Returning to the Workplace: Focusing on Employee Safety w/ Dr. David Batman, Virgin Pulse Science Advisory Board

In this HRchat episode, we consider practical ways for employees to stay engaged, and how employers can support mental wellbeing throughout their organization.

The guest this time is Dr. David Batman, member of the Virgin Pulse Science Advisory Board and a Consultant Occupational Health Physician who has served 50 years in the field of medicine.

 Listen and learn about the health and safety challenges facing businesses trying to build out successful return to workplace practices. Hear too, about Virgin Pulse’s new Return-to-Workplace solution, VP Passport, created to help organizations effectively respond to the challenges of COVID-19 and whatever comes next.

Talking points include: 

• What have been some of the biggest pressures placed on leaders and HR in terms of ensuring offices and other workplaces are compliant with Covid-related health and safety requirements?
• How can organizations assess the risk of exposure to COVID-19 in their workplace?
• How can HR and leaders plan for preventive measures?
• Should employees be contract tracing when they go to the office?
• How has mental health been impacted by the crisis and how the way we approach employee health and mental wellbeing has changed in 2020
• Besides wearing masks and washing our hands, what other measures should be taken in the workplace to ensure employees are safe?

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome to the HR chat podcast, bringing the best of the HR and talent communities to you.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Welcome to another episode of the HR chat show. I'm your host today, bill Banham. And in this episode, we're going to consider practical ways for employees to stay engaged and how employers can support mental wellbeing throughout their organization. My guest this time is dr. David Batman, better known as dr. B member of the Virgin pulse science advisory board, and a consultant occupational health physician, who has served 50 years in the field of medicine. Listen to this show and learn about the health and safety challenges facing businesses, trying to build out successful return to workplace practices and hear too about Virgin pulse, new returned to work solution BP passport created to help organizations effectively respond to the challenges of COVID-19 and whatever comes after that. Dr. B it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show to data.

Speaker 3: 1:19

Well, bill, thank you very much since you all listed to us for asking me to participate today, I'm speaking today from the UK, the belts that I have a 50 years in medicine, as it turns out, my first job was actually an infectious diseases. Um, I saw cases of malaria, et cetera, but I've never asked to be part of a pandemic. I spent another 12 years in general medicine. Uh, what I've always been interested in lifestyle, both as a preventative measure and also a curative measure. I'll then spend 20 years after retraining as a consultant to occupational medicine world-class medicine. And 20 years with Nestle in the UK is I had a safety, how to employee wellbeing and occupational health. I then came into my own consultancy business some 12 years ago, and I've been advising a range of businesses since then on employee wellbeing, resilience, sleep, health and safety, um, and lots of other matters. I'm a member of the science advisory board of Virgin pulse and my Miami on through them, our aim to actually help people build resilience, build wellbeing. And we've been very heavily at work since COVID-19 and how will it places across the piece? So I like to think that I've seen a lot in my 50 years, but I will say it from this point of view, I have never seen anything like this.

Speaker 2: 2:38

Yeah, certainly. And you and I were talking about just that, but before we hit record today, uh, it's just absolutely, um, um, pressed into time. So what have been some of the biggest pressures that you've seen placed on leaders and, and maybe HR teams in terms of ensuring that their offices and other workplaces are, uh, compliant with COVID related and safety requirements?

