Commercial Spaces Should Switch To Alternate Attendance Post Lockdown

COVID-19 has uprooted people from their regular lifestyle, and introduced the new terms of quarantine, social distancing and self-isolation. The scare of virus is real, so are the repercussions of not abiding by the norms of quarantining and self-isolation. While this lockdown has successfully confined millions of people in their homes, the rapid increase in the number of cases is making it difficult for authorities to bring everything back to normal.

Satish Gupta, MD, GBP Group

The danger involved is in humongous magnitude and reports coming out from other countries is scaring all and sundry. The government is realizing the importance of partially lifting the lockdown and the likelihood of opening of markets and more services might be accompanied by norms on alternate days of functioning or restrictions on staff attendance.

The companies and commercial establishments have to work out ways to utilize the resources at hand by minimizing the need to have a volley of staff at all hours. The modalities have to be worked out with the kind of business a particular commercial space is indulged in. For example, the sales and marketing staff can be asked to operate from home and office on alternate days. The impact on output will be minimal as everything is over the phone and even meetings can be fixed by using various online tools available now and many of them are being made famous during these lockdown days.

However, the alternate attendance model will not be easy to handle. The intention is good as the need is to make spaces less clogged to keep a check on the virus. On the other hand, to take maximum output from the staff working on alternate days is a tricky matter. The HR departments have to chalk out elaborate sheets of KRAs with deadlines to ensure that the work does not hamper. Many companies have already started working on these models as news of such possibilities have been trickling in.

Whether the government asks for alternate attendance or not, the establishment must work towards it. Reduced density of people on roads, offices, etc, is the need at least for some time after the lockdown if we do not want the virus to hit back immediately after the restrictions are lifted. If implemented properly this might lead to almost 50 per cent reduction in crowd and when followed up with social distancing norms the whole exercise will kick out the scare of Corona completely.

If executed strategically, alternate attendance will be quite helpful in setting up the pace for businesses. Commercial establishments will be able to cut down on expenses related to full attendance of staff, which in many cases might not do any productive work throughout the day. Strict guidelines along with this option will definitely lead to better productivity and create a New World that will be more responsible towards each other without compromising on professional requirements.