Good morning, and welcome to my latest Monday Morning Briefing.   It’s relatively quiet on this warm and sticky Monday in July, but I wanted to give you a “brief” Briefing while I had a moment to breathe.   

THE POSSIBLE RETURN OF MASKING IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY

As suspected and feared, Los Angeles County did enter the COVID-19 high level as of last Thursday, July 14, 2022, and many of us expected Los Angeles County Public Health Department to require indoor masking again as of last Friday.  Instead, they issued residents to “take precautions” to limit the spread and reminded employers of their right to require masks at their places of employment. 

In the meantime, they bought us another two weeks.  “If LA County remains in the High COVID-19 Community Level for two consecutive weeks, universal indoor masking will be implemented on July 29 to help slow the rate of transmission and protect those most vulnerable.”  That’s actually what they said before, but I think they really want to give us another chance to not require masks. 

So, who knows?  Maybe we can turn this around in these next two weeks.  It’s summer, after all, and July Fourth has come and gone.  Personally, I’m back to wearing masks when I go to crowded indoor sites these days, just to do my part.   I’ll keep you posted next Monday to see where we are heading.  Fingers crossed, everyone.  Nobody wants to require masking again, and I know the County would love to avoid it if possible. 

MANAGING REMOTE WORK AND WATCHING FOR ABUSES

If you have been getting these Briefings for a while, you know that I am a fan of flexible workplaces.  The pandemic threw us at least a decade ahead from a technological sense.  And for better or worse, remote work has forced our society to face and address some long overdue issues of growing commutes, heavy traffic, lack of childcare, disabilities – allowing some people to stay in the workforce who might otherwise not be able to do so. 

I’ve already written the article about why I believe remote work can be good for the workforce.  In short, for those employees who can be trusted with the responsibility, many of us (and I count myself in this group) are more productive and just as communicative as if they worked in the office.  If good systems are in place, communications should be seamless, and your clients, customers, patients should not even be able to tell where your employees are stationed.

This assumes two things.  First, there still needs to be an effort made on bringing people together in whatever ways are possible.  For example, we do still come into the office on a semi-regular basis and have other live and web group firm events.  

But I here is where I emphasize the first part of my statement about remote work.  Remote work should be given to employees who can be trusted to carry it out.  Of late, I have been hearing stories from clients of employees working remotely who are up to nefarious deeds.  In one case, the employee actually had an entirely separate, full time job, with another employer, DOING THE EXACT SAME THING! He was working eight hours, Monday – Friday, 9 – 5, for them, and eight hours, Monday – Friday,  9 – 5, for my client, same job! They found out because he accidently produced work for the other employer on their server.  They then called over to the other employer, who confirmed his “full time” contemporaneous employment.   That’s some chutzpah.   And fraud. 

I’ve had other clients tell me that they have discovered employees finding ways around logging their time (maybe they log in from a website and are really at the shopping mall) or just suspect that they are not working remotely when they should be. 

I tell you these stories not to turn you off remote work.  I want you to know about what SOME employees are doing, so you can watch for it.  But there can be dishonest employees who will try to steal from you, wherever they work.  I’ve been getting calls about employees “stealing time” for decades.  These are just the new versions of the same story.  Don’t make bad policies about one or two bad employees.    Just keep your spider senses on.  You will see them.   It’s always about making sure you and your managers know what is going on with your employees.  Not micro-managing, but communicating. 

While you are communicating , be sure to ask them how they are doing.  Remember, it’s still rough out there.

And for all of you, stay safe through this latest surge.  And as my yoga instructor reminds me, inhale and exhale.   There’s another week ahead.

Beth