautions described above, including isolation of infected or possibly infected workers, and other precautions.

In all workplaces with heightened risk due to workplace environmental factors where there are unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers in the workplace:

Stagger break times in these generally high-population workplaces, or provide temporary break areas and restrooms to avoid groups of unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers congregating during breaks. Such workers should maintain at least 6 feet of distance from others at all times, including on breaks.

Stagger workers' arrival and departure times to avoid congregations of unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers in parking areas, locker rooms, and near time clocks.

Provide visual cues (e.g., floor markings, signs) as a reminder to maintain physical distancing.

Require unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers, and also fully vaccinated workers in areas of substantial or high community transmission, to wear masks whenever possible, encourage and consider requiring customers and other visitors to do the same.

Implement strategies (tailored to your workplace) to improve ventilation that protects workers as outlined in CDC's Ventilation in Buildings and in the OSHA Alert: COVID-19 Guidance on Ventilation in the Workplace, and ASHRAE Guidance for Building Operations and Industrial Settings During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In high-volume retail workplaces (or well-defined work areas within retail workplaces) where there are unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers, customers, or other people:

Ask customers and other visitors to wear masks-or consider requiring them--especially in areas of substantial or high transmission.

Consider ways to promote physical distancing between unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk people and/or limiting occupancy to allow for physical distancing consistent with CDC guidance.

Move the electronic payment terminal/credit card reader farther away from unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers in order to increase the distance between customers and such workers, if possible.

Adjust stocking activities to limit contact between unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers and customers.

Unvaccinated or otherwise at-risk workers are also at risk when traveling to and from work in employer-provided buses and vans.

Notify unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers of this risk and, to the extent feasible, help them limit the number of such workers in one vehicle.

Make sure all unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers sharing a vehicle are wearing appropriate face coverings. Make sure all workers wear appropriate face coverings in areas of substantial or high community transmission.

Where not prohibited by weather conditions, open vehicle windows.

In meat, poultry, and seafood processing settings; manufacturing facilities; and assembly line operations (including in agriculture) involving unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk workers:

Ensure adequate ventilation in the facility, or if feasible, move work outdoors.

Space such workers out, ideally at least 6 feet apart, and ensure that such workers are not working directly across from one another. Barriers are not a replacement for worker use of face coverings and physical distancing.

If barriers are used where physical distancing cannot be maintained, they should be made of a solid, impermeable material, like plastic or acrylic, that can be easily cleaned or replaced. Barriers should block face-to-face pathways and should not flap or otherwise move out of position when they are being used.

Barriers do not replace the need for physical distancing - at least six feet of separation should be maintained between unvaccinated and otherwise at-risk individuals whenever possible.

¹ CDC provides information about face coverings as one type of mask among other types of masks. OSHA differentiates face coverings from the term "mask" and from respirators that meet OSHA's Respiratory Protection Standard.

CDC's definition of masks includes those that are made of cloth, those that are disposable, and those that meet a standard. Cloth face coverings may be commercially produced or improvised (i.e., homemade) and are not considered personal protective equipment (PPE). Surgical masks are typically cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as medical devices and are used to protect workers against splashes and sprays (i.e., droplets) containing potentially infectious materials; in this capacity, surgical masks are considered PPE.

² People who are not fully vaccinated should be tested immediately after being identified (with known exposure to someone with suspect or confirmed COVID-19), and, if negative, tested again in 5-7 days after last exposure or immediately if symptoms develop during quarantine.

³ The CDC and the Department of Education have addressed situations where a student cannot wear a mask because of disability. See Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in K-12 Schools and COVID-19 Manual - Volume 1 (updated).

⁴ See footnote 1 for more on masking.

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Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace | Occupational Safety and Health Administration

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Purpose This guidance is designed to help employers protect workers who are unvaccinated (including people who are not fully vaccinated) or otherwise at-risk (as defined in the text box below), including if they are immunocompromised, and also implement new guidance involving workers who are fully vaccinated but located in areas of substantial or high community transmission.

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https://www.business.com/articles/leadership-tips-for-remote-teams/

1. Have regular meetings

2. Gather feedback.

3. Create opportunities for fun virtual connections.

4. Make context a key part of your communications.

5. Have individual check-ins.

6. Remember everyone on your team.

7. Be flexible about how the work gets done.

8. Offer more technology options to your team.

9. Create an agenda before a meeting.

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Leadership tips for managing remote teams

Research by Robert Half, a global human resource consulting firm, indicates that 66 percent of workers prefer to work remotely three days a week - even as the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed - and 74 percent of companies allow their employees to work from home. Hybrid and full-time remote arrangements put different pressures on leaders as they manage workers from afar.

Here are ways you can adjust your leadership to keep your team connected and productive while everyone works from home.

1. Have regular "face-to-face" meetings.

Consistent, open communication is a common difficulty with remote teams, so you must put in a little extra work to make people feel connected when your workforce is distributed across locations and time zones. Put at least one weekly video conferencing meeting on the calendar - you can call it a check-in, an update or a status meeting - and devote that time to project management, providing your team with any pertinent updates, seeing how they are doing professionally and personally, and taking questions.

2. Gather feedback.

Acknowledge that you and your team are all navigating a new dynamic and welcome feedback on any new practices, like the weekly check-in meetings. Make your employees aware of all avenues they can use to contact you - like email, Slack or text - and try to implement their suggestions where possible.

3. Create opportunities for fun virtual connections.

Socializing is a huge part of work, and working remotely may be difficult for team members who feel isolated and cut off from regular social interactions. As a leader, you can create opportunities for remote socializing using apps and collaboration tools like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and other instant messaging platforms to help your workers stay connected remotely.

"Happy hours, wigs, Zoom backgrounds, virtual yoga, extra town halls and cooking classes are all helping keep everyone connected," said Paul Rubenstein, chief people officer at Visier. "We rely heavily on tools like Slack and Zoom to be social outlets." [Check out our reviews of 8×8 and Ooma Office, as well as our Zoom review, for helpful communication software recommendations.]

4. Make context a key part of your communications.

A lot of meaning can get lost in an email. A terse "yes" response from a team member to your three-paragraph query might come off as frosty to you, but it may simply mean the responder was short on time.

Train your staff in collaboration and overcommunication while also emphasizing that they should try not to make assumptions. A simple miscommunication between employees can lead to resentment and offense, which can seriously impact your team and company culture.

5. Have individual check-ins.

Check in with each individual on your team to clarify what you need from them, see what they need from you and get their personal expectations for the weeks ahead. Individual meetings are more effective than repeating in every group meeting that anyone can speak up, as remote workers won't feel they are wasting others' time and may feel more comfortable speaking in one-on-one conferences.

6. Remember everyone on your team.

If you manage a large team or are responsible for your entire organization, make sure that you are checking in with everyone, not just the people you interact with on a daily basis. This may include administrators, IT personnel and support staff. This will go a long way toward boosting morale and give you insight from every level of your company. [Get ideas for creative perks for improved morale.]

7. Be flexible about how the work gets done.

Keep in mind that many employees have a lot of stressors when working from home. For example, you likely have employees who have to work around their kids. Make it known that you are allowing more flexible scheduling. Ask employees to consistently communicate what they need to maintain productivity as remote workers, and do your best to meet those needs. If you need to adjust your time tracking or project expectations, do so in a way that still accomplishes your goals.

8. Offer more technology options to your team.

Never rely on one single technology to interact with employees. For instance, email is often considered the least engaging way to build up teams. Virtual conferencing works best, but consider meeting in small groups. Large virtual conferences can quickly become confusing and unproductive. Audio conferencing calls are great for quick meetings, but if any sensitive data needs to be shared, take the personalized approach of video calls. Time-sensitive communication should be handled via live chat apps. Slack, notably, can execute all three functions. [Read related article: How to Use Slack for Workplace Communication]

9. Create an agenda before a meeting.

Video meetings can be ineffective without preparation. Create an agenda at least a couple of hours before the meeting and share it with all the invitees. You can allow deviations from the agenda and then use it when you need to get the discussion back on track. Also, carefully consider whether every meeting is truly necessary. There is a case to be made for canceling meetings that get in the way of productivity.

Challenges of managing a remote team and solutions for leaders

Remote teams can work together effectively, but the dynamic poses some unique challenges. Anticipating issues before they arise will help you make better decisions for your team.

These are the top challenges of managing a remote team and their solutions.

Communication

In remote-work environments, communication is often confined to written exchanges, lacking the spontaneous face-to-face interactions of an office setting, like bumping into co-workers in the break room. Interactions can further be challenging because everyone is navigating geodiversity issues, working different hours and using different communication tools.

Solution: To enhance communication in remote-work settings, it's essential to use shared online calendars for easy scheduling and to purchase the best video conferencing software for your business. You also should create a remote-work plan with clear guidelines regarding communication methods and hours.

Trust

Trust is crucial and is the foundation for a successful remote-work arrangement; however, it can be difficult to build and maintain in such an environment. While some companies use tools to track their remote staff's productivity, not every business is comfortable with employee monitoring. Ideally, you naturally trust your employees are working when they say they are - and doing their jobs accurately - regardless of physical location and whether you're using monitoring software to essentially spy on them.

Solution: Building trust begins with assuming positive intent and implementing trust-building activities. You can create a trust agreement, set clear goals, be open and transparent and communicate trust from top leadership. You can eventually gain the trust of your employees through consistent actions and genuine vulnerability.

Productivity

Many employers considering remote work worry about the productivity levels of their employees, especially when leaders are unable to monitor them on a daily basis. However, the Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) found people working from home are 7 percent more productive than those who work in the office. Although many remote teams are more engaged than office workers and even experience an increase in productivity, some may struggle without having direct supervision, requiring additional support and tracking methods.

Solution: Implementing strategies like the "Clarity, Responsibility and Accountability" model of leadership can help unite your team around one vision and purpose. When everyone understands what you're working toward and their individual role in achieving that goal, they are more likely to be motivated to do their part. You can also use a shared calendar and conduct regular one-on-one check-ins to foster collaboration and maintain visibility into remote employees' activities - without the worry that they'll feel micromanaged.

Clear expectations

Transitioning from the office to a remote setting without giving employees clear guidance and directives for understanding their job responsibilities will affect their ability to be productive. Furthermore, it's easier for someone to be accidentally left out of the loop when you're not all working in the same location and at the same time.

Solution: Effectively managing your team involves regularly setting clear expectations for priorities, milestones and performance goals. Establishing well-documented procedures and boundaries and ensuring realistic expectations for meeting attendance and after-hours communication can help you promote productivity and work-life balance for your team.
Lauren Kubiak contributed to this article. Source interview was conducted for a previous version of this article.

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How to Be a Good Leader When Your Team Is Remote

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If you're suddenly managing your team remotely, these tips can help you communicate effectively and keep the company running smoothly.

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This article describes how companiess managed to be productive when they suddenly had to change how things were done. A key takeaway is that, instead of trying to make things as "normal" as possible, companies accepted the new normal and put thought into making it feel like a real work environment.

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The article talks about how business leaders around the world are eager to move on. But few companies have systematically institutionalized what they’ve learned from their Covid-19 experience to build resilience.

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Has Your Organization Acted on What It’s Learned in the Pandemic?

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As the pandemic marks a third anniversary, business leaders around the world are eager to move on. But few companies have systematically institutionalized what they’ve learned from their Covid-19 experience to build resilience. The authors suggest a three-step approach to do so: 1) Evaluate how you…

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This article talks about 15 different companies that had to retool their operations due to COVID-19.

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(Image: Face masks come off the assembly line at a Ford plant in Michigan, part of the company's efforts to retool in response to COVID-19.)
When it comes to corporate action in the face of a global crisis, it's one thing to write a check. Monetary donations are surely helpful for the nonprofits and community groups being pushed to the brink by the coronavirus pandemic, but most consider payouts in the millions of dollars as table stakes moves for multibillion-dollar companies.

A smaller group is going further by getting creative to retool their operations, supply chains, people and products to produce critical supplies needed by those on the front lines. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but these 15 companies stood out to us over the past six weeks.

