As students return to school and employers call their workers back to offices, Covid-19 cases are once again rising globally. Two new variants of note – BA.2.86 (Pirola) and EG.5 (Eris) – have already shown up around the world, including in the US and UK.
Even as we head into cool-weather months, experts aren’t yet predicting new lockdowns. Still, the rise in cases reopens the question: what happens if we’re once again faced with an overwhelming global health crisis?
Entrepreneurs and executives are particularly concerned, since businesses were woefully unprepared when the pandemic arrived in full force in 2020. The emergency pushed them to make rapid-fire decisions with major implications for both company profits as well as the health and safety of the workforce. Many firms transitioned to remote work and closed storefronts – in some cases, forever.
Now, companies are wondering whether their workers will hesitate to go back to the office, and if consumers will once again abandon brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants and hotels.
The upside: with more than three years of pandemic-related experience, “we have tools at our disposal to mitigate the consequences of Covid-19 on the population”, says Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a research scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Essential workers, however will still be on the frontlines, and with some CEOs drawing a hard line on return-to-office policies, the next wave of cases won’t affect all businesses or workers equally.
Workers already have a template for working productively from home full-time should they need to again (Credit: Alamy)
A strong blueprint – with exceptions
The looming uncertainty is scary. But now, after facing several waves of closures and shifts in guidelines throughout the past few years, most companies and employees have a blueprint to work from. Even if a proliferation of cases keeps people at home or changes business operations, the shift won’t quite be the same shock it was in 2020.
Importantly, says Piltch-Loeb, “businesses have adapted to working in different disease environments … The way work is done has changed for the majority of the workforce”. Since the height of the pandemic, companies have put remote-work policies and crisis-operational modalities in place; in some cases, she adds, they’ve also updated or added sick leave and parental leave policies.
Essentially, employers are more prepared to be nimble than they were in the past, now familiar with handling changes in policy and restrictions. Many office workers already know how to work from home – many still do, even years after initial lockdowns were lifted. The essential infrastructure needed for businesses to operate remotely is largely already in place; companies won’t be scrambling to maintain business continuity amid unprecedented shifts.
As cases rise, “businesses that have some institutional memory are poised to fare better”, says Francesca L Beaudoin, professor and chair of epidemiology at Brown University, US. She adds those who are thinking beyond the next Covid-19 wave will also be better poised to succeed. “It’s important that the “‘playbook’, so to speak, is written down somewhere, so that we are not reinventing things if another threat should emerge.”
Elissa Perry, organisational psychologist and professor of psychology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, US, doesn’t believe this fall’s rise in cases will bring the same level of disruption we felt in 2020 and 2021, especially for businesses that are able to be flexible.
Part of this, she believes, is because business leaders are now more attuned to their workers, both physically and psychologically. “We saw a lot of implications of being remote – not only on people’s physical health, but also their social and emotional wellbeing,” says Perry. Now, rather than solely trying to protect employees from contracting the virus as they did initially, “employers are trying to balance the physical risk with the emotional risk”.
Yet even if some businesses and employees may be well positioned for change at a moment’s notice, Piltch-Loeb says the story may be different for essential workers and people in frontline jobs.
While the business and operational infrastructure may be in place to handle a surge in cases, and day-to-day roles won’t change much, workers themselves may not fare as well as those in offices. “Should another lockdown happen, burnout is likely,” she says, adding that many workers still have not recovered from the first lockdown.
Additionally, businesses and services that continued to operate throughout the height of the pandemic – such as hospitals, restaurants, retail establishments and transit companies – have seen workforce declines, and are still experiencing hiring challenges. With staffing already tight, “another lockdown where essential services would be responsible for operating as usual would be challenging”, says Piltch-Loeb. “We would be relying on the same people once again – a group that is already burned out, and in some cases, already depleted.”
Perry also notes it’s hard to know exactly how businesses across many sectors will fare in another wave, since their workers are in different positions than they were at the start of the pandemic. She points to people who have been battling long Covid and “might have a different response to this whole issue than people who didn’t have that experience”. Similarly, workers continue to struggle with their mental health, and it’s difficult to predict how another workplace shift would affect them.
Frontline workers may face some of the issues they did in the pandemic, including virus exposure and burnout, especially due to understaffing (Credit: Alamy)
Sink or swim
Whether or not another lockdown is in the offing, the current rise in cases presents companies with an opportunity to sink or swim. Employees now know what good – and bad – crisis management is, and they’ll be looking to their bosses for signals to guide them through another wave of uncertainty.
Companies that have done well with Covid-19-related communication in the past must keep up their track records, says organisational psychologist and business development consultant Mitchell Lee Marks. Regardless of industry, he says workers are looking for clear messaging “from the top, because if they see leadership talking about it, they must think it’s important”. And firms that have historically done a poor job of communicating have an opportunity to make up for past mistakes. Either way, companies that don’t provide enough crisis guidance may risk losing their staffers to companies that’ll better support them during another period of uncertainty.
Additionally, Piltch-Loeb points out that employers have a role to play in the mental health impact of a new wave of infections. She says while some workers have access to psychological counselling or rest days, access to this care is still “not universal” across professions. As workers struggle, it’s important for companies to both provide as much support as they can, and also encourage employees to take advantage of those benefits.
Despite the unknown future, experts largely say businesses and workers will likely be able to quickly adapt to challenges coming down the pike – Covid-19 or otherwise. The past few years have been a trial by fire, but many businesses have learned a lot and put in place plans that will help them going forwards.
Still, it’s up to individual business owners and leaders to stay up to date on Covid-19 news and respond decisively to an increase in cases. As Beaudoin says, “As viruses evolve and adapt, it is important that we do the same.”