Speaker 4: 3:01

Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3: 3:02

It's been a real challenge. And the last challenge I can equate it to was around it was in the ninth and millennium when we were all putting in places, things that would be affected by changing our computers and clocks. That's right. Gosh, that was a big one at the time. But what we did then we had, we knew what the risk was. We knew what the hazard was. We had a time to plan to assess the risks, put measures in place in case anything happened. So it was all about being measured plans, communicated and involving people. This, the difference with COVID-19 is the repetitive of which you come on, the sub-industries come on and above all. I think if I want you to one word to use it's change and this change, which has impacted everybody is impacted where we work, how we work, who we work with. But I think the biggest thing was probably not as this from certainty because we don't know when it's wrong to come to the end. People have approached me and other professional saying, well, how do we do this? Where's the playbook. And I have to say, sorry, there is no playbook. None of us have met this. And I think for a number of us doctors, and we've been publicly criticized for changing our minds. Now we haven't changed our minds at all. We're still getting new knowledge on COVID-19. And in fact, we are having to adapt as we go along in all aspects of medicine and health and safety. Because as I say, there's no manual that I can go to. And I think one of the problems has been also is that we've all become so used to the media. Now, the world of work comes on your phone, your laptop, your iPad, whatever it is, your tablet. And it goes everywhere. And everybody has been concluded to the media and the media has been really quite negative and watering spread, and there's not helped us and created a moral panic and fear and anxiety. It's just also being backed by the fact is there's no health and safety manual for this as well. Um, and then we've had both the political and the economic involvement in a medical pro problem that we've never seen before. So uncertainty, again, change lack of edge. And so people, a lot of businesses don't actually, if they're going to survive or how are they going to survive and what the shape is when they do so five, et cetera. So suddenly people say to me, do I work from home? I was home my work now. And how long was this going to last? So from a health and safety point of view from an HR professionals point of view, and I will sit in this stage, remember HR professionals and doctors were affected as well. We're human beings. So we're actually trying to help other people when helping ourselves at the same time. So we've actually got to say, where do we start? And I think we'll probably start about the actual management of health and safety because it is complex. Um, and again, when, where do we go, where do we stand? But what I'm saying to every business is, look, this is a health and safety problem. Stop taking the panic out of it, managed by fat and not by fear, unless you go back to how we would manage any other health and safety aspect. If you're in a factory, how would you manage noise, transport move, but working at Heights, if you're an office, how would you manage office safety, find safety, et cetera. So let's go back to some basic principles and work our way through it. But in answer to the real question, HR has been affected in every aspect from the workplace to people management, massive change, and it's changing uncertainty, which are the two main triggers here.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Okay. Thank you. And you touched upon it a little bit, but um, uh, practical tips here. Okay. How, how can organizations assess the risk of exposure to COVID-19 they workplace you also might include how long is a piece of string, but also how can they, how can they print a platinum for preventative measures? You know, what things they need to get, right. Do we know the basic measures dr. B, that companies should be taking, you know, putting, putting the plastic in place to separate out desks, for example, uh, or actually, is it still a bit of a moving target?

Speaker 3: 7:12

No, I think it's, it is a bit of a moving target, but the moving target is the virus and largely how the virus affects people. We know the basic principles. So what I would say is go back to your matching principles. So start by identifying what activity or situations might cause the transmission of the virus. Then thinking about who could be at risk, decide how likely that somebody could be exposed to or transmitted and then act, move activity or situation. Then if that impossible let's start and control the risk might also stop. Although I said, there isn't a playbook, we've got all sorts of sectors who are probably listening in this podcast. And the first thing I'd say is go back to your country or your state, and look at your industry in your sector. Look at what specific advice may be coming out for them and work from that. Then I think Layla thing that we've got to do is we've got to take leadership on this. Leadership is from vital. And the leadership on this issue needs to come up from the very top. And it also without leadership, which needs to be miserable and active and participating first thing together and put together a strategy in order to put that strategy together. No one single person shouldn't do it, but a group of people. So business leaders, HR, people, health and safety, professional doctors with a knowledge of occupational health and safety, general medicine, infectious diseases. If you are lucky and involve your employees and your work, as we often forget in health and safety, we involve workers, maybe unions. So somebody thinking right, who should go to work now, you know, we've got rules and regulations about isolation. So you start to think how many people do we need at work? Condos. People actually work for our business successfully at home. We've seen a lot of that, but then remember that home becomes a work and you have health and safety responsibilities. Then starting to think, you know, what equipment do they need? What contact communications bill they need. And then remember, you're going to have people at higher risks. So that might be due to age, ethnicity, existing medical problems, et cetera. It might need to put special measures to protect them and keeping them away from work. Think about how those people are going to get to work. Do we use public transport? Can they drive et cetera? So there's a lot of issues that you can look around there at the same time. So when you then start to say, right, let's get into the world of work I'm talking about is not the home situation. So let's start thinking. When people come into the office, how do they get in there? What about hand washing? First of all, mask wearing. And remember the masculine has been huge to banks on the mask. And I like a lot of people didn't. I advise people to wear masks in the beginning, but there's so much evidence now with the mask fintechs, not only the person who may have it transmitted to other people because 40% of people that are new symptoms or people catching itself, what do we do about getting into the office? Where's the hand wash stations, et cetera, then physically arrange your work so that people can socially distance. The two meter rule is six feet rule, et cetera. You might need to have less people in the offices. So you might need a plan to see where are you going to put your desks so that we can actually move paper around mock areas on the floor with tape or paint, not only about social distancing, but maybe having used as to how they would walk into the office, walk out to the office. Can you have one door that they enter your offices or factory when they come in and when they're leaving, go out another door so that we're not having people moving past one another. At the same time, lots of communications, a lot of signage around, remember people about distancing. People who sit at their desks, where am actually get to your desk. You can take it off then, but when you start to move around or when you go into communal areas, then you probably want to put those, those masks on again, again, at the same time, start to limit how many people need to be in an office at any one time while maintaining that social distancing. How many in private offices, communal spaces, et cetera, how does sanitizing and moving around and things, good hygiene. And then I think it's about involving your people. It is about communication. Communicate, communicate. People are frightened at work at the moment. They may not show it if you want. I quaint when I see my patients, they're more like a flock of Swan. If you look on a, on a Lake, on a pool on our Emma, the Swan line serenely. But if you look at his feet under the water, if he's paddling right, Matt, I'm not. So I think I like that. That'll do it. Oh, I have two around me. You don't know who they are. They know who they are, but I've got a lot of swells.