H&M

Soon after the crisis hit, fast-fashion giant H&M began rearranging its supply chain to source and produce protective equipment for healthcare workers on the front lines. The first round of 100,000 face masks was delivered to Spanish and Italian hospitals two weeks ago, and an H&M supplier is in the process of producing 1 million long-sleeve, protective aprons for Swedish hospitals, the company wrote on LinkedIn.

Honeywell

While ramping up production of its N95 respirator masks, Honeywell is temporarily shifting operations at two chemical manufacturing plants to produce hand sanitizer. Sites in Muskegon, Michigan, and Seelze, Germany, will produce sanitizer over the next two months for donation to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Germany's Saxony Ministry of Health, Social Affairs and Equality, according to the company.

Reformation

Los Angeles-based sustainable fashion brand Reformation connected with Mayor Eric Garcetti to form LA Protects, an effort to mobilize local manufacturers to make 5 million face masks for use in the city. The indie brand converted its LA factory to produce masks using fabrics from its nearby warehouse, and it's recruiting other garment manufacturers in the city to do the same.

As is generally the case on this list, the masks are not medical-grade and are meant to be used by individuals, patients, workers in essential sectors and non-medical staff in hospitals, according to LA protects. The initiative partnered with Kaiser Permanente to develop design specifications to ensure the non-medical masks are effective for their purposes. Reformation, in particular, is focusing on homeless shelters.

Nordstrom

Luxury retailer Nordstrom is the single largest employer of tailors in the U.S. With the help of an existing partner, Kaas Tailored, members of Nordstrom's alteration teams in Washington, Oregon, Texas, California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Florida and Washington, D.C. are on a mission to sew nearly 1 million masks. They'll be routed to frontline healthcare workers across two major hospital networks, Providence Health & Services and Ascension.
(Image: The powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR), designed by Ford in collaboration with 3M.)
Ford

Ford is partnering with 3M to produce medical equipment on its auto assembly lines. The automaker designed what it calls a powered air-purifying respirator, or PAPR, which fits over the face and provides filtered air for up to eight hours, allowing healthcare staff to work in contaminated environments without fear of contracting the virus.

Paid volunteers from the United Auto Workers union (UAW) are assembling the respirators at Ford's plant near Flat Rock, Michigan, using modified auto parts such as rechargeable batteries and fans from the Ford F-150. The plant has the capacity to produce 100,000 of these respirators or more, according to Ford.

A nearby plant in Plymouth, Michigan, will produce 3 million face shields, and the company is working with its supplier Joyson Safety Systems to manufacture reusable medical gowns from airbag materials. It's also churning out face masks at its transmission plant in collaboration with the UAW.

SC Johnson

In partnership with Dow, privately-held household products company SC Johnson has converted a line at its largest manufacturing facility in Wisconsin to produce 75,000 bottles of hand sanitizer per month. The sanitizer will be donated to frontline and essential workers, including hospital staff, first responders and manufacturing employees, according to the company.

Brooks Brothers

At the end of March, Brooks Brothers transitioned its three U.S. factories from producing shirts and ties to surgical masks and medical gowns for frontline healthcare workers battling COVID-19. The up to 150,000 masks the company plans to make per day are not on par with the N95 respirators used in highly infectious environments. But the company is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expedite the process to have them approved as surgical-grade masks, CEO Claudio Del Vecchio told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."

Hanesbrands

In late March, Hanesbrands joined with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and seven other clothing companies to produce so-called "HHS-certified" masks. The company aims to produce up to 75 million masks made from the same three-ply jersey cotton used in T-shirts, and the coalition may collectively produce over 300 million masks, a Hanesbrands representative told Fast Company.

Bacardi

Bacardi is shifting operations at eight of its distilleries in the continental U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico, France, England, Italy and Scotland to make the ethanol needed to manufacture hand sanitizer. Factories producing Bacardi brands like Grey Goose vodka and Bombay gin will provide enough ethanol for more than 260,000 gallons of hand sanitizer for donation to communities in need, as well as first responders and essential workers, the company said.

GM

In mid March, General Motors partnered with Ventec to retool its Kokomo, Indiana, plant to produce ventilators, which are needed for patients who are seriously ill from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. GM shipped a total of 600 ventilators during the month of April, and it expects to fulfill the federal government's 30,000 ventilator order by the end of August, CNN reported. The first round headed to hospitals in Chicago and Gary, Indiana, two weeks ago.

The automaker also claims to have converted its Warren, Michigan, facility to produce face masks in less than seven days. The plant now has the capacity to churn out an estimated 1.5 million masks a month, according to the company - and it shared the fast-turnaround production plans with the Michigan Manufacturers Association, made up of nearly 1,700 companies, to expand mask production across the state.
(Image: Brown-Forman's R&D department created their own hand sanitizer recipe and put it into production.)
Brown-Forman

The research and development team at spirits company Brown-Forman created their own hand sanitizer recipe and put it into production. The company's manufacturing workers will use it to help keep them safe, and the rest will be donated to first responders and healthcare workers in the communities surrounding its Jack Daniel's distillery in Louisville, Kentucky.

LVMH

In mid March, luxury goods conglomerate LVMH - which includes brands like Christian Dior and Givenchy - switched production lines from perfume and cosmetics to hand sanitizers. It sent the resulting product to French health authorities and hospitals, being one of the first major companies to do this.

L'Oréal

L'Oréal's North American manufacturing facilities are producing hand sanitizer for donation to U.S. employees, partners and healthcare professionals. It also sent surgical and N95 respirator masks from its operations facilities in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Franklin, New Jersey, to local hospital systems in each surrounding community.

FedEx

FedEx used its air shipping network to transport more than 450,000 protective suits and 7 million face masks, along with other critical healthcare supplies, to the U.S. over the past two weeks. The logistics giant is looking to ship more than 500,000 suits per week over the next month in partnership with DuPont. Additional mask and supply shipments are also expected through another partnership with healthcare supplies company Medline Industries.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA)

At the epicenter of the coronavirus in Europe, the Italian government asked medical equipment company Siare Engineering to triple its monthly production of ventilators to cope with hospital demand. With help from Ferrari and its parent company Exor, Fiat Chrysler is now making key ventilator parts at its plant in northern Italy to help Siare answer the call. The first round started coming off the lines on April 3.

FCA also said it expects to produce 1 million face masks a month for donation to first responders and workers treating COVID-19 patients in hospitals and healthcare clinics.
Image credits: Ford, FedEx via 3BL Media, Bacardi via 3BL Media, Brown-Forman via 3BL Media

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15 Companies Retooling Their Operations to Fight COVID-19

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(Image: Face masks come off the assembly line at a Ford plant in Michigan, part of the company's efforts to retool in response to COVID-19.) When it comes to corporate action in the face of a global

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The article attached breaks down how businesses managed to stay organized and remote during the pandemic. It emphasizes the idea of pivoting and shifting the current position of the company itself, allowing for the employees and people inside the business to adapt and grow in the hardest of time during COVID-19. It further goes to explain how the strategies work on things that the pandemic broke down. From supply chains to markets creating a void with an opening.

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How Businesses Have Successfully Pivoted During the Pandemic

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From local restaurants to larger companies like Spotify and Unilever, companies that are successfully navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing recession have often pivoted to a business model that's conducive to short-term survival, and long-term resilience and growth. Not all pivots, however, result in good business performance.

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This article summarizes the changes that businesses and employees had to make during COVID. Some of these changes include having a learning mindset, creating new routines, and extending compassion towards coworkers and other employees.

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5 ways COVID-19 has changed workforce management

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Whilst some changes have been enforced, largely working from home, COVID-19 is a catalyst to reinvent the future of work for managers who seize the day.

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This article talks about the statistics on how businesses adjusted to Covid. They said that most businesses went to remote work. This actually led to better results than originally expected. Many businesses could not do this though. They often had to lay off many employees or shut down the business entirely.

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To summarize this article, during COVID companies and to restructure, and put a lot of trust in their leaders. The best strategies managers found was by using a trickle down effect. By doing this, it showed if everyone was pulling their own weight.

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* Coronavirus lockdown saw an unexpected increase in productivity for many companies.

* To sustain this, business leaders can target four separate areas.

* Resilience building is key.

When firms moved to remote working in response to the COVID-19 lockdown, many discovered an unexpected upside of increased productivity. Tasks that traditionally took six months were accomplished in two weeks. Problems regarded as unsolvable were being solved, often in very short time frames. In some cases, the pace of delivery has been phenomenal - such is the power of a crisis and the necessity it creates.

As we emerge from the lockdown, most companies are looking at how they can restructure and emerge stronger for the next decade. In addition to considering issues such as the ideal business model and operational resilience, companies are focusing on how to sustain some portion of this increased productivity and transformative power into the future. Many are noticing that in spite of slashing bureaucracy, they can only get so far, and that continuing to work longer hours is unsustainable. Numerous work tasks have also been left aside, such as regulatory tasks that also now need to be addressed.

In our work with dozens of organizations on their rethink plans, we're finding the firms that focus on a combination of four conditions - restructuring the work people do, empowering leadership, shifting beliefs and behaviours, and building resilience - are the ones that are continuing to succeed at unlocking productivity. Below, we examine how leaders should approach each of these factors in turn.
1. Restructuring activities
From cutting costs to reworking customer offerings, being thrown into the COVID-19 crisis forced us to ask which work was deemed as most value-adding to customers and critical for survival - what is the "new minimum". As a result, leaders and their teams figured out what work to do, how to do it and convinced themselves of the need to do it now, not tomorrow.

Adopting these lessons moving forward, work should be broken down into three categories: essential, necessary and wasted, classified according to the impact on delivering the strategic value of the organization. Time spent on each type of work needs to be codified with lessons learned through the crisis. For example: management information truly critical in terms of adding strategic clarity needs to be identified, while the traditional reams of reports that never get read by senior decision-makers should be eliminated.

Leaders should create clarity on the "must-have" outcomes they need to deliver value and regularly communicate them. Messaging must create a compelling "why" this outcome is essential - what pain it will remove, what value it will create.

Then the amount of time people actually spend on tasks that deliver strategic value should be measured and analyzed. In most organizations we work with, workforces on average invest less than 30% of their time in the work that delivers the strategic value uplift desired.

Once these initial results are measured, actions on critical work must then be taken immediately and adjustments made quickly if tasks are not significantly improving the value created. After the work that needs to be done is catalogued, and more of people's time is refocused on it, associated structural and process changes can help reinforce and support sustainable higher productivity shifts.

Productivity also rose during the lockdown in part because the relationship between many employees and leaders shifted. In order for a higher level of productivity to continue, leaders have to evaluate how their leadership style was different and ask what it was about this mindset that allowed employees to flourish.

One of the biggest changes in the wake of COVID-19 was that many employees felt safer to make bold decisions. Pre-crisis, people felt it necessary to gain permission before taking action. During COVID-19, the bandwidth of leaders became stretched, leaving many leaders only enough time to communicate desired outcomes and timeframes, but not to address how to achieve these outcomes. Consequently, people had to figure out the "how" and, as a result, felt they had more autonomy to act. For example, employees on the front lines were empowered to work out how best to maintain customer satisfaction while having less physical connection with the customer.

Moving out of lockdown, firms should avoid simply reverting to the old command-and-control style of management. Instead, leadership will have to focus on clearly communicating desired outcomes and intent - rather than on telling their teams how to generate the outcome - empowering them to make decisions. It also creates a safer, more collaborative environment with a better sense of ownership. People own what they create.

Firms also need to take time to identify and support those leaders who emerged during the crisis. Through circumstance, this blossoming talent has found the freedom to act and has proved very capable of independent thought and performance. Give them as much space as possible, make your intent clear, and watch them deliver.

As life returns to normal, leaders must understand how the beliefs of their most productive people changed during the crisis and which beliefs are most compelling for the company moving forward. They must work out how to replace the crisis with an inspiring purpose if they are to nurture and sustain the urgency created during the last few months. To do that, people's beliefs during the crisis, their ways of knowing if they are acting consistently with what they or others value, must be understood.

For example, before the crisis, "consultation" was a key belief in generating a correct and therefore valued outcome in many firms. That created multiple conversations and, ultimately, delay. During the crisis, taking action quickly on a "good enough" basis became more highly valued. Beliefs changed to support those more highly valued outcomes. Rapid action became the key belief.

