Should we to return to in-person work?

On 13 March 2020, IDinsight, along with many other organizations around the world, closed its offices in response to the increasing risks of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the weeks that followed, half of our entire workforce relocated: roughly 20 per cent to new locations within the countries they work, and the other 30 per cent relocated internationally. For all of our teammates, COVID-19 has posed unique safety and security challenges that we needed to urgently address. As the pandemic continues, many organizations face the same question we are grappling with: when can teammates who relocated at the start of the pandemic go back to the places where they work? We developed a framework to guide the process of making this complex decision. We are sharing it in hopes that it will help others think through these challenging tradeoffs.

At the onset of COVID-19, IDinsight created a COVID-19 Task Force made up of Public Health experts (incidentally almost all of whom are women) who helped develop this framework around the following principles:

• Safety of our teammates — Reasonable measures must be taken to protect our teammates from excessive risk.
• Safety of our communities — The safety of the communities where our offices are located is a priority and we want to ensure we are not endangering others (e.g. teammates from high-income countries may be travelling from COVID-19 hotspots to cities with limited cases.)
• Social impact — Teammates will have the most social impact if we are: 1) close to the people whose data we are capturing 2) co-located in the same time zone as our project teammates and partner organizations 3) in a position to attend high impact, in-person meetings in situations where remote work would be less effective.
• Financial/operational risk — Further evacuations and relocations could result in additional administrative burdens, and incur organizational costs.
• Reputational risk — There is a potential risk if our teammates do not attend critical meetings or restart fieldwork when other organizations are doing so. Equally important is the possibility of reputational as well as safety and security risks if we send our teammates or survey teams into communities too soon.
• Staff well-being — Team members have varying responsibilities, concerns and risk perceptions therefore will make different decisions regarding their travel and relocation.

While there were many factors we could consider in building a decision-making framework applicable to every city where we work, we narrowed it down to the following three categories. Within those categories, we agreed upon indicators we could monitor in all of our office locations:

COVID-19 spread indicators:

• Is there reliable data available for the COVID-19 spread?
• Has there been a continuous decrease of new cases of COVID-19 over the past 14 days?
• What is the positivity rate of COVID-19 testing?

COVID-19 care indicators:

• Are symptomatic patients or contacts of COVID-19+ patients able to get tested easily?
• What is the ratio of hospital beds per 10,000 people?
• Is there adequate COVID-19 equipment available (e.g. oxygen, ICU beds)?
• What is the estimated ICU saturation?
• Are COVID-19 medical protocols aligned with WHO protocols?

Operational indicators:

• Does government policy allow for IDinsighters to enter/move within the country?
• Is airspace or internal transport open to IDinsighters?
• Are there regular flights in/out of the country?
• Is there a mandatory quarantine period in a government-designated facility upon arrival (and do these facilities pose a safety and security risk?)?
• Are other teammates present in the country?
• Is there minimal disturbance to public safety, food/water access, etc.?
• Can teammates access health care at the pre-COVID-19 level?
• Is medical evacuation possible/likely to be necessary?

Finally, we structured a clear and concise method for communicating return-to-office plans to IDinsighters around the world. Similarly to many institutions, we decided to use a traffic light system to indicate the spectrum of return-to-office scenarios in our different office locations.

Red: Many or all IDinsighters are not permitted to return. Analysis of COVID-19 spread and care, as well as operational indicators, suggests the risk level to teammates is not at an acceptable level.

Orange: IDinsighters who are legally allowed are permitted to return. Analysis of COVID-19 spread and care, as well as operational indicators, suggest the risk level to teammates is uncertain. IDinsighters can choose whether or not to return according to their individual risk appetites.

Yellow: IDinsighters who are legally allowed are encouraged to return. Analysis of COVID-19 spread and care, as well as operational indicators, suggests the risk level to teammates is uncertain. In order to meet the needs of client engagements and maximize social impact, IDinsighters are encouraged to return if their individual risk appetites allow.

Green: IDinsighters who are legally allowed are expected to return. Analysis of COVID-19 spread and care, as well as operational indicators, suggests the risk level to teammates is at an acceptable level. Limited in-person meetings and fieldwork may resume, with continuing reviews on a case by case basis given diverse contexts.

In building IDinsight’s return-to-office framework, we recognized the COVID-19 global pandemic creates highly dynamic situations, and there will always be some level of subjectivity in determining the statuses of office locations. That being said, we are committed to continuing to make data-driven decisions, as well as good judgment calls when data is inconclusive or unreliable. The safety of our teammates and the communities we serve is the foundation of all we do, and we’re confident this framework will allow us to continue building out our mission to combat poverty and improve lives around the world.