Do you need small business tips for getting back to the office? Before you do, you might want to keep a few things in mind. While you’ve likely already done everything you can to prepare yourself and your team for a pandemic – including creating plans, stocking your survival kit, and securing your office space – it can be hard to predict what will come next. 

Emergency Preparedness tends to call for quick changes and adjustments as you go along. Before we dive into our small business tips, we want to address some of the most frequently asked questions.  We have heard many of our partners ask questions like:

  • How would you bring everyone back to the office?
  • Should you bring team members back at a staggered rate?
  • What portion of your staff can remain remote on a part-time or full-time basis?
  • Can you ensure that you do not lose any productivity or momentum your team has gained while working remotely?
  • How do you ensure safety moving forward?
  • Do all team members need vaccines before entering the in-person work environment, and can you assist or incentivize vaccination?
  • Are masks required at in-person meetings, and what is the protocol for social distancing?

Given the pandemic has moved past its peak activity level in the United States, you are one of the millions of business leaders weighing whether to return to the office. It’s a difficult decision. You likely have much trepidation about sending your team back into the workplace, especially given your concerns for their health and their safety. 

Our Top 5 Small Business Tips you must remember.

At Call Experts, our team understands that we will only succeed when you succeed. Here are our Top 5 tips for small businesses to remember before getting back to the office.

Do you need your entire team in the office five days a week?

The number of employees who will return to the office to work varies with the type of business and industry. For example, many tech start-ups hire only a few remote workers at a time for fear that they won’t have enough people to do the work. If you’re a small business that can’t afford to pay full time for all your employees, using remote work might make sense. 

  • Ask your team members who want to return – let them come back first. Every small business has team members that are antsy and ready to get out of the house. Invite them to come back to the office first. 
  • Bring your team back at various percentages over time (25%, 75%, etc.) Start with essential team members. Also, consider the size of the department. Can certain employees start in the office while others remain remote?    
  • Keep your entire team updated with messaging, dates, and alerts. Often this can be the most challenging small business tip. Regardless, this is the most essential, especially for larger teams. At Call Experts, our solutions offer immediate Mass SMS alerting to all employees.

If the pandemic had never occurred, your business could very well be different today. You might have a very different revenue model, front office personnel, customer service approach, product roadmap, corporate culture, etc. Today, you survived the encounter with the Unknown Dangerous Animal and will continue to do so through control of known dangerous animals.

Do you have a business continuity plan yet? 

Emergency preparedness and business continuity are essential. We learned this together in 2020 when the entire world came to a stop for Covid-19. If you aren’t prepared in 2021, then you are already feeling the pain. Look at the beginning of 2021, and even now, outbreaks, natural disasters, and work outages are a part of our lives. It almost feels like anything that can go wrong will.  

A business continuity plan creates organized actions when these events cause the worst outcomes (supply chain disruptions, work outages, etc.). Please take all the education and expertise you have gained from surviving hurricanes to surviving the pandemic and put it into a plan. Please feel free to start with the Call Experts template here or use a piece of paper on your desk. The important thing is, don’t wait until the last minute to answer what happens if we lose power, what happens if a hurricane hits and we experience a surge of calls, who will support us if we can’t get to the office, and more.

Learn from your experience, create safety procedures and employee policies.

Organization requirements are constantly changing, more during a time of emergency. Regardless of how tactical your procedures are, the application of brand-new innovations and brand-new approaches can create complications and hold you up. That’s why it is essential to examine your security practices and team plans before calling workers back to the office. 

Develop an electronic list of all actions taken throughout each facet of your company’s security and operational procedures. 

Security procedures and also employee protocols have transformed as a result of the pandemic. Before the breakout, almost everybody complied with standard procedure (SOP). An SOP may state, ‘Comply with the policies when going into as well as leaving the office’ however after a pandemic it could claim “Think about using masks if we are going into or leaving the office with each other.”  

Communication is vital…always!

Make sure to offer everyone on your team numerous options. Along with connecting with your team to prepare for return, before officially opening is an ideal time to let your team know about any adjusted hours, mask requirements, and other security procedures. Consider using your social media, internal emails (like newsletters), and phone lines to communicate with your team.

As soon as you know when everyone will return, choose how your organization ought to continue. Examine your policies and procedures, and upgrade your communication strategy using a phone line with Call Experts.

Did you know that you can manage absences from your phone? Also, you can create a line in less than 48hrs for your employees to call in. Learn more here.

Don’t forget mental health. Even though you weren’t in the office, you were working!

Returning to the work environment will undoubtedly cause sensations of enjoyment as well as anxiety. Consider offering more breaks to the team, or even better, designate a space in your office for meditation. Do not anticipate every person to be all set to leap right in. Get used to the brand-new regimens of coworking and comradery.

Exercise self-care. I recognize it may seem tacky; however, we need to get a little sticky to earn points in some cases. Caring for yourself is caring for your organization. Besides, you are your company. Enable your own time to yourself, and find delight in the little things that please you. Your organization will certainly be much better for it.

Summary of the small business tips. 

Think about your business. Do you have procedures for reporting to the local municipality? Have you created a plan for appointment rescheduling? When you’re ready to return to work, you can avoid complications by being prepared. To help you get back to the office in one piece and willing to work, we’ve shared 5 Small Business Tips that may be the key to surviving the back-to-office transition.