There is increasing evidence that some of the productivity surges found in the early weeks of the pandemic are now waning. The urgency that powered individuals, teams and organizations has started to dissipate. We are left with tired teams, the dawning realization that this new environment is not going away any time soon, and that the working world has changed.

This is testing the resilience of the workforce and has serious consequences for well-being and mental health. Many organizations are locked into a set of routines and operating practices that many assumed were temporary. As such, individuals are struggling to find a sustainable cadence, and this may well account for this drop-off in productivity.

The good news is that resilience, defined by an individual's ability to bounce back after absorbing energy and pressure, is a skill, not a trait. It can be developed and strengthened through developing basic techniques of self-awareness and self-management, and as organizations find their footing, it's vital to invest here at an individual, team and organizational level.

From slower growth to declining profits, the next 12 to 24 months will be enormously challenging. Our comfort with focusing on the tangible aspects of work - the tasks, the supporting structures and processes - typically means that they take up most of our efforts when trying to change them.

However, focusing on the time spent on value-creating tasks and the approach to performance will yield greater productivity gains. Perhaps because they are more intangible, learning new leadership skills and shifting mindsets are typically allocated much less focus, even though the productivity rewards are just as great.

Only a desire to radically address in equal measure, the work itself, our ways of working and our mindsets - and to do so in ways not countenanced before the crisis - will ensure that increased productivity can be maintained in the future.

Once COVID-19 abates and the world opens its arms to social interaction once more, we must leave the superfluous out of how we re-engage with work and accept new ways of driving productivity that allow us to excel as individuals, as teams and as competitive organizations.

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4 ways companies can stay productive beyond COVID-19 lockdown

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Thanks to improved business performance during coronavirus lockdown, flexible working looks here to stay. But first we'll need to re-imagine the workplace.

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This article highlights the different ways businesses have had to adjust and make changes with the emergence of the COVID-19 virus. it discusses different types of industries that are affected by the virus and what changes they have made to adapt.

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COVID-19

Food for thought: The pandemic has closed restaurants and boosted delivery services Image: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins - RC2E0K93SQE4

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6 ways the pandemic has changed businesses

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Sectors like healthcare and banking are battered but not beaten by COVID-19 disruption, McKinsey analysis finds. Digital delivery features large in the post-pandemic futures of six sectors.

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This blog talks about and goes over 8 different ways a business can stay organized and controlled during times such as COVID-19 quarantine. Trying to control things in your power, creating a todo list, Meetings, and so on make for good organization of a good running business.

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It's no secret that this has been one of the most challenging periods in the history of the hospitality industry. With forced closures and business travel being nearly non-existent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitality professionals have had to make massive adjustments in their jobs and in their lives. In the climate the industry currently finds itself in, staying organized is of the utmost importance. Check out our tips and tricks for how to stay organized during COVID-19 below so that you can stay front-of-mind with planners and set yourself up for group business success.

Discover 8 ways hoteliers can stay organized during COVID-19:

1. Control the controllables.

You're going to be interrupted throughout your day while working from home, but not every interruption has to happen. There are some interruptions that can be controlled, or even eliminated. In an interview with multiple career experts, Jacquelyn Smith of Forbes went over some basic methods to reduce the number of distractions during your work day that are well within control.

Ask your team for uninterrupted work time during your most productive hours of the day. Emergencies may arise, but if your team knows that you need that time to yourself, you're more likely to get it.

Turn email or phone notifications off during certain hours as well. This will minimize the chances that you will get distracted and stop working on priority tasks.

Organize your work space to reduce the amount of visual distractions.

Things have changed but our commitment to you is the same. How can we help?

2. Create a schedule/checklist.

Making a daily schedule for yourself and your team will greatly assist in keeping everyone organized. As you're able to prioritize the workload that's coming at you daily, it will enable your team to jump on those priority tasks and not lose focus on the other important items they're working on. As explored by Calendar's Abby Miller, there are many benefits to creating a schedule, including:

The creation of benchmarks to assess how long certain tasks actually take.

Reducing the likelihood of doing double work.

Enabling team members to feel that they truly "own" their work.

It's also important to be aware of unscheduled dead time between meetings. Those 15-30 minute segments of time can kill productivity if not accounted for!

3. Embrace meetings.

As stated in a recent article from Forbes, "without the ability to have the organic conversations that in-person offices allow, virtual meetings, whether impromptu or scheduled, will be the lifeblood of how people engage with one another."

Embracing this shift will be key in keeping everyone engaged and on task when managing this crisis. Holding a daily stand-up meeting for 15 minutes can pay dividends in productivity and ensure that team members are connected with each other and know what needs to be done daily. Additionally, ensure that you are running productive meetings that include a purpose, a solid start and end time, and close with action items for those in the meeting.

4. Prioritize and focus on impact vs. effort.

The biggest key to scheduling your time wisely is prioritizing. Keeping an honest account of tasks that are urgent and important will help you and your team divide and conquer during the pandemic.

In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey explores the Eisenhower Matrix - defining how tasks should be prioritized according to their importance and urgency. The quadrants and how they are defined can be found below:

Quadrant 1: URGENT and IMPORTANT

Quadrant 2: NON-URGENT and IMPORTANT

Quadrant 3: URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT

Quadrant 4 - NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT

In addition to this tool, the 1-3-5 rule is another popular method of maximizing your time. In short, it gives people a way to focus on accomplishing one big thing, three medium things, and five little things each day. It's even used by Betty Liu, the executive vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, to stay organized.

"I have to say, it's been an amazing productivity booster," Liu told Business Insider. "Just the act of writing something down makes you obligated to do it. And when you have the satisfaction at the end of the day of checking off that last item on that list, you feel so much better, as if you really completed the day."

5. Keep tabs on the pulse of the industry.

No one know when the COVID-19 pandemic will truly be over and when restrictions will be lifted, so staying informed and in touch with the industry will help you better plan your days and how you're spending your time. If you aren't aware of a shift, you can't prepare for it. However, there are many resources available for you to do just that.
Familiarize yourself with venue sourcing data.
On May 15, we hosted the second webinar in our monthly series dedicated to providing insights on the group business landscape. The series is based on proprietary data from the Cvent Supplier Network, overall meetings and events trends, and observations from proven third-party experts in the hospitality space. We also include inspiring stories about the good works and great ideas currently driving the hospitality community forward. Highlights from the CSN sourcing data include:

A deeper dive into differences by market size and location.

How proposed rates from hotels have changed over the past 60 days.

Updates in sourcing trends over the past 30 days.

Be an active member of the hospitality community.
Another fantastic resource available to hoteliers is the various blogs and forums for hoteliers to virtually gather. The Cvent Community is a great place to start. It hosts a myriad of resources and open forums for your to read up on what your peers and colleagues are doing and how they're utilizing their time during the pandemic. Hospitality Net is another excellent resource with interviews and op-eds that will give you even more insight.
Browse through hospitality blogs.
Along with the Cvent Community, there's a lot of helpful insight in the Cvent Blog, with articles ranging from best marketing practices using the Cvent Supplier Network to how hotels are adapting during the COVID-19 pandemic to best practices for working remotely in this new normal. Leveraging this resource for best practices and insights into the minds of planners will help you stay focused on your priority tasks and inform your choices for when you're planning out the days, weeks and months ahead. Other helpful hospitality blogs include Boutique Hotel News, BizBash, and Smart Meetings.
See how your competitors are faring.
Cvent's Competitive Set Dashboard helps hoteliers understand how group demand, response patterns, and awarded business compare with up to 10 competitors in real time, enabling confident, data-driven business decisions.

With this tool, you can:

Know where you stand in real time regarding rank and fair share within your competitive set.

See performance summary and ranks with year-over-year changes and trending data.

Measure your sales team's effectiveness in winning deals by comparing your key performance metrics against those of the competition.

View trending performance throughout the entire funnel or at a specific stage in the funnel over time.

Monitor your sales team's activity and performance.

Receive email alerts if your property falls behind the competitive set in important performance metrics.

6. Learn to time box.

One popular method of time management is the Pomodoro Technique. Created by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro Technique enables people to focus on tasks one at a time for set periods of time with short breaks in between to recharge focus. The time management system is fairly simple:

Choose a task to be accomplished.

Set the timer to 25 minutes.

Work on the task until the timer rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper.

The technique was tested by The Muse's Kat Boogaard for a recent article, and when sharing the results, she wrote, in part:

"After some time, the technique started to really gel with me. I was focused and insanely productive during my work time, as I was eager to get as much completed during that 25-minute interval as I could. I didn't find myself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or getting sucked in by those pesky clickbait articles. And, as a notorious multi-tasker, I noticed that I was totally zoned in on the one project at hand."

7. Sync in the cloud for real-time updates.

In this environment, hoteliers must leverage all the technology they can to streamline processes and best utilize all available employee hours. You need all hands on deck, and training your staff on your hotel's unique technology mix will empower them to help you. Additionally, keeping your team informed and up-to-date on all projects and initiatives will ensure that they are working at their maximum capacity.

As stated by PMI in a recent study, "collaborative software unites the virtual workforce and attempts to make the experience of working together as natural and productive as working in the same physical location" - a crucial factor as most organizations continue to adapt to the work-from-home lifestyle.

8. Save time when responding to RFPs.

Planners are still planning and submitting RFPs. The timing of these events has shifted due to gathering restrictions, but the requests are still out there, and they'll keep coming. Make sure your team is responding and that you're not losing out on potential business. Creating and utilizing RFP templates can help in that effort. Check out our best practices for streamlining RFP responses to help you do just that. Additionally, use this RFP response example to streamline the process and make sure everyone on your team is on the same page.

Also, if your hotel has lead scoring to prioritize the most relevant RFPs, leverage it - and make sure your staff knows how to use it, too. It will ensure that they're maximizing every second they spend responding to RFPs. This forward-looking planning will help set your hotel up for success once the gathering restrictions are lifted.

Use these tips to help you stay organized during COVID-19

It's no secret that the hospitality industry is hurting right now, but it won't always be like this. Keeping in touch with the industry and what experts are saying will keep you organized in the short term, but as we stated above, hoteliers also have to take the long view for when this does end. Be sure to communicate updates to team members and keep them looped in on shifts in the industry and mitigating strategies.
How can we help?

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Stay Organized During COVID-19: 8 Tips for Hoteliers | Cvent Blog

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It's no secret that this has been one of the most challenging periods in the history of the hospitality industry. With forced closures and business travel being nearly non-existent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitality professionals have had to make massive adjustments in their jobs and in their lives.

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The article explains that when these pandemics hit them they were worried a little but the most important thing they did was adapt to the situation. They gave their employees more flexibility because of whats going on.

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The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives. In this McKinsey webinar, experts highlight four primary challenges in making the leap to managing a remote team: people, structure, process, and technology. Managers must address all four dimensions to create an efficient working model.

People. In addition to setting direction and helping employees work effectively, managers should focus on energizing the team and providing psychological safety-reiterate a shared purpose, encourage levity and informal videoconference get-togethers, and get to know one another as people.

Structure. Remote working amplifies any existing lack of clarity and difficulty navigating the organization. The answer is to shift from large, siloed teams to smaller, cross-functional teams of five to nine people with clear, outcome-based objectives.

Process. Establishing a clear cadence of scheduled daily and weekly meetings is crucial for remote working. This approach usually requires a culture shift, and managers must adapt to dealing with more ambiguity.

Technology. Managers must ensure employees have the basics-for example, enough bandwidth for a full family online all day-as well as tools spanning content creation, video conferencing, file sharing, channel-based communication, backlog management, and team culture. All of these tools need to meet security requirements.

For more, see " A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China. "

The contents of this site, including any statements, articles, graphics, charts, checklists, and other materials ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or constitute medical advice. This content was previously posted on McKinsey's COVID Response Center and is subject to our commitment to the Open Covid Pledge under these Terms of Use.

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How to lead and manage remotely: Adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic | McKinsey Live

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The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology. As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives.

