Here’s a live roundup of the best coronavirus information sources for business, official advice, news updates, strategic analysis.
We’ll keep adding links to the top of this list as the situation unfolds. If you have a link that you think we should add, please tweet it to us @peoplexcd
The UK government’s Health and Safety Executive’s official business advice page [pinned]
Dave Ulrich: What’s Next in the Coronavirus Crisis? Phases of a Crisis and HR Responses
Ulrich offers an interesting perspective on the crisis using an accident as a metaphor, then reviews how HR and business leaders should address issues around talent, leadership and organisation.
AON: Supporting employee wellbeing
Some useful suggestions and advice on how employers can support employee wellbeing during the crisis.
"Employers have a significant role to play in helping their employees thrive in this new working environment, however temporary. The purpose of this document is to outline some key suggestions we believe employers should consider."
HR Technologist: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Work From Home: Are You Facilitating Remote Work for Each Personality Type?
"A one-size-fits-all WFH policy isn’t the right answer, even if companies are switching from on-premise to remote working overnight due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. How can companies ensure that every employee performs optimally while working from home? How can you tailor your work from home policy for different personality types?"
Read on hrtechnologist.com
RealBusiness: A business psychologist’s advice to HR managers during COVID-19
"As an HR manager, it’s likely you’ve been so busy that you can’t fathom anyone else not firing on all cylinders right now, but it’s important to realise that some employees may feel very disengaged during this difficult time."
New York Times: I Spent a Year in Space, and I Have Tips on Isolation to Share
"Being stuck at home can be challenging. When I lived on the International Space Station for nearly a year, it wasn’t easy. When I went to sleep, I was at work. When I woke up, I was still at work. Flying in space is probably the only job you absolutely cannot quit."
HRZone: Supporting your workforce during coronavirus
Our friends at HRZone have created a hub for guidance, advice and tools to help HR professionals navigate the best way forward - "In these unprecedented times, let's work together as an online community to share practical tips and strategies – alongside words of comfort – to others in the profession."
TLNT: 4 HR and Workforce Leadership Strategies for COVID-19
"Protection motivation theory suggests that leaders must manage two forces: fear and coping. Fear today is coming from the external environment, and there is not much one leader or manager can do to reduce fear.
"We can try to package information in ways that reduce fear, but the highest impact comes from managing the second part of the equation, and that is coping."
ACAS: Coronavirus advice for employers and employees
ACAS will review and refresh this page every day based on government updates and legal changes for employers and employees. Health and safety best practice, self-isolation and sick pay, flexible working, steps to take if you need to close.
Medium: Remote working when you’re not a remote team
If you’re trying to come up with a remote working plan quickly, this is an excellent and wide-ranging list of practical tips and advice.
CIPD: Coronavirus support materials
Our friends at the CIPD have released a resource of free document templates. A control checklist, continuity plan, risk control policy, letters to employees... all very useful. Great work, CIPD!
HRZone: How to work from home with kids at home
"Working from home for an extended period will, for many, bring unexpected challenges. But add children into the mix and working parents may feel on the brink of chaos. What tweaks can be made to help those working from home with kids?"
Harvard Business Review: Communicating Through the Coronavirus Crisis
"As someone who studies crisis communication, I regularly tell my students and clients that you need to communicate early and often with your key constituencies throughout a crisis. Even if you’re still trying to understand the extent of the problem, be honest and open to maintain credibility."
Analytics in HR: How to plan for Coronavirus: A Case Study
This is a great practical article - "We are taking on the planning challenge by applying our normal approach: quantifying and using dimensions to analyze. We always start from the work itself. What is it now, and what will it be in the future? In the context of a virus outbreak, does each area of work need people to meet in person? Does it require travel? How can it be delivered safely, for the employee and for the client?"
HandsHQ: Free coronavirus (COVID-19) risk assessment
The risk assessment firm has created a risk assessment template document, based on guidance from leading health authorities, and made it available for free on their website.
Havard Business Review: 8 questions employers should ask about coronavirus
“As hand washing is one of the most effective defenses, employers need to make sure that employees have ready access to washing facilities and that those are kept well stocked with soap and (ideally) paper towels; there is some evidence that paper towel drying is less likely to spread viruses than jet dryers.”
HRZone: Crisis communications: how to reach your employees during the coronavirus outbreak
“It’s during times like these that companies need to take their internal communications seriously. HR and internal communications teams need to work together, and quickly to help guide their business through this period of turmoil.”
McKinsey: COVID-19: Implications for business – Executive Briefing
“The outbreak is moving quickly, and some of the perspectives in this article may fall rapidly out of date. This article reflects our perspective. We will update it regularly as the outbreak evolves.”
Economist: Covid-19 is foisting changes on business that could be beneficial
“The next few months are set to be a giant experiment in whether new technologies can allow successful mass remote working for employees, speeding up the reinvention of the office.”
XCD: What will coronavirus teach us about remote working?
“While the trend for the last five years has been towards more remote working across much of the developed world, this is the first time the policies, tools and platforms have been forced into use. Might Coronavirus leave a more transformative legacy on workplace culture than everyone’s hand-washing etiquette being totally on point?”
The Conversation: Ten reasons why you ought not to panic
“Pandemic means sustained and continuous transmission of the disease, simultaneously in more than three different geographical regions. Pandemic does not refer to the lethality of a virus but to its transmissibility and geographical extension. - What we certainly have is a pandemic of fear. - But it is also right that we must not panic.”
Furlough Update: Five Things Employers Need to Know About Bank Holidays
Furlough presents an additional complication for which employers need to ensure they pay their staff correctly for a bank holiday. Personnel Today's usual list of five things employers need to know about bank holidays becomes six, with a description of how employers should handle public holidays during furlough.
