Did you know it's already June? (I know, quarantine somehow simultaneously expands and contracts time. Weird.)
But yeah, it's a new month! And you know what that means: another free gift for Compliance Design Club Members!
We've been rolling out tools to help prepare you and your teams as folks are starting to return to the workplace—tools that cover things like managing risk with remote work and managers getting their teams back up to speed.
And as employees with real health concerns return to modified workplaces, many will understandably ask for accommodations. You don't want your managers to be surprised by those requests, so you should give them some guidance before the requests begin.
Which is why June's free gift for Design Club is ...
Broadcat's 'Has an employee asked for reasonable accommodation?' job aid!
This tool gives practical guidance to your managers so they know what reasonable accommodations are and how employee relations can help.
Wait.
Employee relations? Why is compliance getting involved if the job aid points folks to employee relations?
Fair question. The answer involves some next-level strategy, 3-D chess kind of stuff.
Here's the deal: during economic fallouts (pandemic-related or otherwise), you should expect an increase in hotline calls. But you don't want to be running around on reactive stuff; you need to be present for your business while leadership is developing and implementing strategy to handle these tough times.
So when folks start returning to your offices and facilities, make sure your managers know how to respond to requests for reasonable accommodations. If you don't, there's a risk that things'll go wonky ... which means you'll probably get a hotline call. And it'll be a whole thing while you try to sort it out with employee relations.
Another option: give your managers the right guidance the first time, including how they can work with employee relations to make sure their folks are taken care of. You'll likely never have to get involved.
Yeah, we vote for the second option, too.
And that's what this job aid does!
This graphic one-pager gives your managers practical guidance about what to do when they believe an employee with a disability or condition could use some extra support or assistance. It's editable, too, so you can tailor the language to your specific business and brand to your heart's content.
Are you an overachiever? (You probably are—we know our market.) You'll probably want these, too: we've designed awareness messages to specifically work with this job aid so your employees know your company is invested, too.
I know! It's like a whole well-thought-out campaign or something. Yay!
One more thing. As you deal with those hotline calls that will inevitably come in, we've got something that can help make it easier: Templates for Communicating with Hotline Callers. These email templates help you gather information, manage expectations, and ensure follow-up when employees report issues. Not only will you be able to manage the full cycle of a hotline case empathetically, but you won't have to draft an email from scratch each time you need to send one. Seriously. These will change your life. Go check 'em out!
Two ways to get it!
For free: Already a Compliance Design Club Member in June 2020? Go check your account, you genius, it’s already there! (And if you join before July, we’ll send it to you directly FOR FREE!)
For 8 tokens: Is it after July 1st and you’re still not a Member?
First, get on that! Get started here.
Second, all is not lost: you can still buy it with 8 tokens. Yup, you can give your managers uber-practical guidance on how to respond to requests for reasonable accommodations and STILL have plenty of tokens to spare!