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this article is about how McKinsey & Company adjusted to working during Covid 19 by establishing clear cadences of scheduled daily and weekly meetings. they also used different tools like sharing documents with each other to continue to accomplish the goal for the company even though it was challenging for them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives. In this McKinsey webinar, experts highlight four primary challenges in making the leap to managing a remote team: people, structure, process, and technology. Managers must address all four dimensions to create an efficient working model.

People. In addition to setting direction and helping employees work effectively, managers should focus on energizing the team and providing psychological safety-reiterate a shared purpose, encourage levity and informal videoconference get-togethers, and get to know one another as people.

Structure. Remote working amplifies any existing lack of clarity and difficulty navigating the organization. The answer is to shift from large, siloed teams to smaller, cross-functional teams of five to nine people with clear, outcome-based objectives.

Process. Establishing a clear cadence of scheduled daily and weekly meetings is crucial for remote working. This approach usually requires a culture shift, and managers must adapt to dealing with more ambiguity.

Technology. Managers must ensure employees have the basics-for example, enough bandwidth for a full family online all day-as well as tools spanning content creation, video conferencing, file sharing, channel-based communication, backlog management, and team culture. All of these tools need to meet security requirements.

For more, see " A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China. "

The contents of this site, including any statements, articles, graphics, charts, checklists, and other materials ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or constitute medical advice. This content was previously posted on McKinsey's COVID Response Center and is subject to our commitment to the Open Covid Pledge under these Terms of Use.

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How to lead and manage remotely: Adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic | McKinsey Live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology. As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives.

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This article went over ways in which businesses can respond to Covid. It was a big adjustment but it was a quick necessary shift that had to be made so that there business would not tank or go out of business.

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The companies and employees at ground zero of the COVID-19 outbreak provide insight into what works in a time of crisis - and what doesn't.

Leaders around the world are facing twin anxieties: how severe the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak will be for the economy and what companies should be doing to prepare.

Scientists have long warned that emerging infectious diseases represent a new reality with the potential to cause untold human suffering and economic disaster. While the financial damage of the COVID-19 epidemic - first reported from Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019 ― has so far largely been confined to China, organizations around the world are directly and indirectly affected by what is fast becoming a global crisis.

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Managers lack clear guidance on how to ready their organizations for a global pandemic event. The World Health Organization (WHO) tracked 1,438 epidemics between 2011 and 2018 and notes, "In addition to loss of life, epidemics and pandemics devastate economies." Many of the outbreaks in this period, including Ebola and MERS, were able to be contained geographically. But the conflux of hyperurbanization and global warming makes pandemics and other ecological dangers more likely to spread over a larger area - and a very real threat to the world's economies.

We've been taking a close look at the effects on Chinese companies and workers of the government quarantines that began being imposed in January. The responses of these two sets of stakeholders at the front lines of managing this crisis offer important lessons for organizational leaders in other locales. Current projections suggest that it's only a matter of time before most organizations are facing similar challenges.

The Impact on China's Economy and Global Trade

Our first task was to find out how much the virus, and the resultant quarantines, have been affecting Chinese business. Our research initiative at the Global Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, collects and examines remote sensing data, such as satellite data and digital trace data. We are using this tool to shed light on how COVID-19 has been affecting the Chinese and global economies.

Our team has been analyzing daily satellite data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument about air pollution emissions to quantify the regional and local impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and government-imposed quarantines on the Chinese economy. Changes in the quantity of pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, are useful for identifying daily changes in emissions-heavy industries, such as manufacturing, because of their short lifespan in the troposphere. Emissions data has long been used as a proxy for quantifying shifts in certain types of economic activity. Simply put, a drop in air pollution indicates a drop in manufacturing.

The emissions data shows the severe hit that China's manufacturing sector took in January and February. (See "Air Pollution Reduction Shows Where Chinese Manufacturing Slowed.") Our data shows that nitrogen dioxide emissions in China fell by 38% between Jan. 24, the start of the government-imposed quarantines in Hubei Province, and Feb. 21, the targeted "back-to-work" date in many Chinese provinces.

Air Pollution Reduction Shows Where Chinese Manufacturing Slowed

Global Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of St. Gallen, using data from ESA from Jan. 24 to Feb. 21, 2020

The numbers were more extreme closer to the outbreak's epicenter in eastern China: Within Hubei Province, emissions fell by 53%, and in the worst-affected industrial municipalities around Wuhan City, emissions plunged by as much as 85%.

What is the economic impact of this sudden nosedive in production? Converting emissions data to dollar amounts is fraught, but we estimate that a 38% decline in emissions may indicate a conservative loss of up to U.S. $215.6 billion to Chinese manufacturing during this period alone. (To make our estimate, we compared nitrogen dioxide emission reductions with province-level 2018 gross regional product attributable to the secondary sector values from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics.)

The real economic impact of COVID-19 on the Chinese economy, though, is likely to be far higher. While nitrogen dioxide emissions began recovering in many less-affected Chinese provinces in mid-February, countrywide emissions levels are not likely to return to pre-outbreak levels until the end of the quarantines in Hubei Province, scheduled for late March 2020 (as of this writing). Moreover, the manufacturing being done in China is a hinge point for many of the world's largest companies and economies. The effects of the slowed Chinese production include customers who must find alternate sources of supplies and slowdowns of entire global production schedules as a result of the trade upheaval and uncertainty.

Best Practices to Guide Companies Through the COVID-19 Crisis

In addition to analyzing emissions data, our team has also been systematically aggregating news and social media data from the most severely hit regions in China to better understand how COVID-19 has affected the Chinese economy, including those portions that are less observable through traditional economic proxies. This data collection has given us a unique lens on how Chinese companies and other Chinese organizations have been responding to the ongoing crisis.

Our data shows that there are several steps that Chinese managers are successfully taking, often with the encouragement of Chinese authorities, to mitigate the impact of the virus and its disruptions. There are also several areas where a lack of preparedness has led to less-than-desirable outcomes.

We believe that managers can learn a lot from how companies in China have been coping with COVID-19. These coping practices include having smart policies around remote work; anticipating and mitigating operational roadblocks; and addressing the social impacts of this health emergency.

Develop an Infrastructure for Remote Work

Telecommuting has long been seen as integral to maintaining normal operations during a crisis. In Chinese social media, searches on the phrase "remote work" were stagnant from the Dec. 31, 2019, announcement of the coronavirus through the Jan. 24, 2020, start of the Wuhan quarantine. They only began to rise after Feb. 14, the start of Chinese government's efforts to return employees to work with the goal of having full productivity restored by the intended "back-to-work" day of Feb. 21.

Many Chinese companies, with the encouragement of Chinese authorities, began transitioning large portions of their nonmanufacturing workforce to telecommuting after the end of the Chinese New Year, in late January. For employees, especially those unaccustomed to remote work, there may be questions around best practices of telecommuting, as we observed comments on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform, remarking concern about the obligation to "stand by 24 hours a day."

Of course, many jobs, particularly those in manufacturing, cannot be transitioned to remote work. Only 33% of Chinese small and medium enterprises, which employ 80% of Chinese workers, were able to resume normal operations by the end of February.

Using the Chinese experience as a model, we believe there are steps managers can take to maximize the effectiveness of the remote work option during a crisis. They include these four:

If you are not already doing so, allow your employees to telecommute. Companies that allow for remote work - right now - will have the necessary tacit knowledge, planning, and infrastructure in place to quickly transition more operations if that becomes necessary.

Train your leaders. Our data shows that employees' biggest complaints about remote work are about managers who lack respect for normal working hours. Leaders need sensible rules about when they expect workers to be available - and when they don't.

Identify employees who are most crucial to maintaining business continuity. Do they have the tools to work effectively from home if they have to? Ensure that they are prepared.

Develop a disaster scenario that incorporates telecommuting. How would your organization operate if there was a quarantine that shut down geographic areas where you operate? Use techniques from scenario planning to generate ideas about how your company could pull together the capacity to resume operations in even a limited form.

Be Ready for Operational Shocks

Our research is uncovering the struggles of many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China that have largely been ignored by Western media. SMEs contribute up to 60% of China's gross domestic product. However, many smaller Chinese companies, particularly those in manufacturing, tourism, and construction, operate on small margins and are burdened with debt. Our data shows that the lack of available operating funds is one of the most frequent concerns expressed online by Chinese SMEs.

The following comment, which was posted in February on the social media account of a hotel owner in Yichang, Hubei Province, is one of many such examples: "Originally, businesses in Wuhan and Yichang were supposed to start back up by the beginning of March. Then, this afternoon's notice came. Enterprises in Hubei Province will restart work, at the earliest, on March 10. March 10 is still 19 days away. When will this stop? I am going to collapse and go bankrupt."

The middle of a crisis is the worst time to be scrambling for the basics of operations, whether it's finding cash to make salary payments or finding alternative suppliers because your regular source has gone cold. If you believe your organization could find itself in troubled waters because of COVID-19, start the following now:

Have at least one to three months of cash on hand. This cushion is necessary to cover immediate expenses, such as salary and debt payments. Do not solely rely on financial instruments or short-term credit to make up the difference.

Know what your options are for extending loans, terms, and other short-term obligations. Look this over now. Banks care that they can recoup the principal amount of the loan, and in the midst of a crisis, borrowing more or changing the loan's conditions is difficult. Some governments have relief programs or provide other forms of targeted assistance. The Chinese government, for instance, earmarked U.S. $114 billion in February to support short term loans to SMEs.

Have an adequate buffer stock of crucial parts and other inputs on hand. If you have not already done so, identify and establish relations with alternative suppliers from countries that are less affected by the crisis. Developing supply chain resilience is a best practice in any condition. (To our surprise, many Chinese companies were completely unprepared for the need to find new suppliers.)

Try to get an understanding of how prepared key suppliers and other stakeholders are for an unexpected event. Will they be able to sustain their operations? The more knowledge you can gain in the early phases of this outbreak, the better prepared you can be if and when circumstances shift.

Become a Community Player

Charity is an important response to natural disasters such as COVID-19. In addition to simply being a good practice for ethical reasons, there are empirically established correlations between charitable activities and future financial performance, improved relations with government authorities, and reputational legitimacy. Companies that recognize the stress on social systems during medical emergencies are more likely to do better afterward than companies that do not. Corporate charity provided by local companies has a particularly strong and positive effect.

China's largest private companies have taken the lead in providing outreach during these first few months of the crisis, and the reputational effects are apparent on traditional and social media. One company, Hubei Huanggang Agricultural Development Co., donated 200,000 kilograms (220 tons) of vegetables to families in the worst-affected areas. Alibaba Group established a $144 million medical supply fund for hospitals in Hubei Province. The Wuhan Charity Federation reports that it raised over $400 million from corporate and private donations in less than two weeks to support communities affected by the outbreak.

If the COVID-19 epidemic comes to your town, you should be prepared to help. Here are three ideas drawn from the Chinese examples:

Target nonprofits and community outreach organizations in your local area. Corporate generosity has a much larger impact when it is provided directly to a local community.

Encourage volunteering by your workforce. Employees who have the option to participate in corporate volunteer programs are more likely to participate repeatedly.

Let others know what you've done. Release a succinct external announcement when you make donation. Don't boast: Provide only the most pertinent details, including the amount of funds committed, the key beneficiaries and recipients, and what you aim to achieve with your donation. Include a quote from your executive leadership team.

The COVID-19 crisis has inflicted severe human suffering and economic strain already, and it will continue to do so in the near future. Our research confirms numerous reports that the ongoing crisis has significantly affected the Chinese economy, with manufacturing and other emissions-heavy industries particularly hard hit.

While the effects of COVID-19 on the global economy are only starting to be felt, there is a growing awareness in the scientific and business communities that companies need to be prepared to deal with epidemics in their own backyards.

Managers must be prepared to accept that what we are now observing represents a new reality: Diseases and other forms of ecological disasters are very real global threats to operational continuity. The evidence-based recommendations we have outlined in this article can go a long way toward ensuring that your company is prepared to maintain operations during the COVID-19 crisis.

About the Authors

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How Companies Can Respond to the Coronavirus

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The companies and employees at ground zero of the COVID-19 outbreak provide insight into what works in a time of crisis - and what doesn't. Leaders around the world are facing twin anxieties: how severe the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak will be for the economy and what companies should be doing to prepare.

