Health safety and social distancing top concern among business leaders as Canadians return to work

With 40% of business leaders planning to have employees return to the office by end of year, 80% say employees are anxious about transition back into the workspace.

GATINEAU, QC, Sept. 14, 2020 /CNW/ - Get Working, a new product being launched by enterprise software company Foko Retail, released today online survey findings that show more than 50% of business leaders believe it will be logistically difficult to enforce social distancing in the workplace. Approximately 50% of these same executives say it will also be difficult to reassure employees that it is safe to return to work, even though most business leaders will implement flexible working (sometimes working from home) permanently.

"Both employees and employers are anxious about returning to the office given the significant health and safety challenges created by COVID-19," said Get Working CEO Marc Gingras. "Business leaders know that their employees are anxious about offices reopening, and the majority of those same decision-makers admit that its going to be difficult enforcing social distancing in the workplace."

However, despite this difficulty most business leaders recognize the need to implement health and safety guidelines immediately. This urgency reflects the growing concern among nearly one-in-five decision makers who say that avoiding the spread of COVID-19 in the office and ensuring no one is sick is their biggest health and safety concern.

"We know businesses will transition to flexible working permanently and that the use of workspace needs to be properly documented for contact tracing purposes. We also know there is a need to remotely test employees before they even enter the office. The question is how do companies manage capacity, contact tracing, and health and safety in a meaningful way that supports the needs of workers and employers alike."

Get Working retained Nanos to conduct research among decision-makers at the C-Suite or Executive level in Canadian companies with 50 or more employees. The study gauged concerns and expectations surrounding employees returning to the workplace in person. The results are drawn from a non-probability panel between August 4th and August 12th, 2020.

For more information, visit: https://getworking.app/media/nanos-research-get-working-study.pdf 

ABOUT GET WORKING

Get Working is a new application designed to help teams get back into the office safely. It allows employers to control capacity through a reservation system, screen team members for potential COVID-19 symptoms, and track who has been at work on which days.

SOURCE Get Working

Media Contact: Aja Butler George, Director of Marketing, [email protected]