Most employers not ready for full reopening
READINESS AMONG local employers appears is not optimal as the Jamaica Employers’ Federation (JEF) is reporting that up to 80 per cent of its members have indicated that they are not fully compliant with the guidelines established by the health ministry or to bring back all employees.
The cost to reconfigure businesses, establishing sanitisation stations and other minimum requirements emerged in the telephone survey as one of the main issues impacting employers, particularly small and medium sized businesses, David Wan, president of the JEF, shared.
“The large companies have no problem finding the resources. The small and medium enterprises just don’t have the resources to completely reconfigure inside their offices all at once,” said Wan, suggesting that full compliance for these entities would “take a more gradual approach”.
NOT LIKE FLIPPING A SWITCH
Norman Walker, president of the Sunshine City Chamber of Commerce, painted a grim picture for small business owners in the Portmore Mall, who were forced to close their doors under the “onslaught” caused by the various COVID-19 containment measures.
“To restart is not like the flip of a switch,” Walker said. “For those of us who got hit hard, who have had to close, who continue to struggle, it’s not going to be easy, albeit that we are going back to some semblance of normalcy.”
He continued: “Some have been affected by bank loans and suppliers’ crisis, so even though the time is coming up again to relax [the COVID containment measures], the challenge has not gone away.”
GraceKennedy, the food and financial conglomerate which employs close to 2,000 persons, says it will not mandate a full return to work for all employees.
“What we are going to be doing is operating on a rotation basis where no more than half of the staff should be in any one of our offices at any one time,” said CEO Don Wehby.
With day-care centres still closed,
Wehby said GraceKennedy will allow parents to continue working from home.
The state-owned bus company, Jamaica Urban Transit Company, has signalled that it will be ready to deal with the expected increase ridership, but cautioned that its operations will be severely hampered if the Government leaves in place an order that buses carry seated passengers only.
“We will not have sufficient buses … if you can only put 25 people in a bus. You can do the maths yourself and figure out that there will be a challenge,” the company said.