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This article talks about how they had to switch ways of communication and had to switch up their products. It also highlights how they had to figure out new delivery methods because they were not able to have contact with anyone.

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As the coronavirus pandemic shut down everyday commerce in 2020, businesses across the globe shifted focus, switching to remote work and in many cases offering new products, services and delivery methods to reach customers and maintain operations.

Now, as distribution of vaccines allows companies to consider their post-pandemic reality, many find themselves embracing or adapting to certain pivots that helped them through the crisis.

For instance, Norwegian company Playing Lean had always resisted requests to make an online version of its namesake board game, which coaches and consultants use to teach entrepreneurship, innovation and "lean startup" principles.

"Ever since the beginning we were adamant about keeping it a physical-first product," game creator Bruno Pešec said. "And then the pandemic happened. Educators still had to do their job, entrepreneurs still wanted to learn lean startup."

After experimenting for a few weeks, he said, the company created a remote version of Playing Lean that produced the same results.

"Our initial idea was to offer it only as long as the pandemic lasts and then decommission it. But we changed our mind when we noticed that we started to reach customers outside of our regular geographies. By moving Playing Lean online, we were suddenly seeing much more players and educators from the Americas and Africa," Pešec said.

How Do Companies Decide What Changes To Keep?

"I certainly think that those companies that benefited or created new product lines during 2020 aren't going to just shut them down," said David Cameron, head of business banking at City National Bank. "Maybe it's not the big opportunity today that it was through the pandemic but it's still going to be a nice complement to the business overall."

In office-oriented professional services sectors, Cameron expects hybrid working arrangements to become more common now that companies have pandemic-era experience with remote work and virtual meetings using platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Many companies now realize that employees may be more productive if they can avoid the daily commute and traffic grind at least part of the time, he noted.

"People are recognizing that a virtual meeting can be of value, yet they don't want to do it every single day, all day. So that's a new business practice that will allow companies to stay efficient, keep levels of engagement high and supplement face-to-face meetings that now don't need to happen as regularly," Cameron said. Professional services firms are unlikely to totally do away with in-person meetings and work, however.

"That will create more efficiencies for companies, it will mean operating expenses are lower and business travel will be lower," Cameron said. "That can be helpful to certain industries. But on the other side, there are businesses in the hospitality and other sectors that are negatively affected by reduced levels of business travel."

LinkedIn recently announced it would allow its more than 16,000 employees to work remotely full-time or to choose a hybrid arrangement.

"We trust each other to do our best work where it works best for us and our teams. We've learned every individual and every team works differently, so we're moving away from a one-size-fits-all policy. We're embracing flexibility with both hybrid and remote roles, expecting more of us to be remote than pre-Covid and removing the expectation of being in the office 50% of the time," LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky wrote in a blog post, noting that most employees want to be in the office sometimes.

The pandemic prompted many businesses to adopt new technology to enable them to work better with employees and customers.

How Companies Adapted During COVID-19

The pandemic prompted many businesses to adopt new technology to enable them to work better with employees and customers.

The team at Home Grounds, a Westbury, NY-based online community for home coffee hobbyists, quickly realized that emails and shared documents weren't cutting it as hybrid and remote work became the norm during the pandemic, founder and CEO Alex Mastin said.

"As we're all naturally resistant to change we reluctantly incorporated some collaboration software into our daily business to establish a clear line of communication and reduce the errors occurring from botched email chains. Luckily, things like Slack and Monday.com made a huge difference and streamlined the workday by reducing emergency email reminders and pixelated [virtual] calls," he said.

After holding an employee poll, "it's safe to say we won't be going back as productivity and performance has never been at such a high despite the circumstances," Mastin said.

Moriarty's Gem Art, a jeweler that operates an Indiana store and e-commerce site, started producing educational and commercial livestreams for its local customers on YouTube and Facebook when the pandemic forced the physical shop to close from March through mid-June 2020.

"These live shows allow visitors to view our items, buy online and ask questions. We advertised our livestreams beforehand through emails, our website and social media followers. We are now getting about 1,000-plus viewers watching our show each month," said Jeff Moriarty, the firm's marketing manager.

"Not only has it helped to stay connected with our customers, it has generated a ton of sales - $20,000 from our last show - so that we are doing it once a month even now," he said.

As technology helped boost sales and opened new, distant markets for some companies, remote working arrangements sparked others to reach a wider labor pool.

The pandemic prompted Germany-based product management software firm airfocus to start hiring internationally, co-founder and CEO Malte Scholz said.

"We already had a pretty diverse team, but a lot of the employees were based in Germany or somewhere really close. That way, if we wanted to meet or have a team-building event, it was quite easy to organize. However, when most of the businesses switched to remote work, this opened a whole new international market for hiring talent," Scholz said.

"We decided to attract people from different continents and diversify our workforce even more. There were no signs of COVID disappearing any time soon so we figured we might as well use all of the benefits of a remote system. This was a great decision because our team is much more vibrant and incredibly motivated to work on further growing the company," he said.

Boston-based Testimonial Hero, a B2B video testimonial software firm, had a similar experience, going fully remote and achieving at least $1 million in revenue during the pandemic in 2020, CEO Sam Shepler said. The company plans to remain fully remote.

"I think one of the primary takeaways during the pandemic that we didn't anticipate is how well remote work would pan out for businesses. In our case, it worked wonders as all our employees became a lot more productive when they started working from home," Shepler said.

"It also forced us to hire new candidates over the internet, which allowed us to find some excellent international talent that we normally wouldn't have hired pre-pandemic. So the main pivot that we will definitely keep is to run the entire business 100% office-less since it's worked out well for us so far."

How Companies Changed Their Products During COVID-19

Some businesses are adapting their product lines to incorporate pandemic pivots longer term.

Los Angeles sign maker Front Signs decided to keep one of its new pandemic offerings and drop another.

The firm adjusted its production process during the pandemic to prioritize its regular products, such as safety signs, that were in high demand. They also introduced face shields and sneeze guards, CEO Gevorg Hambardzumyan said.

"These changes have had a subtle impact on our post-pandemic strategy. Although we ceased the production of face shields, we decided to keep producing sneeze guards as a useful and practical option for many businesses," he said.

"In offering sneeze guards as a means of virus protection, we found out that they serve various other functions as well. This is why we included them in our list of regular products even after the lockdown," Hambardzumyan explained.

"On the other hand, face shields are not very relevant to our business. We only offered them as a way to contribute to the public because we had the resources. Since there's not as much demand for them anymore, it doesn't make sense for us to carry on with the production."

Beyond sneeze guards, the nimble mindset that Front Signs called on during the pandemic will continue to play a role for the company, Hambardzumyan said.

"One thing is certain," he said. "The flexibility and resourcefulness we were forced to adopt during such a challenging time are pivots we'll gladly continue to develop as we move forward."

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The Effects of the Pandemic in Business: Changes That are Here to Stay | City National Bank

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The pandemic has had many impacts on how businesses are ran and operated. Learn what changes are here to stay and how companies are pivoting.

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This article informed us on the actions that companies had to take with the way their employees were going to continue working. They broke down why people wanted to stay and work from home and also why some people wanted to come back into the daily office.

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Reimagining the office and work life after COVID-19

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The pandemic has forced the adoption of new ways of working. Organizations must reimagine their work and the role of offices in creating safe, productive, and enjoyable jobs and lives for employees.

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This article is about how during COVID, instead of a complete redoing of business structures, successful companies pivoted. One example was Spotify who added podcasts to their app when advertisement revenue decreased.

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How Businesses Have Successfully Pivoted During the Pandemic

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From local restaurants to larger companies like Spotify and Unilever, companies that are successfully navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing recession have often pivoted to a business model that's conducive to short-term survival, and long-term resilience and growth. Not all pivots, however, result in good business performance.

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businesses tackled the challenges of remote work during the pandemic by addressing people's well-being, restructuring teams for clarity, implementing effective communication processes, and ensuring technological support for remote operations. Adaptation and flexibility were crucial in navigating this transformative period.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives. In this McKinsey webinar, experts highlight four primary challenges in making the leap to managing a remote team: people, structure, process, and technology. Managers must address all four dimensions to create an efficient working model.

People. In addition to setting direction and helping employees work effectively, managers should focus on energizing the team and providing psychological safety-reiterate a shared purpose, encourage levity and informal videoconference get-togethers, and get to know one another as people.

Structure. Remote working amplifies any existing lack of clarity and difficulty navigating the organization. The answer is to shift from large, siloed teams to smaller, cross-functional teams of five to nine people with clear, outcome-based objectives.

Process. Establishing a clear cadence of scheduled daily and weekly meetings is crucial for remote working. This approach usually requires a culture shift, and managers must adapt to dealing with more ambiguity.

Technology. Managers must ensure employees have the basics-for example, enough bandwidth for a full family online all day-as well as tools spanning content creation, video conferencing, file sharing, channel-based communication, backlog management, and team culture. All of these tools need to meet security requirements.

For more, see " A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China. "

The contents of this site, including any statements, articles, graphics, charts, checklists, and other materials ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or constitute medical advice. This content was previously posted on McKinsey's COVID Response Center and is subject to our commitment to the Open Covid Pledge under these Terms of Use.

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How to lead and manage remotely: Adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic | McKinsey Live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology. As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives.

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This article provides key actions that businesses took during the pandemic shutdown, including consistent meetings online to keep the employees and managers in touch, and using tools like file sharing to continue to produce and accomplish what the company usually does.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives. In this McKinsey webinar, experts highlight four primary challenges in making the leap to managing a remote team: people, structure, process, and technology. Managers must address all four dimensions to create an efficient working model.

People. In addition to setting direction and helping employees work effectively, managers should focus on energizing the team and providing psychological safety-reiterate a shared purpose, encourage levity and informal videoconference get-togethers, and get to know one another as people.

Structure. Remote working amplifies any existing lack of clarity and difficulty navigating the organization. The answer is to shift from large, siloed teams to smaller, cross-functional teams of five to nine people with clear, outcome-based objectives.

Process. Establishing a clear cadence of scheduled daily and weekly meetings is crucial for remote working. This approach usually requires a culture shift, and managers must adapt to dealing with more ambiguity.

Technology. Managers must ensure employees have the basics-for example, enough bandwidth for a full family online all day-as well as tools spanning content creation, video conferencing, file sharing, channel-based communication, backlog management, and team culture. All of these tools need to meet security requirements.

For more, see " A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China. "

The contents of this site, including any statements, articles, graphics, charts, checklists, and other materials ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or constitute medical advice. This content was previously posted on McKinsey's COVID Response Center and is subject to our commitment to the Open Covid Pledge under these Terms of Use.

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How to lead and manage remotely: Adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic | McKinsey Live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology. As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives.

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This article highlights how businesses had to shift their focus to the online world. This is how many businesses continued making profit and growing through the pandemic.

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Small Businesses Get Creative to Survive During the Pandemic

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Innovations adopted during the coronavirus crisis drive revenue and generate new opportunities for small businesses in the U.S.

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This article discusses how the pandemic lead to in increase in digital tools and remote working across many business. These tools allowed business to stay organized and keep making and selling their product to costumers.

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This article shows how companies needed to restructure activities, build resilience and trust their leaders. The leaders would start a trickle down effect for all of the employees below them and make sure everyone was pulling their weight.

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* Coronavirus lockdown saw an unexpected increase in productivity for many companies.

* To sustain this, business leaders can target four separate areas.

* Resilience building is key.

When firms moved to remote working in response to the COVID-19 lockdown, many discovered an unexpected upside of increased productivity. Tasks that traditionally took six months were accomplished in two weeks. Problems regarded as unsolvable were being solved, often in very short time frames. In some cases, the pace of delivery has been phenomenal - such is the power of a crisis and the necessity it creates.

As we emerge from the lockdown, most companies are looking at how they can restructure and emerge stronger for the next decade. In addition to considering issues such as the ideal business model and operational resilience, companies are focusing on how to sustain some portion of this increased productivity and transformative power into the future. Many are noticing that in spite of slashing bureaucracy, they can only get so far, and that continuing to work longer hours is unsustainable. Numerous work tasks have also been left aside, such as regulatory tasks that also now need to be addressed.

