 The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health and economic crisis. The disruption to business is unprecedented. While many businesses have been able to continue to operate, the adjustments that have been necessary in order to quarantine, social distance, minimize health risks, pivot and or innovate business practices have been enormous. As we begin to think about post-quarantine life, the varied experiences of employees in relative isolation ranging from inconvenience to being traumatized must be the starting point to plan work reentry. Getting back to business safely, Dr. Barbara J. Brown, a licensed clinical psychologist in Washington D.C. will give us practical advice for employers and employees. Thank you for joining Sister Parr and welcome back, Dr. Barbara Brown. Thank you very much for having me back. Well, you know, you, we talked in the last segment on conscious self-care about the reentry of work and now we're getting closer to that time. I know that Honolulu and I think D.C., we're scheduled to go back. The nation is going to go back June 8th. Well, that's the latest date that they're giving it. That's the latest date. Well, Dr. Brown, as we pivot towards reopening our doors and turning on the lights, many businesses are asking what and how to prepare. What are some guidelines you can share with us? Well, I think, you know, there are a lot of practical matters that need to be considered, especially around safety and a lot of people are taking care of that. I think we as psychologists and mental health professionals have been focused on the psychology of it in terms of getting people back to work. People are still fearful. There's been a lot of isolation, a lot of distancing from people and from workplace, even though a lot of people are working. Some have been furloughed, but, you know, it's been a new reality that people have gotten used to and to go back to work is not always going back to the old practices. We have to do things differently in order to feel safe and comfortable. And there is the new normal. Yeah, right, the new normal, whatever that may be. I know I guess it's going back to work with our mask on and ensuring that we wipe down everything. But the push to make money comes at a cost to our health. What's your message to people? I think that one of the reasons that we looked at the process of psychological re-entry is because of what is happening in society. This, you know, choice between, you know, people and humanity and, you know, making a living, you know, living in livelihood is unfortunately has been quite divisive at times. And I think trying to keep both in mind and in perspective is very important. It's almost like we're living in this dystopian society where the haves and the have-nots are getting more and more divided and we have to get back to our humanity in, you know, while we're trying to go back to work. Well, let's talk about the three steps to re-enter workforce. That is something that I know managers and supervisors and employers and employees are one to concentrate on. So walk us through the three steps. Sure. So, yes, we advocate best practice as a three-step process where you're connecting with individuals and really showing compassionate leadership and really connecting with your employees to find out what have they been going through, what are their thoughts about coming back to work, how engaged or disengaged are they, and then going through the process of wanting them to join in a more cohesive way by forming work groups, task force work groups, where they can have a say and input into how they come back to work, and then finally being part of a larger community and getting the same messages through town hall meetings. So that's the three-step process, but I can go into each one a little bit more if you'd like. Well, especially the three steps to enter the workplace, the individual employee meetings you were referring to, now how should that take place? Is that, well, just give us a chart on that. Sure. It's best done as much as possible before people, during this quarantine period, while people are still in quarantine, reaching out, managers and supervisors, reaching out to individuals, setting up meetings to check in with them, again, see how they're doing, see how they're doing self-care. If they're working, then how productive are they having any difficulties, how you can help them during this period of time, what they anticipate they will need going back. Again, people are in different circumstances. Some people have been in isolation totally by themselves, other people have their children around them, and sometimes they're elders as well, and they're really quite busy being, you know, mom, teacher, you know, worker, and it's very taxing on them. And for other people who aren't as fortunate and are not working, they've been furloughed, and a lot of them have been hopefully temporarily furloughed, but they may be having hardship financially. Yeah, this is just, it's challenging because you have to decide, I need to work, we all need to work, we all need some form of income coming in, and then we need our health as well. I mean, you can't work if you're not healthy. So how are we going to talk to the managers and supervisors, how are they going to wrap their head around coming back? How does the managers and the supervisors and company owners make the employee feel safe? I think that, again, the notion of compassionate leadership means really being in touch with what your employees need. And I love there's a philosophy by a person named Bird Bagot that I have adopted, it's called the three levels of leadership. And level one is that when people understand you, you get their attention. When people trust you, you earn their loyalty. And when people know that you really care, you get their hearts. And I think if managers and supervisors really realize that the more they connect, the more they show compassion and real caring for their employees, they're going to get it back tenfold in terms of loyalty, productivity, willingness to cooperate, engagement. And so it's a win-win situation that we're trying to create. That's wonderful. I know we started having our town hall meetings here in Honolulu. Let's talk about town hall meetings. Sure. I think that it's important that they be planful and really take into account what people have heard, what the leaders have heard in their individual meetings. There are some common concerns around safety, fear of getting coronavirus and desires to have the flexibility that they may have experienced at home and wanting to bring that back to the workplace. And so taking into account what