5 tips for safely reopening your office

Open up now or later? As the debate about restarting economies rages on, one critical element has been absent from the discussion. The predictor of our success or failure will have less to do with when businesses open their doors, and more to do with how often people open their mouths.

Decades of research point to the positive effects of immediatepeer accountability. A few years ago, John Noseworthy, CEO of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, proudly told me about a nurse who confronted him when he forgot to use hand sanitizer as he exited an elevator. “If everyone in our system will speak up to forgetful colleagues, no matter their level or position, we can avoid most incidents of preventable harm,” he said. And he was right.

But speaking up can be hard. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve heard about various incidents that attest to that. A nurse refusing to wear personal protective equipment for days before finally being reprimanded by her supervisor. Shoppers entering stores without masks, while the clerks they walk by say nothing. The boss of a team of essential workers giving high-fives in a meeting, without any of his direct reports saying anything.

As businesses begin to reopen, great attention is being given to the measures required to keep employees and customers safe. Many of those measures are simple behaviors, such as washing our hands and wearing masks. But those measures won’t succeed unless they become norms. And for that to happen, people must not be afraid of calling out their violation. If noncompliance is rarely addressed, healthy behavior becomes a joke.

Inherently, we’re very bad at speaking up. In a recent Vitalsmarts study of 1062 people, 3 out of 4 respondents said they were nervous about infection risk when interacting with others. And yet, 7 of 10 people admitted to saying less than they thought they should to keep themselves and others safe.

My colleagues and I have spent 30 years studying what it takes to create behavioral change. Our central finding is that to achieve results we must engage all of the six sources of influence that shape human behavior: a compelling moral frame; deliberate practice; peer and leadership pressure; social support; scorekeeping; and environmental cues, tools and resources.

Unless all sources of influence are practiced in combination, the odds of meaningful change drop substantially. Here are five best practices that can help you get started:

Require ‘please’ and ‘thank you’

EMPLOYEES must understand that they are not simply responsible for following safe practices themselves; they are also responsible for ensuring everyone around them does. Instruct employees that, if they see anyone violate safe practices, they are to remind them of proper protocol with a polite, “please.” For example, “please wear a mask when you’re in the office.”

But this isn’t enough. It’s a challenge to get lower-ranking employees to confront those they report to, unless you create an enabling norm. leaders must be instructed that when they’re reminded of a safety guideline, there is only one permissible response: an immediate “Thank you,” followed by compliance. period.

Hold a Covid-19 boot camp when you return to the office

THE point of a boot camp is breaking down old patterns and introducing new ones. And the easiest time to reset norms is when no one knows what is normal. As employees reenter the workplace, take advantage of their unformed expectations to hold one such event. The boot camp can be as short as 30 minutes or as long as a few hours, depending upon how many new norms you need people to practice. leaders should stand in front of employees and demonstrate their sincerity and commitment to the new policies, making the moral case for changing behavior. For example, they can tell stories of affected friends, family or clients to bring the risks of noncompliance to life.

leaders must not simply instruct people on new safety behaviors; employees must go through the actual motions so they can begin to develop muscle memory and the practices feel comfortable. At Spectrum Health we developed a boot camp where everyone in a unit would go through the motions of walking in and out of a patient room. In one condition, people would wash their hands upon entering and leaving. In another, they would fail to wash upon entering, and another caregiver would practice reminding them, after which the one who had been reminded would practice saying “thank you.”

Practice with fire drills

IN the first week after the boot camp, hold daily fire drills, asking people to practice the new behaviors. In the weeks to follow, a twice-a-week cadence is sufficient. leaders should walk all employees through the motions of each new behavior, including saying “please” and “thank you.” Such ongoing efforts are critical to sustaining change because they remind employees of how important their behaviors are.

Perform daily rounds

AS the saying goes, “you don’t get what you expect; you get what you inspect.” Just like in a hospital, leaders must use a checklist to do the rounds and measure compliance results. They should walk around the work area at unpredictable times of the day and observe the degree to which proper behavior is being practiced, scoring the employees every day for the first 30 days. After that, inspections can happen every other day.

Keep score publicly

LEADERS should post the scores from the inspections publicly and every day. Above the score they can place a large color-coded circle to denote the organization’s level of compliance: green for a compliance of 95 percent and above, yellow for 80 to 90 percent and red for an overall score lower than 80 percent. Commit to posting the results no matter what they are and make sure they are visible to clients and customers. Embarrassment is a powerful motivator for improvement: The more public the embarrassment, the greater the motivation.

These practices may feel awkward for many employees and leaders, especially those who haven’t been part of concerted workplace safety efforts before. But these are unusual times, and if we want to keep everyone safe and healthy, people have to do things outside of their comfort zones.

If leaders take these practices seriously, they will be able to inculcate new norms much more quickly. Doing so is not only important for employee safety but for the health of your business. Adherence to these critical behaviors will make it possible for business to reopen—and to stay open.