In our work with dozens of organizations on their rethink plans, we're finding the firms that focus on a combination of four conditions - restructuring the work people do, empowering leadership, shifting beliefs and behaviours, and building resilience - are the ones that are continuing to succeed at unlocking productivity. Below, we examine how leaders should approach each of these factors in turn.
1. Restructuring activities
From cutting costs to reworking customer offerings, being thrown into the COVID-19 crisis forced us to ask which work was deemed as most value-adding to customers and critical for survival - what is the "new minimum". As a result, leaders and their teams figured out what work to do, how to do it and convinced themselves of the need to do it now, not tomorrow.

Adopting these lessons moving forward, work should be broken down into three categories: essential, necessary and wasted, classified according to the impact on delivering the strategic value of the organization. Time spent on each type of work needs to be codified with lessons learned through the crisis. For example: management information truly critical in terms of adding strategic clarity needs to be identified, while the traditional reams of reports that never get read by senior decision-makers should be eliminated.

Leaders should create clarity on the "must-have" outcomes they need to deliver value and regularly communicate them. Messaging must create a compelling "why" this outcome is essential - what pain it will remove, what value it will create.

Then the amount of time people actually spend on tasks that deliver strategic value should be measured and analyzed. In most organizations we work with, workforces on average invest less than 30% of their time in the work that delivers the strategic value uplift desired.

Once these initial results are measured, actions on critical work must then be taken immediately and adjustments made quickly if tasks are not significantly improving the value created. After the work that needs to be done is catalogued, and more of people's time is refocused on it, associated structural and process changes can help reinforce and support sustainable higher productivity shifts.

Productivity also rose during the lockdown in part because the relationship between many employees and leaders shifted. In order for a higher level of productivity to continue, leaders have to evaluate how their leadership style was different and ask what it was about this mindset that allowed employees to flourish.

One of the biggest changes in the wake of COVID-19 was that many employees felt safer to make bold decisions. Pre-crisis, people felt it necessary to gain permission before taking action. During COVID-19, the bandwidth of leaders became stretched, leaving many leaders only enough time to communicate desired outcomes and timeframes, but not to address how to achieve these outcomes. Consequently, people had to figure out the "how" and, as a result, felt they had more autonomy to act. For example, employees on the front lines were empowered to work out how best to maintain customer satisfaction while having less physical connection with the customer.

Moving out of lockdown, firms should avoid simply reverting to the old command-and-control style of management. Instead, leadership will have to focus on clearly communicating desired outcomes and intent - rather than on telling their teams how to generate the outcome - empowering them to make decisions. It also creates a safer, more collaborative environment with a better sense of ownership. People own what they create.

Firms also need to take time to identify and support those leaders who emerged during the crisis. Through circumstance, this blossoming talent has found the freedom to act and has proved very capable of independent thought and performance. Give them as much space as possible, make your intent clear, and watch them deliver.

As life returns to normal, leaders must understand how the beliefs of their most productive people changed during the crisis and which beliefs are most compelling for the company moving forward. They must work out how to replace the crisis with an inspiring purpose if they are to nurture and sustain the urgency created during the last few months. To do that, people's beliefs during the crisis, their ways of knowing if they are acting consistently with what they or others value, must be understood.

For example, before the crisis, "consultation" was a key belief in generating a correct and therefore valued outcome in many firms. That created multiple conversations and, ultimately, delay. During the crisis, taking action quickly on a "good enough" basis became more highly valued. Beliefs changed to support those more highly valued outcomes. Rapid action became the key belief.

There is increasing evidence that some of the productivity surges found in the early weeks of the pandemic are now waning. The urgency that powered individuals, teams and organizations has started to dissipate. We are left with tired teams, the dawning realization that this new environment is not going away any time soon, and that the working world has changed.

This is testing the resilience of the workforce and has serious consequences for well-being and mental health. Many organizations are locked into a set of routines and operating practices that many assumed were temporary. As such, individuals are struggling to find a sustainable cadence, and this may well account for this drop-off in productivity.

The good news is that resilience, defined by an individual's ability to bounce back after absorbing energy and pressure, is a skill, not a trait. It can be developed and strengthened through developing basic techniques of self-awareness and self-management, and as organizations find their footing, it's vital to invest here at an individual, team and organizational level.

From slower growth to declining profits, the next 12 to 24 months will be enormously challenging. Our comfort with focusing on the tangible aspects of work - the tasks, the supporting structures and processes - typically means that they take up most of our efforts when trying to change them.

However, focusing on the time spent on value-creating tasks and the approach to performance will yield greater productivity gains. Perhaps because they are more intangible, learning new leadership skills and shifting mindsets are typically allocated much less focus, even though the productivity rewards are just as great.

Only a desire to radically address in equal measure, the work itself, our ways of working and our mindsets - and to do so in ways not countenanced before the crisis - will ensure that increased productivity can be maintained in the future.

Once COVID-19 abates and the world opens its arms to social interaction once more, we must leave the superfluous out of how we re-engage with work and accept new ways of driving productivity that allow us to excel as individuals, as teams and as competitive organizations.

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4 ways companies can stay productive beyond COVID-19 lockdown

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Thanks to improved business performance during coronavirus lockdown, flexible working looks here to stay. But first we'll need to re-imagine the workplace.

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Overall, the pandemic is likely to lead to more remote work, more delegation, smaller teams, more delegation and more widespread use of workers who are more loosely connected to the organization. However, it is also likely to lead to more formalization, more planning, and a heavier use of individual‐level rewards. had to figure out how to get product out in a non contact manner within a companies and to the buyer

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In this commentary I examine the potential impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic on firms' organization designs and speculate on how the pandemic may influence organization design research. By organizational design, I mean an organization's optimal levels of differentiation and integration given relevant internal and external contingencies. [1] In this regard, a key distinction is between the short‐run, that is, the situation in the aftermath of the decision by a large number of countries, international associations, and other agencies that the health crisis was a pandemic that required drastic measures (i.e., approximately mid‐March 2020), and the long run in which the disease is better understood and handled (effectively, two to three years from now). The temporal frame is likely to crucially matter to the effect of the pandemic on firms' organization designs. The long run may mean everything from a complete reversal to the pre‐pandemic situation to a more or less permanent situation of sporadic outbreaks and lock‐downs that require more social distancing. Whichever scenario manifests will have important implications for organization design. However, even with a relatively quick reversal to pre‐pandemic trading and interaction patterns, there are likely to be permanent traces left on organization design. For organization design scholars the pandemic presents not only a unique test‐bed for examining existing principles of organizational design but might also stimulate new theory related to the temporal dimension of organization design and the influence of path‐dependence. Thus, reflecting on the pandemic suggests that major external contingencies have different short‐term as compared to long‐term effects on organizational design, but also that major disturbances are likely to leave 'permanent' traces on the design of organizations - notions that seem absent from extant organization design research.

Short‐Run Consequences of the Pandemic on Organization Designs

The economic disruption induced by the Covid‐19 was caused by governments reacting to the health threat by locking down parts of the economy, as well as by individuals reacting cautiously to the threat by, for example, cutting back on services from restaurants, bars, cinemas, and the like.

This had a number of immediate organizational design implications, caused by physical distance becoming an important contingency. First, much on‐site work (particularly in the supporting 'techno‐structure'; Mintzberg, 1979) was transformed to work mediated by tools like Zoom and in general electronic platforms substituted for direct coordination under conditions of co‐presence in the coordination of work efforts. Second, this seems to have been accompanied by a higher level of real delegation as companies were compelled to transfer decision competence to local managers (e.g., Carlsberg transferred more competence to country managers; see also Dill, 2020).

Economics‐based organization design theory indicates that these changes are accompanied by changes in reward systems towards more performance‐dependent salaries, more reliance on output rather than input measures of efforts, and a higher degree of formalization as organizations seeks to maintain control under conditions of distance, virtual work and reduce the moral hazard problems from a higher level of informational asymmetry (see Jensen and Meckling, 1995). In fact, the latter challenges may lead firms to substitute independent contractors (e.g., freelancers) for employees. Alternatively, firms may invest more in building employee relations, possibly backed up by giving them more incentives in the form of ownership stakes in the enterprise. Clearly, the implications for rewards and ownership arrangements are different here, and which predictions are confirmed by the data remains to be seen.

Long‐Run Consequences of the Pandemic on Organization Designs

Concerning the longer‐run consequences of the pandemic, one possibility is that the pandemic will turn out to have been just a temporary disturbance. Thus, the economy, including the organization of transactions across the economy (which of course would also include the world economy) will return to its pre‐pandemic configuration, as supply chains are restored, international mobility patterns revert back, resources flow back into the experience economy, and so on. This could happen with the quick development of a successful vaccine, and/or the widespread use of effective testing and tracing routines. If on the other hand no vaccine is found and the virus doesn't mutate towards less harmful variants, constant precautions in the form of continuing social distancing, reduced international labour mobility and business travel, and semi‐closed borders will be permanent features of the business landscape. However, this will not be identical to the situation at the onset of the pandemic as innovations and changed work routines will emerge to compensate. For example, virtual meetings are likely to improve in quality.

However, even if the situation relatively quickly returns to 'normal', the pandemic is likely to leave a permanent mark on organization design. The reason is that major disruptions imply major changes to the so‐called 'economic fundamentals', namely technology, scarcities and preferences, which do not revert back to pre‐disruption levels. For example, Watanabe ( 2016, p. 209) shows that 'technology improvements in the recovery were so rapid that, over the whole Great Depression period, technology growth was highest among pre‐WWII decades'. It also well known that major disturbances are associated with changes in preferences as these pertain to labour‐leisure trade‐offs and politics (Ohanian, 2010). It is likely, however, that the Covid‐19 pandemic will imply the following permanent changes to firms' organizational designs under any scenario.

Organizational differentiation and interdependencies

The pandemic is likely to leave permanent traces on the organization of tasks in terms of specialization, bundling of tasks and sequencing of tasks. Organizational theory suggests that interdependencies may be thought of as pooled, sequential and reciprocal (Thompson, 1967). While this is often linked to the underlying technology, to some extent interdependencies are choice variables; for instance, some tasks that naturally involve reciprocal interdependencies can be made more sequential, given sufficient advance planning.

Moreover, firms can decide on the intensity with which they use certain technology‐interdependence pairs. Because the pandemic makes reciprocal interdependencies more difficult to organize (as these often involve, direct and potentially lengthy face‐to‐face interaction), task interdependencies will tend to migrate more towards the pooled or sequential category, and firms will invest more in pre‐planning task execution as there may be less scope for real time coordination. This will also tend to support modularization of tasks and task sequences so that highly interdependent tasks will tend to become more concentrated in technological and organizational modules (small rather than large work teams), which will necessitate a careful rethinking of the interfaces between work activities. The increased use of automation brought about by the pandemic may reinforce these tendencies (Lee, 2020).

Thus, research may address whether the Covid‐19 has in fact resulted in more technological and organizational modularization, for example, using regression discontinuity designs. The problem with such research is that panel datasets with relevant organization design information are basically non‐existing. However, it may be possible to exploit public register data (such as those in the Scandinavian countries) that have plant‐level employee data. For instance, it may be that the pandemic has driven a trend toward more plants and towards plants with fewer employees.

Such changes may sacrifice some advantages stemming from specialization and the exploitation of complementarities. On the other hand, efficiencies may be realized as firms have to rely less on potentially wasteful face‐to‐face coordination and more on automation, pre‐planning and the design of standard operating procedures (see Bartik et al., 2020, for survey data with a bearing on the efficiencies and inefficiencies of remote work).

The organization of work

The proportion between on‐site and remote work will likely not bounce back to former proportions because of preference changes (many employees have discovered the possibility of remote work and have come to like it), technological change (tools that facilitates remote work will rapidly improve, including the use of hologram‐assisted communication and sophisticated means of monitoring employee productivity at a distance), and politics (remote work better supports a green transformation agenda). The increased use of remote work may imply a decreasing use of teamwork (which is easier to manage on‐site), smaller teams (that are easier to coordinate remotely), and an increasing use of management by individual objectives and rewards.

