Many politicians and leaders are using the term “Back to normal”. In the case of the pandemic, the disruption and consequences have been unprecedented. Regardless of how each of us has been affected and had to respond, we are different now. Life is different now. And we need to be comfortable adapt to an evolving “new normal” as we move forward through the uncertainty.
For businesses there are going to be a number of new expectations from customers and employees. In the office social distancing, increased sanitation/hygiene procedures, personal protective equipment (PPE), screening procedures, awareness training, signage, etc. which potentially introduce new hard costs and conversely decreases in productivity.
What costs is your organization planning for as your employees/customers come back?
Will you need to Modify the work space?
- Plexiglass installations
- Reconfiguring desks/cubicles to accommodate distancing
Will your employees expect upgraded office hygiene supplies?
- PPEs/Face masks
- Provide hand sanitizer for communal and individual desk
- Increased cleaning service costs
- HVAC filtration upgrades
- Workplace air filtration systems air purifiers
- Signage
- Training
- Convert to a contactless environment
- Key fobs access
- New POS system with touchless pay
Are you going to implement wellness procedures?
- Self assessment systems
- Temperature checks/thermometers
- Time and personnel costs of wellness checks
- Purchase a tracking program/App
- COVID testing for employees
- Training Programs
What IT expenses will you need to manage a distributed workforce?
- Company issued computers
- Company issued mobile devices
- VPN
- Antivirus and digital security apps
- Home internet costs/hotspots
What will the government require to monitor and control the COVID-19 threat?
- ???????
This is just a potential list of new costs of doing business. And as more measures and procedures are needed to continue safe operations the costs can begin to add up.
For example, in an American Public Media Marketplace interview (aired on June 30, 2020)1 the owner of a small dental practice said she spent $20,000 on PPE’s and other in office measures to keep her employees safe. An LA Times Article July 5 interviewed a San Diego restaurateur who reported spending $42,000 in staff training, marketing and hygiene safety upgrades, training and PPEs.2
The reality is that for almost every business operations are not returning to normal anytime soon which comes with increased operational costs whether your employees are staying fully remote (IT, security infrastructure) or in person (PPE’s, hygiene upgrades, training, signage).
Cost Savings Through HCM Automation
With the COVID-19 pandemic not going away most businesses are going to have increased costs in order to operate but also maintain appropriate safety for employees and customers. No matter the measures to adapt there could be a cost. And increased costs are either passed onto your customers or cut into the bottomline without a plan to offset these new expenses.
Investing in HCM technology offers some possibilities to offset costs through automation and eliminating time consuming manual processes. Here are some client success stories:
- One hospitality client estimated that they achieved a $500 per month savings just from automating their timesheets. ($6,000 per year)
- Another non-profit client eliminated 3,312 reports that their clinicians were creating manually, they estimate they now save approximately 500 hours of staff time representing $10,000 in gross wages saved. This also gives their clinicians back about 500 hours more to focus on helping their clients.
- In the healthcare industry a client estimated they saved a part-time staff position by linking our HRIS to their Healthcare LMS system. The data integration handles daily data transfer automatically otherwise they would have had one person only dedicated to manually keeping these two systems synched up.
Not only can you show hard cost savings OnePoint as an all-in-one HCM solution provides clients with tools and reporting already built in. Avoid adding new costs of yet another app or point solution to support remote working, contact tracing, wellness attestation.
Notes
1 American Public Media, Marketplace Radio program, aired on June 30, 2020 (https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace/what-happens-when-the-coronavirus-relief-runs-out/ find the segment starting at minute 6:57)
