What COVID-19 has done to so many people, and to so many families, is tragic beyond measure. According to Domo’s Coronavirus Tracker, more than 800,000 lives have been lost the world over, and the U.S. unemployment rate remains historically high.

While it might seem profane to look for a silver lining, the reality is that we have before us an opportunity to enact and embrace change in how people get back to work, and how they relate to work and each other as human beings. Not doing anything, as if nothing has changed, would be the far more disrespectful choice.

In many ways, the traditional way we have run our businesses is changing right in front of us—and faster than most change management experts could have imagined. As a result, we have the chance to think about better, more efficient, more productive ways of structuring our workplaces.

“There’s an opportunity here to sit back, reflect, and do what we can do,” Dr. William Bergquist, president of The Professional School of Psychology, said for the final installment of Domo’s guide on how to safely reopen the workplace. “It’s a time to recognize what’s going on among those people who are working for you, and to respond accordingly.”

Evidence suggests that excess levels of employee anxiety will adversely affect employees, their work, and the company that employs them. Therefore, executives need to recognize that productivity and wellness go hand in hand, and then embrace platforms that don’t keep these two facets in silos.

With the Productivity and Executive View apps in Domo’s Get Back To Work solution, companies can finally approach both sets of metrics as if they are merely two aspects of the same issue. And executives can see:

• which tools workers prefer and make investments accordingly;
• if workers are remote or on-site—and measure how that impacts overall company KPIs;
• the overall impact that COVID-19 has had on the company while assessing overall productivity.

We are all facing the same set of challenges, and they are, for most of us, unprecedented in scope and implication. It can be overwhelming deciding where to begin, and what first step to take.

But we are not without our lodestars. We know that letting data drive decisions is better than relying on intuition. We know that engaging our employees in the solution is better than imposing it upon them. And we know that doing something isn’t just a better choice than doing nothing—it’s the only choice.

Now is the time to take a smarter, more intelligent approach to how we engage with each other at work, and to do so in a way that benefits both our psychological health and our productivity.

With Domo’s approach, the tools and the expertise are there for you to use—ready to go and capable of customization—to create the post-COVID workplace employees deserve.

To learn more about the only solution that offers the comprehensive data coverage and insight demanded by a post-COVID world, click here. To participate in thoughtful discussions on the future of work, including best practices for reopening, 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