Organizational boundaries

Many forces set in motion by the pandemic impact organizational boundaries by impacting labour transactions and transactions involving intermediate inputs and capital assets. On the one hand the use of remote work may decrease organizational loyalties and investments in firm‐specific human capital and reduce the need for input monitoring. This will tend to increase the use of freelance, part‐time work rather than permanent full employment, thereby shrinking firm boundaries. The increased use of automation - which many observers argue will be a permanent legacy of the pandemic - will reinforce this shrinkage. On the other hand, to the extent that the pandemic leads to a permanent decline in the extent of globalization that implies, for example, fewer suppliers, it may be a force pulling in the direction of more vertical integration, as international competition is less likely to alleviate the hold‐up risks of locking in to one or a few suppliers.

CODA

The Covid‐19 pandemic will have many and complex consequences for organizational design, even with a relatively rapid return to pre‐pandemic conditions. Overall, the pandemic is likely to lead to more remote work, more delegation, smaller teams, more delegation and more widespread use of workers who are more loosely connected to the organization. However, it is also likely to lead to more formalization, more planning, and a heavier use of individual‐level rewards. Some of these changes are efficiency‐enhancing while others are efficiency‐reducing. Whether the net effect is positive or negative remains to be seen.

Many of these changes are well understood by organization design scholars. As such, the pandemic provides a test bed for examining established ideas in organization design theory. Of course, it potentially provides unique opportunities for identifying causal effects, as the pandemic hit industries, countries and regions differentially. But, the pandemic also provides opportunities for conceiving new ideas on organization design, particularly with respect to the temporal frames within which designs are conceived, implemented and changed. For example, little attention has been paid in organization design scholarship to path‐dependence, but even with an otherwise complete reversal to pre‐pandemic conditions, it is likely that the pandemic will have left permanent traces on firms' designs.

However, organization designs interact with other key aspects of firms, such as resource acquisition and development and strategy, and permanent changes in organization design are therefore likely to have similarly permanent ramifications throughout the organization. This suggests that the above distinctions between the short and long‐term impact on organizations and the possibility of path‐dependence effects go beyond organization design and include many other aspects of organizations, potentially opening up an exciting new research agenda on the impact of major disturbances on organizations in terms of the temporal distribution of organizational consequences.

Note

[1] Organizational design includes firms' internal division of labour (in terms of divisionalization, departmentalization, job descriptions, etc.) and how they allocate task responsibility to external as opposed to internal parties, as well how they keep their internal and external division of labour together by means of the allocation of authority, rewards, planning, routines, and information flows, as well as formal and informal contracts as well as ownership positions.

REFERENCES

Bartik, A. W. , Cullen, Z. B. , Glaeser, E. L. , Luca, M. and Stanton, C. T. (2020). What Jobs are Being Done at Home During the Covid‐19 Crisis? Evidence from Firm‐Level Surveys. NBER Working Paper No. 27422. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. [Google Scholar]

Dill, K. (2020). 'When the CEO can't get on a plane, deputies step up'. Wall Street Journal, 8. August. Available at [https://www.wsj.com/articles/when‐the‐ceo‐cant‐get‐on‐a‐plane‐deputies‐step‐up‐11596879002 Google Scholar]

Jensen, M. E. and Meckling, W. H. (1995). 'Specific and general knowledge and organizational structure'. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 8, 4-18. [Google Scholar]

Lee, K.‐F. (2020). 'Kai‐Fu Lee on how Covid spurs China's great robotic leap forward'. The Economist, 25 June. [Google Scholar]

Mintzberg, H. (1979). Structure in Fives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice‐Hall. [Google Scholar]

Ohanian, L. (2010). 'The economic crisis from a neoclassical perspective'. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24, 45-66. [[PubMed] Google Scholar]

Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in Action. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. [Google Scholar]

Watanabe, S. (2016). 'Technology shocks and the Great Depression'. Journal of Economic History, 76, 909-33. [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Management Studies are provided here courtesy of Wiley-Blackwell

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The Impact of the Covid‐19 Pandemic on Firms' Organizational Designs

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In this commentary I examine the potential impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic on firms' organization designs and speculate on how the pandemic may influence organization design research. By organizational design, I mean an organization's optimal levels of differentiation and integration given relevant internal and external contingencies.

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The article talks about the changes that need to be made when everyone is remote, being people, structure, process, and technology.

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The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives. In this McKinsey webinar, experts highlight four primary challenges in making the leap to managing a remote team: people, structure, process, and technology. Managers must address all four dimensions to create an efficient working model.

People. In addition to setting direction and helping employees work effectively, managers should focus on energizing the team and providing psychological safety-reiterate a shared purpose, encourage levity and informal videoconference get-togethers, and get to know one another as people.

Structure. Remote working amplifies any existing lack of clarity and difficulty navigating the organization. The answer is to shift from large, siloed teams to smaller, cross-functional teams of five to nine people with clear, outcome-based objectives.

Process. Establishing a clear cadence of scheduled daily and weekly meetings is crucial for remote working. This approach usually requires a culture shift, and managers must adapt to dealing with more ambiguity.

Technology. Managers must ensure employees have the basics-for example, enough bandwidth for a full family online all day-as well as tools spanning content creation, video conferencing, file sharing, channel-based communication, backlog management, and team culture. All of these tools need to meet security requirements.

For more, see " A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China. "

The contents of this site, including any statements, articles, graphics, charts, checklists, and other materials ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or constitute medical advice. This content was previously posted on McKinsey's COVID Response Center and is subject to our commitment to the Open Covid Pledge under these Terms of Use.

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How to lead and manage remotely: Adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic | McKinsey Live

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The sudden, large-scale shift to remote working has meant leading and managing in new ways. Leaders from McKinsey share insights related to people, organizational structure, processes, and technology. As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, many companies have shifted to remote work, and employees are balancing major changes in their personal and professional lives.

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This article talked about how during covids pandemic they stay organized by increasing telework, adding workplace flexibilities, or changing pay.

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The article is a survey conducted by Harvard Business to measure what businesses have done to adjust to the Covid Pandemic. They found that the majority of businesses were functioning well, and that the majority had implemented virtual work policies.

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We recently sent out an informal survey to see just how organizations are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. What sorts of policies have they put in place? How are they communicating with their employees? Are work-from-home employees able to take part in virtual learning? Our survey drew 280 responses from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning clients as well as others. Survey participants were from around the globe and represented a diverse set of industries and roles.

The good news is that the vast majority of participants feel that their organizations are doing a good job when it comes to balancing business priorities with employee needs in this time of crisis. More than two thirds rated their companies as doing extremely well (29%) or very well (40%). Fewer than five percent cast a "not well at all" vote. Similar numbers expressed confidence that they could rely on their leadership to protect their safety and the safety of their teams.

In a time of crisis, communication is key
Organizations are using a variety of vehicles to keep employees updated on the crisis and what's being done about it. For 78% of respondents, this meant that their organization has created new employee communications channels that are specific to the crisis. Communications tools being deployed include daily alerts; daily or weekly email updates or group check-ins; virtual town halls; team meetings via WebEx, Skype, and Zoom (but of course!); information portals; YouTube videos. Teams are communicating and collaborating via WhatsApp, Yammer, and Slack. Organizations are providing information that's specific to the company, as well as relevant government information. Information often cascades from the senior executives to division and team leaders, who convey it to their groups.

Not all organizations are working virtually. One survey respondent reported that their company has a bulletin board in the lobby on which they post daily COVID-19 updates.

Virtual work is working - and so is virtual learning
Most respondents - 85% - reported that their organization has implemented a virtual work policy. For those organizations where working from home isn't possible, special efforts are being made to maintain workspace cleanliness, practice social distancing, space out work on manufacturing floors, and stagger shifts. One organization is bringing in box lunches so that their employees don't have to head out to lunch.

While it isn't new to most organizations, 76% of survey participants indicated that their organization is considering virtual learning. Companies are offering virtual training on matters related to the current crisis, as well as traditional online learning for the development of professional skills. Several organizations are even providing online meditation.

The bottom line: organizations throughout the world are responding to the pandemic by stepping up and providing much needed leadership.

What changes has your organization made in response to the coronavirus pandemic?
Marisa Naughton is associate director, global marketing & communications, at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at .

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How Organizations Are Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic

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We recently sent out an informal survey to see just how organizations are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. What sorts of policies have they put in place? How are they communicating with their employees? Are work-from-home employees able to take part in virtual learning?

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Businesses had to reorganize, and some decisions were actually postive for the business. Some businesses made meetings far more efficient, and technologies used to run operations, conduct meetings, and collect data have also improved significantly. Businesses have also began taking employees' mental and physical health more seriously as well.

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When the coronavirus pandemic erupted, companies had to change. Many business-as-usual approaches to serving customers, working with suppliers, and collaborating with colleagues-or just getting anything done-would have failed. They had to increase the speed of decision making, while improving productivity, using technology and data in new ways, and accelerating the scope and scale of innovation. And it worked. Organizations in a wide range of sectors and geographies have accomplished difficult tasks and achieved positive results in record time:

Redeploying talent. A global telco redeployed 1,000 store employees to inside sales and retrained them in three weeks.

Launching new business models. A US-based retailer launched curbside delivery in two days versus the previously-planned 18 months.

Improving productivity. An industrial factory ran at 90-percent-plus capacity with 40 percent of the workforce.

Developing new products. An engineering company designed and manufactured ventilators within a week.

Shifting operations. Coordinating with local officials, a major shipbuilder switched from three shifts to two, with thousands of employees.

The need for speed: No turning back

At the heart of each of these examples is speed-getting things done fast, and well. Organizations have removed boundaries and have broken down silos in ways no one thought was possible. They have streamlined decisions and processes, empowered frontline leaders, and suspended slow-moving hierarchies and bureaucracies. The results, CEOs from a wide range of industries have told us, have often been stunning:
"Decision making accelerated when we cut the nonsense. We make decisions in one meeting, limit groups to no more than nine people, and have banned PowerPoint.""I asked on Monday, and by Friday we had a working prototype.""We have increased time in direct connection with teams-resetting the role and energizing our managers.""We adopted new technology overnight-not the usual years-as we have a higher tolerance for mistakes that don't threaten the business.""We're putting teams of our best people on the hardest problems. If they can't solve it, no one can."
Because of the pandemic, leadership teams have embraced technology and data, reinventing core processes and adopting new collaboration tools. Technology and people interacting in new ways is at the heart of the new operating model for business-and of creating an effective postpandemic organization.

So is speed. An organization designed for speed will see powerful outcomes, including greater customer responsiveness, enhanced capabilities, and better performance, in terms of cost efficiency, revenues, and return on capital. The speedy company might also find it has a higher sense of purpose and improved organizational health. These outcomes are possible, but not inevitable. Organizational successes forged during the crisis need to be hardwired into the new operating model; and leaders must ensure their organizations do not revert to old behaviors and processes. That requires making permanent structural changes that can sustain speed in ways that will inspire and engage employees.

Reinventing the organization for speed

As companies adopt new ways of working at speed, executives are also interested in moving to flatter, nonhierarchical structures, taking more radical approaches to decision making and ways of working. Gone are the days of waiting around for best practices to emerge. CEOs recognize the need to shift from adrenaline-based speed during COVID-19 to speed by design for the long run. The winners are experimenting now, and boldly. Here are nine actions to unleash sustainable speed (exhibit).

The first three actions aim to rethink ways of working. Many leaders have had to do this during the pandemic and are keen to keep those that have worked well:

1. Speed up and delegate decision making. The pandemic has shown that it is possible to make decisions faster without breaking the business. What this means in practice is fewer meetings and fewer decision makers in each meeting. Some organizations are taking to heart the "nine on a videoconference" principle. Others are keeping larger 30- to 40-person meetings (so the people that need to implement the decisions are present) but cutting the number of people with a vote. There is also less detailed preparation for each meeting, with one- to two-page documents or spreadsheets replacing lengthy PowerPoint decks.

Organizations are also increasing the cadence of decisions, taking on the mantra that "quarterly is the new annual." Holding just-in-time, fit-for-purpose planning and resource allocation on a quarterly instead of annual basis is not only faster but also makes the organization more flexible.