they've heard and then hopefully the task force groups, and we've made some recommendations around task force groups, around safety issues, around self-care and group connectedness, around policies and procedures, and around innovations in the business. And for my business, also, we're doing, well that would be business innovation around telehealth because a lot of us are doing telehealth, teletherapy at this point. So anything new that you've done, you know, we are trying to have work groups to make recommendations. So you want to take those into consideration. And then the leaders having gathered all that information from the individual meetings and from the work groups, then they can kind of cite some major objectives that they want to accomplish. The first one, the first town hall is going to be about how do we re-enter safely? And that will be, again, policies and procedures, you know, the equipment that's going to be needed. And I've seen some good materials also on having employees sign agreements that everyone is going to adhere to the same behavior to keep each other safe. Okay, I like that. So continue to help us chart a path forward regarding workforce development and training issues. So I think if you want to take the safety piece first, then it's really around what are the procedures just coming into the building. Again, I can give our example most easily. We have, you know, administrative staff, we have clinicians, and we're in a medical building. And so we have to work very closely with the the people who own the building and making sure everything is clean and disinfected on a regular basis. We'll have to have our own cleaning supplies so that as people come in the door and as they use the offices that we're cleaning in between each time that, you know, that we've even gotten something from them on elevator use versus the stair use. So then we have to have our PPE equipment, make sure we have our masks or we have our glass, the facial things that you can see each other, we would prefer that rather than having masks on as much as possible. We've also been looking at practices that other doctors offices are doing so that they're only either screening clients before they come in. Obviously, if they're not well, that we will schedule telehealth as opposed to having them come in. But they only come in one at a time. There's no more waiting room. People don't come into the waiting room. They come in straight to the sessions and no more group conferences. We can only use spaces where you have at least six feet distance. And then we're going to be flexible and having people come in, not all at once. We have 50 clinicians, so we have to be mindful of how many people can be in the space at any given time. So all of those things, you have to adopt it to your own business. So this is, people do need time, organizations do need time because you need to be very organized and have a mindset of safety first before the dollar bill. So this sounds comforting. You have what four clinics and you have over 50 employees. So these are excellent, excellent advice. This is Dr. Barbara Brown. And we are talking about business reentry, post-COVID-19 quarantine. And to me, my personal view is I'm thinking about going back into the world. I want to do a virtual mental tour, the places that I'm going to re-enter to. We were talking about the salons. We were talking about our nails and hair and eyebrows and shopping. And I think that people now need to just have common sense. It is common sense, but I do think the idea of a walk through, you know, and kind of to make sure that you've gotten all the details because it can get that it's common sense, but you want to make sure that in your space that it will work. All right. Well, Dr. Brown, we are going to take a short break. And when we come back, we'll continue our conversation about business reentry. Keep it there. Aloha. I'm Keisha King, host of Crossroads and Learning on Think Tech Hawaii. On Crossroads and Learning, our guests and I discuss all aspects of education here in Hawaii and throughout the country. You can join us for stimulating conversations to enrich, enliven, and educate. We are streams live on Think Tech biweekly at 4 p.m. on Mondays. Thanks so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. Aloha. Welcome back to Sister Power, and we are chatting with Dr. Barbara Brown about the U.S. business reentry post COVID-19 quarantine, and she is giving us some wonderful advice. So if you have a chance to grab your pencil and paper, this is a time to do it now. So Dr. Brown, let's talk about tackle stress and empowering others to do the same. Because we were chatting earlier, that first day back at work is going to be, that is a time that people need to feel really good. So can you give us tips on professional ways to quickly ease stressful situations involving employees? Well, I think the first way is trying to minimize the level of uncertainty that people have. And by, again, having the task force groups where you laid out things in particular, people know how they're going to enter. And as predictable as it can be, it will really alleviate a lot of anxiety and fears. And then when people come in, having check-ins with them to make sure things are running smoothly. And if there are any problems that occur, trying to do problem solving as quickly as possible, because as perfectly as we may plan it, things don't go perfectly. And you find out more as you enter. So we need to be conscious that we need to do problem solving along the way. And as long as they feel that, as employees feel that you're being responsive, you're being observant, and you're reaching out when you need to, it will go pretty well. Well, that's comforting. How to manage your team with empathy while driving results during times of high stress. I think that having good discussions with them about their roles and responsibilities at work and having them have some input in how they think they can best do it. Again, you're going to need more flexibility in coming in because you can't bring everybody in probably all at the same time. And so that's going to be done in kind of phased in work because you can't have as many people and you can't do business as usual. So you may be, instead of having group meetings together, you can't do that. And so you may have to continue to have them by Zoom or something like that. And so the flexibility that you need and having people have a say in how they can best produce what they need to and having those agreements will help and everyone be on the same page. Great. Yeah. Let's talk about coping mechanisms that help you refocus and drive forward with an actionable plan. So I think the best way to answer that is to have people have some measurable goals that they can come in with. And so the expectations being clear and to when people are feeling stressed, being able to talk about what they need in order to feel better. And again, if they're not feeling comfortable in the workplace, having the flexibility to still work off site as much as needed. And so I think being able to state what they need to their employers and being heard and being acknowledged will be very helpful. Okay. