While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to present challenges in every phase of life, all around the world, business leaders find themselves in a different place from the one they were in even a couple months ago. The questions they’re asking don’t start with the word “when” anymore. Instead, they start with “how.” As in:

• “How do we get back to work?”
• “How do we make our workplaces safe?”
• “How do we ensure that our workers feel like the risk of exposure isn’t the price they pay for working?”

There are plenty of reasons to be anxious about this next stage of response. For employers and employees alike, so much of what used to be normal feels like a distant memory. But we all still want to know what is going on, to feel safe, and to make good decisions.

The good news is those desires can be met. We have the people and the products needed to revamp the processes that govern the way we work. We just need to know where to start.

That’s what the first part of Chapter 1 in How to Safely Reopen the Workplace—Domo’s comprehensive guide to reactivating your workforce—tackles in detail. And here’s why: There is a simple power in knowing how.

Research shows that uncertainty in the workplace is positively correlated with worker anxiety, and that the principal cause of that anxiety stems from a lack of a sense of control over changes affecting the organization.

Today, when change is required for reasons outside of the control of any employee or employer, it becomes more imperative than ever that steps are taken to restore the perception that one can still know enough to make decisions about risk that positively move the needle.

For those reasons, the first part of Chapter 1 focuses on three areas integral to answering any get-back-to-work question that starts with the word “how”:

• Employee Wellness & Safety, which is facilitated by contact tracing and temperature scanning apps;
• Business Continuity, which assesses remote worker productivity and is anchored by a command center app for executives; and
• Facilities Management, which incorporates data related to cleaning schedules and foot traffic.

At Domo, we’re driven by the goal of democratizing data to drive new processes. We connect data from silos that slow down or constrain its value because we know that businesses not only need information, they need intelligence—and they need it at scale.

In a pandemic, where variables shift from region to region, industry to industry, and office to office, we must similarly democratize the data that decision-makers use, so that each decision can be localized and responsive to the people it impacts.

While How to Safely Reopen the Workplace ultimately serves to help companies understand how to leverage data, engage employees, and boost productivity, we must first consider how anxiety factors into the entire equation, and why employee wellness and safety, business continuity, and facilities management are so important.

That’s what the first part of Chapter 1 is explicitly designed to help with. To read it, or to dive into the next section, which illustrates why we need to understand what this “new normal” really means, download the guide here.

To participate in thoughtful discussions on the future of work, including best practices for reopening and strategies to keep employees healthy and safe in a post-COVID world, join one of Domo’s upcoming virtual workshops.

BLOGGER’S NOTE: Portions of this post were taken directly from the guide, which was written by Ken Rufo, a Seattle-area PhD-holder and freelancer whose work has appeared in a variety of academic journals.