Finally, non-mission-critical decisions can be delegated, so that top leaders focus on fewer, more important decisions: think "assign to the line" rather than "go to the top." That means tolerating mistakes that don't put the business at risk; a slow decision can often be worse than an imperfect one. The principle is simple: organizations that want to move faster must motivate their employees to be willing to act.

2. Step up execution excellence. Just because the times are fraught does not mean that leaders need to tighten control and micromanage execution. Rather the opposite. Because conditions are so difficult, frontline employees need to take on more responsibility for execution, action, and collaboration.

But this isn't always easy and requires that organizations focus on building execution muscle throughout the workforce. Leaders must assign responsibility to the line, and drive "closed-loop accountability." That is, everyone working on a team must be clear about what needs to get done by whom, when, and why. Employees must also be equipped with the right skills and mindsets to solve problems, instead of waiting to be told what to do. And there must be disciplined follow-up to make sure actions were taken and the desired results achieved.

CEOs who are serious about execution excellence are investing in helping their workforces up their execution game-through targeted programs, realigning incentives, and directing rewards and recognition to teams that execute with speed and excellence. Building execution excellence does not have to come at the expense of innovation. Quite the contrary: it can help discover powerful ideas and innovation from the frontline teams that are closest to the customer. And it can drive excitement and loyalty among the employee base.

Consider the example of a chemical company that is undergoing an enterprise-wide transformation of its business. Every meeting begins with a statement of objectives and ends with a list of actions to take, including those who are responsible for each. Outcomes and milestones are tracked, and employees are rewarded for achieving their goals. Leaders communicate the purpose of these actions (the why behind the what and the how) and build conviction in their employees to do the right thing. Employees, in turn, are motivated by a sense of personal ownership and pride. By knowing who exactly is doing what when, at all times, the pace of execution can be accelerated. Such an approach both speeds up and improves execution.

3. Cultivate extraordinary partnerships. Working with partners is routine. But the speed of action only goes so far if other players in the ecosystem fail to move just as fast. During the pandemic, we have seen companies work with partners in new ways to achieve extraordinary impact. For example, Prisma Health, a South Carolina-based not for profit, had a design for an emergency ventilator-expansion device but lacked the capacity to build and distribute as many as were needed. Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon division, on the other hand, had the capacity and distribution infrastructure. The two were able to rapidly form a partnership to manufacture the devices at scale, and the Food and Drug Administration gave it an emergency-use authorization.

As this example illustrates, partners are increasingly important in dealing with the pace of change, complexity, and disruptions that are becoming the norm. The rate of technological and business-model innovation alone makes it nearly impossible for any single organization to do everything itself. Furthermore, the connected world is breaking down the traditional boundaries between buyers and suppliers, manufacturers and distributors, and employers and employees.

Having one fast, agile team is helpful, but having many of them across an enterprise, and enabling them with the right structures, processes, and culture, makes it possible for the entire system to move faster.

For partnerships to be successful, the relationship must be built on deep trust, for example by adopting a more open-source approach to innovation and embedding the partner into everything from strategy-setting to routine operations. Trust allows the parties to integrate their systems and processes, enabling them to find solutions, make decisions quickly, and execute efficiently. In the case of J&J and Prisma Health, they had a shared mission to help patients and medical professionals. The next three actions aim to reimagine structure to go beyond the traditional "boxes and lines" and toward the development of the kinds of teams that work together to deliver value:

4. Flatten the structure. A speedy organization has more people taking action and fewer people feeding the beast of bureaucracy-briefing each other, reporting, seeking approvals, sitting in unproductive meetings (and then huddling up in the meeting after the meeting to have the real conversation). Rigid hierarchies must give way to leaner, flatter structures that allow the system to respond quickly to emerging challenges and opportunities. There are fewer middle managers and span-breakers and more doers and deciders. Creating this new organism requires reimagining structure not as a hierarchy of bosses, per the traditional organization chart, but rather as a dynamic network of teams. As one CEO told us, "We can finally turn the page on the traditional matrix and reinvent how we organize and how work gets done."

Real-time collaboration and co-location become more important, and have even extended to the virtual world. For example, putting engineering and product-development specialists on the same team can speed up innovation and boost output. The role of the corporate center must also be rethought. In many cases, central functions could become capability platforms deploying skills, tools, and talent where they are needed most, while also acting as a catalyst for learning and best-practice sharing. Centers of excellence could be established, with the goal of bringing leading-edge capabilities-such as analytics and artificial intelligence, digitization and process automation, and Industry 4.0-to a broad range of performance units and thus delivering measurable value.

5. Unleash nimble, empowered teams. The pandemic has seen the large-scale deployment of fast, agile teams- small, focused cross-functional teams working together toward a common set of objectives that are tracked and measured. Leaders have made this work by charging each team with a specific mission: an outcome that matters for customers or employees, empowering each team to find its own approach, and then getting out of the way. Having one fast, agile team is helpful, but having many of them across an enterprise, and enabling them with the right structures, processes, and culture, makes it possible for the entire system to move faster.

Research by McKinsey and the Harvard Business School found that companies that had launched agile transformations pre-COVID-19 performed better and moved faster post-COVID-19 than those that had not. Agile organizations had an edge because they already had processes and structures available to them, such as cross-functional teams, quarterly business reviews, empowered frontline teams, and clear data on outputs and outcomes, that proved critical to adapting to the COVID-19 crisis. They adjusted faster, and with less employee turmoil. The same was true within companies: those business units that had gone agile before the pandemic performed better than those that had not on customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and operational performance. "If we had not done this [agile] transformation," one European banking executive told us, "our development would have completely stalled during COVID-19."

For example, telecom companies and banks that were agile before the crisis were twice as fast in releasing new services in response to it. One European bank tasked cross-functional teams to deploy new online services; they did so in a matter of days. Just setting up the teams could have taken weeks, but in this case the bank was ready to act-and to let the team make the decisions it needed to. The study also found that the crisis forced nonagile organizations to experiment with the concept. The speed that resulted, including faster decisions, reduced bureaucracy, and better communication, are attributes that many organizations are now working to maintain.

6. Make hybrid work, work. The next normal will see significantly more people working in a hybrid way-sometimes in person with colleagues on-site, sometimes working remotely. This model can unlock significant value, including more satisfied employees and lower real-estate costs. There are other benefits to a hybrid working model, including access to a broader range of talent, greater flexibility, and improved productivity.

To achieve these gains, employers need to ensure that the basics are in place to digitally enable remote working and collaboration, while taking care to create working norms that foster social cohesion. They should precisely define the optimal approach for each role and employee segment. That requires understanding when on-site work is better compared with remote interaction or independent work. Perhaps more important, hybrid organizations must adopt new ways of working that help build a strong culture, cohesion, and trust even when many employees are working remotely. Companies that were "born virtual," many out of Silicon Valley such as GitLab and Mozilla, and have sustained it successfully have very intentional policies, technology, and working norms. These include open-source collaboration models, for instance, for software development; remote-first practices, such as videoconference by default; and rigorous documentation of everything, from decisions to meeting output to work in progress. Moreover, they make an effort to bring colleagues together in person at least a couple of times per year to facilitate more connectivity and deepen relationships. Top talent will leave companies with bad cultures and slow responses.

The next three actions aim to reshape talent in order to get tomorrow's leadership team operational today and to build the workforce capabilities of the future.

7. Field tomorrow's leaders today. One of the unexpected consequences of the pandemic is that CEOs have seen into a window that shows who their future leaders are. They have seen who can make decisions and execute rapidly; who is able to take on new challenges and lead in the face of uncertainty; and who has the grit to persevere. In many cases leaders have found emerging talent two-to-three layers down, people who rose to the occasion and helped lead crisis-response and plan-ahead strategies. In other cases, they have found that some leaders have become too comfortable with the slower-moving bureaucracy of the past. As one CEO told us, "We have learned more about our people in the last 12 weeks than through our traditional HR processes from the last 12 months." Not only have CEOs gained insight into who the future leaders are, but they have also seen the value of rapidly deploying top talent to the most important work. Organizations that do both things-find future leaders and redeploy talent skillfully-will be able to move faster.

One recent example comes from the Ford Motor Company. In March, the automaker announced that it would produce face shields for healthcare workers -something it had never done before. To do so, a team of "unlikely characters" organized itself and got to work, tapping into their own networks to solve problems on the fly. One lesson: those who step up in a challenge, wrote one team member, "might not be who you expect." Stepping up to this kind of challenge requires courage and a mind-set that encourages innovation and learning to come together-fast. "We came as beginners, and got smart on the job," the team member wrote. "Being a band of beginners means if you think of it, you do it. There is no time for rank."

8. Learn how to learn. Consider the US Navy's newest "littoral combat ship." These vessels can complete myriad tasks, such as hunting submarines or sweeping mines while operating in the shallows. One might think they therefore have a large crew of highly trained specialists. Not so. In fact, these ships are run by just 40 "hybrid sailors," who have proved capable of mastering a wide variety of skills, from handling ropes to firefighting to monitoring remote sensors. They need to be skilled, of course-mishandling a rope can cause serious injury-but their chief skill is the ability to adapt and learn quickly. They learn continuously, and are open to new experiences and flexible in their thinking. And that, COVID-19 has demonstrated, is what business needs, too.

Learning and adaptability has been on the CEO agenda for some time, but even more so during the pandemic. In the last few months, some of the best leadership teams have been on a steep learning curve: learning how to lead in a time of crisis, learning to manage rapidly forming agile teams, making decisions at a much faster pace, and learning to adapt. Forward-thinking companies are now accelerating their capability-building efforts by developing leadership and critical thinking skills at different levels of the organization, increasing their employees' capacity to engage with technology and use advanced analytics, and building functional skills for the future, such as next-generation procurement, Industry 4.0 manufacturing, and digital marketing and sales.

These companies recognize that the pace and scale of learning must keep up with that of innovation and changes in technology. Skills can and do expire. Organizations need people who can continually learn and adapt. In many cases, companies will need to reskill large portions of the workforce. That will require expanding the learning content available to employees and using technology to deliver what is needed to each person. It also will mean building the organizational and institutional muscle to strengthen the skills related to learning how to learn-just as the US Navy has done with its hybrid sailors.

Skills can and do expire. Organizations need people who can continually learn and adapt.

9. Rethink the role of CEOs and leaders. COVID-19 has brought a fundamental change in leadership in many organizations. The leaders that stand out have shifted from directing a command-and-control crisis response to building and unleashing winning teams. Several CEOs described their role in the last few months as energizing, empowering, and "unblocking" their leadership teams. They also overinvest in communicating clearly and regularly to build trust, and constantly link their actions to the purpose of the institution.

To maintain the speed the COVID-19 crisis has unleashed, organizations need more of this kind of leadership. The future requires leaders to act as visionaries instead of commanders-focused on inspiring their organizations with a clear vision of the future, and then empowering others to realize the vision. It will require leaders who build winning teams; they coach their players but let them make the decisions and execute. These leaders will need to bring energy and passion to catalyze innovation, change, and growth. One CEO told us, "I measure how I feel every day, because ultimately my job is to give energy and empowerment to the organization."

Now is the time

The coronavirus pandemic is the challenge of our times. The time for organizations to build for speed is now. This will be a long process and leaders must leap into the arena and recognize that many of their familiar organization constructs will need to be reimagined.

Many companies, at least initially, thought of the postpandemic return as an event; they would turn the lights on and go back to work just as they has done before. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that for many, returning to work will be a process that could take a year or more, and that they cannot go back to the way they were.

Instead, companies will want to seize the moment to reimagine and reinvent the future, building new muscle and capabilities to come back strong. Even well-run companies may find that they need to reinvent themselves more than once.

Fortune will favor the bold-and the speedy.

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Ready, set, go: Reinventing the organization for speed in the post-COVID-19 era

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When the coronavirus pandemic erupted, companies had to change. Many business-as-usual approaches to serving customers, working with suppliers, and collaborating with colleagues-or just getting anything done-would have failed. They had to increase the speed of decision making, while improving productivity, using technology and data in new ways, and accelerating the scope and scale of innovation.