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So how do you obtain actionable ways to gain perspective and lead with logic? Well, I think that hopefully there is a culture that your company has and some driving forces in it. And so again, for our company, we want to not only deliver high quality mental health services to our clients and meet their needs, but we also want to make sure that the clinicians are also doing self care and doing things in a way that they won't burn out themselves. That's true. Absolutely. Because with the country back to work, how do we process that? Moving forward. How do we process getting back to work? Back to work. Yeah. Before we get there, we're sitting at home right now. I mean, it sounds wonderful, but there's a process that we need to go through. I agree with that. I think that again, it's like having a countdown process, five, four, three, two, one, and having some agreements on when to go back to work and probably going back in measured ways instead of trying to force going back full time the first week, going back in phases. Some Americans may work at home forever after COVID-19. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages? Well, people have a lot of flexibility at home. And without the commute time, it's less costly often. They can, again, make their schedules work more for them. And so that is an advantage. I think we're trying to think about any liability issues as well of being home working and not having as much engagement with the company. So we're working on ways to have regular meetings, by Zoom, maybe having some mandatory times where people do get together. We're trying to think that through so that we can have the best of both worlds. That sounds like that. That is comforting as well because you're thinking ahead about the live bills for your employees. Go ahead. I'm loving your advice. We also are thinking about the cost of working at home. We pivoted very quickly, but people are using their own equipment, their own laptops. We're not providing those things, and we have to think through whether we need to do more for them if they are going to continue to work at home. We're providing Zoom and telehealth, but there may be more we need to do. Name a few key strategies to help supervisors support employee well-being during COVID-19. Again, having regular reach-outs, regular meetings, both team meetings, as well as individual meetings. You can also have fun things like I've been hearing people having happy hours with cocktails or mocktails, having Secret Santa where people are drawing names or picking random names and sending gifts. I've heard also people having exercise competitions where how many steps can they do. So fun ways of connecting as well as business ways and meetings. That sounds like fun. Dr. Brown provides the viewers with the ideal snapshots or of reentry into the workplace. Okay, so an ideal scenario is someone has been in touch with their manager. The manager really understands what they've been going through during this period of time, note of any stresses that they've had and giving them resources if they need them, or understanding about the flexibility that they need coming in, that they have a sense of safety and they know what's going to happen in terms of maintaining that safety when they come in the workplace, and they have their set of roles and responsibilities and their priorities made that they've done collaboratively with their managers and they implemented. Okay, let's go back and let's talk about the task force groups. What are the action steps for task force groups? Well, basically working with the managers, they decide on a set of procedures that are going to be best practices for whatever they're doing. So say, again, we've talked a little bit about the safety groups. So they have to think through all of the things that need to be done and all of the different subgroups within the agency. So again, whether it's administrative staff, labor force, managers, professionals, they have to each group needs to be part of those subgroups to say what is needed for their particular task to be done safely and how are they going to work together. For the telehealth piece that we have or the business innovations, again, thinking through how many people are going to do that. What is that going to cost for the company? What liabilities are there in these new innovations? What are the new policies and procedures that need to go with the new practices? It is important for managers and supervisors to let employees know that their safety, well-being, enrolled in the company matters. Give us more advice about that because that's going to be very crucial for the employees coming back into the office. A lot of it is letting them talk about what are they afraid of? What is driving them? And a lot of what I'm hearing from both clients as well as from my own staff is that some people have underlying medical conditions that have to be taken seriously and they may not feel comfortable coming back until there's a vaccine. Other people have elders or children in the home and they don't want to infect them and put them at risk. For others, it's just really simply that, again, it's the normal fear to have to get sick and potentially die. You just need to make sure that you're thinking it through in terms of their commute, to their time in the office, to just being in public. And they have not been. Some people have been less so than others. This is true. Is there anything that we haven't covered in the last two minutes that you can share with our sister power and think tech viewers? I just think that leaders need to, again, have a compassionate heart, have really good listening skills and really understand their employees, be helpful where they can, provide resources where they need to be given to them and be clear in communication and maintain humanity over all else. Thank you, Dr. Brown for this soothing advice that is so needed moving forward with the reentry into the workplace. And we want to thank our sister power viewers. Please take care of yourself and each other. Aloha.