Omicron Disrupting The Philippine Water and Power Utility Industry
The presence of the Omicron variant, just as COVID-19 seemed to be fading from view, has stalled much of the worldwide return to work. It is unknown how harmful the new strain is, but governments and companies are already planning ahead.
Power and water utility businesses have been forced to rethink their return-to-work strategies once again as a result of the spike of COVID-19 cases associated with this new variant. In fact, financial firms in the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, UK and United States were among the first to urge staff to return to work, but growing instances have led the majority of the country’s largest banks to reassess their strategies and tighten vaccination requirements.
Throughout COVID-19 pandemic, companies were required to maintain their reopening plans fluid and adaptive to the pandemic’s shifting scenario. As seen in the summer of 2020, then in 2021 with the Delta strain, and now with Omicron, companies are repositioning themselves in real-time.
Companies like Napocor Philippines, Tepco Japan, SP Group Singapore and EGCO Thailand are encouraging employees to work remotely. While many countries are not in a full lockdown and a substantial number of workers are still returning to work, months of progress have been lost.
Leaders’ actions about Omicron response management (and maybe future variants) will have a direct effect on staff engagement and retention. Employers must deploy support initiatives that meet workers where they are as they navigate their personal and professional lives during this spike.
Employees engage when they have the flexibility, stability, and task management necessary to successfully integrate work and personal life. Managers must increase their empathy in order to have a deeper understanding of what people need to be effective and give enablement, not simply engagement methods.
The critical point is to establish a flexible approach with specified triggers for plan revisions. Organizations that get this right do not align around a certain, and mostly arbitrary, date. Instead, they look at the circumstances that permit the opening or expansion of an office space. Controlling access to offices will also be critical.
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