Speaker 2: 11:58

Gosh, this is a, this is Sage advice. Sage advice. I want to pick up on one thing you just mentioned towards the end there and go into that a bit more with you. And that's, um, uh, how organizations maybe should go about assessing which employees should return and where now you, you mentioned as part of your last answer, that there are obvious and not obvious at risk groups. And I would guess that they won't be coming back in, in the initial stages. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe that you can get the practice in place, perhaps that they can come back. Um, but certainly how would organizations go about selecting, uh, what folks would bring back?

Speaker 3: 12:36

That's the thing having got your office organized as we've talked about? I think the first thing to do is, you know, you will have a list of employees who may be at risk and they going to be an unvarnished by their local medical services, their own practitioners, et cetera, whether they should be there or not. I'm so guarded by them. First of all, and asked the question. And initially I suspect, I read that the people that come back initially shouldn't be on a voluntary basis so that the less fearful one comes in. Um, and remember, look at the distancing, not everybody you can accommodate. You might want people coming on shifts different days of the week. So you can actually meet the quota and make sure that you are social distance at the same time. I think once we we've done that, um, it is, it is down to communication, but remember people we don't know and necessarily we don't know a lot about this fast, as much as we shouldn't do a lot being said about like flu. It's not like flu. The only, the only similarity to flu is a where it gets into the body, through the nose and the mouth after that. Cause she's not a flu like illness, like we've ever seen. This is a multiorgan immune system disease, which affects a lot of it is we do know that people who've had the virus and hopefully they'll get tested. They'll isolate. They should be a minimum of 10 days free of any symptoms. Remember if they've had a fever, they've got to have had a fever without medications to keep it down, but they went may well also be contact tracing and contact. Shouldn't be coming in until they've isolated for 14 days because we know that they outset in which people will maintain. But again, I will mention a, now this is about how do you exist about personal and professional ownership. We all need to be involved in this. We all need to be protecting one another. Um, so it's fine. I know you mentioned the beginning about Virgin pulse passport as a group within that. And a number of us came together, both on the science advisory board and colleagues from all aspects of this. How could we help with our platform on all our participants on within 45 days, 45 days sounds a long time. Once you get it, put together a sense of a standard and the it and everything to go together on the app. But this is allowing our participants to every day to make sure they've checked that temperature. And we ask them a series of just simple questions and the algorithm we built in with that we'll give them clearance either to seek medical, help stay at home, or they fit to come into work, et cetera. And he's on a traffic light, red, orange, and green, et cetera. So this gives people ownership and I've actually seen certain businesses. One of which I was talking today about the individuals actually got to show the app outcome to the security guard before they were allowed into the business. But I think a lot of this is about not just who we should allow it back, but it's about personal responsibility to make sure that we are faced to go into the business, to protect our colleagues.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Part of going into a business and physically going in somewhere, uh, is, is, uh, in many places con contact tracing. Um, and I'd love to get a little bit of an insight from you in terms of, do you think that's absolutely necessary? And if so, uh, what, what are the, what are the best ways to go about doing that?

Speaker 3: 16:02

What we have to do with this virus is learn to live with it. Um, I suspect this forest is never going to go away. It's going to be come like a seasonal flu that we're going to learn to live with. But at this moment in time, we, we, we can't eradicate it. So we've got to control it. So we control it in a number of ways, clearly wearing the mask. As often as you should, with local guidance hand-washing is vital. So you're not transmitting it to either your self. If your patient are on two door handles on two desks and things like that, that's what vital wants to do. But if we know that somebody has actually had COVID-19 either because they've had a positive antigen test test test, or they've just had symptoms, it is vital that people are then contacted. Who've been close to them so that we spread the virus then can be isolated as well as banking, breaking the chain of transmission. Now, again, people say to me, well, what is a contact? Uh, and we've had lots of definitions. I think I'm going to give you the definition that we've now got from the CDC, which says it is you want to contact. If you've been within two meters of a known individual, who's other testing positive have symptoms for a minimum of 15 minutes. Now that can be one 15 minute contact, or it could be three, five minute contacts over a 24 hour period or 15 one minute contest. So the critical thing is, have you been in contact someone who's got proven COVID for 15 minutes over a 24 hour period, the singling on block or in broken up contact tracing is vital. One of the most vital things to stop the spread of this virus.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Okay. Pretty adamant that. Thank you. Um, talk to me a bit now about, about mental health and how that's been impacted by the, by the crisis and maybe some of the ways that we approach employee health and mental wellbeing differently since February, March of 2020.

