When the Ministry of Health informed the country of the most recent spike in COVID-19 cases on Sunday, July 11, there was a clarion call from Minister of Health Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bostic that “wherever possible workers should be allowed to work from home”.
The call seemed as par for course in terms of keeping the number of commuters down as authorities conducted vigorous contact tracing. It was also totally understandable given the fact that the press briefing revealed that three different variants – Alpha, Delta and Gamma – were now present in Barbados.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kenneth George also said the country was “not in a good place” as he revealed that young children were now presenting with gastrointestinal symptoms.
Given the uncertainty as it relates to these variants and the need to contain the current cluster, the call for workers to work from home, where possible, made perfect sense.
We assumed that the Government offices and state-owned entities would have readily responded to the call. But we were wrong.
To date, there are still Government offices that remain fully physically staffed. Beyond that, there are offices that continue to have full staff seven days a week. Added to that, there are offices that are operating, with full staff, a full working day from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. five days a week.
But if there were any doubts about reports we have been receiving, the fact that the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) held an emergency meeting this week with the Ministry of Public Service to discuss the recent spike in COVID-19 cases gives credit to these reports.
NUPW’s General Secretary Wayne Waldron said the union proposed a national work-from-home policy for both the public and private sector.
He said: “Every effort should be made to have home-working especially at this time when you are trying to curb the spiral of this COVID, that is one of the things that we emphasised. We would encourage all Heads of Department to don’t merely respond as a departmental issue but even go further and treat this as a national response. And have staff present where it is deemed necessary to form a core skeleton staff to perform the core functions so that the operations for each department are not compromised in any way.”
But we cannot understand why the NUPW would have to put such a proposal to the Ministry of Public Service. The union’s appeal to the private sector is understood. Unlike, Government offices the private sector is accountable to their owners and shareholders.
Government already has in place a Flexi Work Arrangement Policy. At the time of the roll out in September 2020, Acting Head of the Public Service Cecile Humphrey said Government had given workers a number of options from which to choose. These are: compressed week; flexi-time; staggered hours; and telecommuting.
It was understood, at that time, that the policy was in place to make life easier for public workers generally. It was rolled out in time for the start of the 2020 new school year where some Government workers would be battling work and dealing with their offspring who would be attending school online some days.
At the time President Akanni McDowall praised the policy that allows for working from home among other things.
This begs the question.
If this policy is in place, if the Minister of Health and the highest medical officer in Barbados have made the call, why then would the NUPW be “appealing” to the Ministry of Public Service to allow staff to work from home?
Workers huddled in the same office means the communal use of the lunchroom facilities, the bathroom facilities, the sharing of printers, photocopiers etc. It means the volume of people commuting rises since everyone does not drive to work.
Why would Government offices still be operating at full physical capacity when the Ministry of Health is battling the recent surge and these variants?
This is unacceptable.
What makes it more egregious is the fact that numerous private sector entities did not wait on the Minister of Health or the Chief Medical Officer’s plea. Ironically, it appears Government offices are guilty of doing contrary.
Many private sector establishments have kept their work-from-home policy in place even when the curfew and restrictions were lifted. These businesses get it. These businesses understand that as long as COVID-19 cases are recorded in the country their staff remain at risk. When staff bring COVID into the workplace this causes greater headaches.
There are privately-owned entities that are strict about the number of people in office at any given time. There are rosters which are made up of three days in office; two days at home. Some have limited opening hours still. Staff work shorter hours in office.
The entire workforce in Barbados needs to get on board as far as allowing the work-from-home policy to continue. The mistake that we continue to make is attempting to return to “normal” after restrictions are lifted. Normal cannot exist as long as COVID-19 is present and mutating.
Some employers and employees are too eager to get back to the days of chatting in the lunchroom for prolonged periods; going by a co-worker’s desk and chatting; gathering by the printer and in the carpark. We cannot go back there. We have to embrace the new normal that we all talk about so much.
Put proper measures in place to gauge productivity. Come up with innovative ways to monitor and supervise output. Call the slackers to account, whether in a physical or remote setting. Managing will now take on a new face. Remote working is the present and the future whether employers or employees choose to embrace it or not. Sadly, COVID-19 has already made the decision for all of us.