Speaker 3: 18:01

Yeah. Let's see. This is this one syndrome. That's just the thing that we can't see that we can't do it shouldn't for years, there's such so much stigma and it's been involved pre COVID-19 probably we estimated that 18% to 20% of the workforce would have had a mental health problem at any one time. The estimate now has gone from 18%, probably to 90% plus unless you're living in the midst of the Amazon jungle around to Mongolia, everybody has been to find this uncertainty and fear, the media overload that people have had as affected people. We, our lives are dominated by COVID-19 and that has all sorts of implications in itself, but there's some issues as well in terms of, of, of mental health isolation. Uh, I was just saying to you, bill, before we started, I, I have been here at home. I'm 17. Um, I have been here since March the 23rd. I've been out on occasions for not being back to work at any time. I have three children and their spouses and two of those have got clinical problems. So I'm worried now to isolate a lot of not see my four grandchildren since last Christmas. So isolation is a problem. We've got people with 18 parents who are in care homes that they can't visit as well at the same time when people than colleagues, et cetera, the loss people who've died with this. Well, they can't go to the funerals that affects your mental health. We've got people who have existing mental health problems prior to COVID a lot of cases. They are. They can't get to see that for help and support and psychological support fearful of going to the doctor's office. At the same time, they have such difficulty getting medications. So for a lot of those people, they're having trouble as well. At the same time, we've got this issue about work home balance. So I said to you earlier is home work or his work, my home and et cetera. And so there's all sorts of people have to learn to live with one another partners, spouses, you know, people have difficulty coming together for Christmas. Um, for Thanksgiving, just for two or three days, people fall out, but not this period of time, suddenly skilling. And I think a lot of people have found they're actually not very good teachers. And I think the respect for teachers has gone up enormously in this period of time. All of that is called anxiety sleep. I see so many people with sleep problems and dreams. I think there's one big group of people that we need to support. And we need to think about in terms of mental health. And that's what I fellow healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, and ciliary staff, social care, support staff, et cetera, these people, we are caring. We're supportive, but suddenly, I mean, my wife and I have been in healthcare now for 50 years each. Um, we've never gone to work worrying about whether we would never see our children again, or whether we would come back with a virus and infect somebody else, no children, et cetera. We've got doctors and nurses who are working 12, 14 hour shifts, extra time because their colleagues are sick. They're fearful of catching the virus. They're living in protective equipment all the time. And they've never seen death like this, the amount of deaths that we've had. And therefore it just really threatened their understanding of that caring nature, because we're here to cure people. We're here to help people to see this number of people dying around us is having a profound effect on our health it's estimated. And I was just looking at the UK figures, which she's probably we can extrapolate across the world that says something like one instincts on people in hospital wards today with COVID-19 or either healthcare workers or healthcare workers, family members, that's a huge number, but I think the anxiety and the depression and the burnout we're seeing in healthcare workers and they're other people that want to help you and your colleagues, I've got anxiety. And I suspect the levels of PTSD are going to go up as well as, as we get through this. So yeah, there's lots of impacts, but I think what we're seeing across the board, anxiety and depression are going up at the moment and it needs help on long-term health. And from a business perspective, what I would say is first and foremost, we've got in talking about health, stop talking about physical health and mental health, not two different silos, not two different buckets. Let's talk about health and talking about mental health in the same vein. Let's, de-stigmatize it, let's get it on the boardroom agenda from the C-suite down. And let's start to treat it as the issues in terms of physical or mental health. A lot of the solutions are exactly the same, but the first and foremost is getting on your agenda, talking about health.

Speaker 2: 22:44

Okay. Um, one in six you said that, uh, of, of hospital w ere either care workers or families o f care workers. Is that, is that right? Yes. That's what I'm saying. T hat's staggering. Oh my G od.

Speaker 3: 23:00

Think about it, bill that they faced with this virus day in, day out, you know, I was, I was on a, on a call today where they a consultant who works in intensive care and he's had COVID-19 twice. They called it at the beginning of the impact in, in, in March, they had antibodies three months later, uh, after his illness, the antibodies hadn't gone, the antibodies and protection in, from a vaccine appear short lived, and he called you a second time. So this is a, so they've got to what we call viral load. They're exposed to the virus all the time, and it's no wonder you let your guard down on vacation. So yeah, it's a number of people.

Speaker 2: 23:39

So you're talking to an audience. They have, uh, well, many of them are HR practitioners, HR leaders, uh, maybe leaders in other departments. Um, perhaps in the C-suite maybe, maybe you can offer them a little bit of advice around ways to handle a scenario in which maybe an employee is not following the organization's guidelines and maybe feeling making their colleagues feel that, um, they're not particularly safe that they're perhaps a little bit uncomfortable. So for whatever reason, uh, you've got, you've got a problem employee. You're not quite sure of the right things to say to them at the moment, uh, because it's a very changed environment as a doctor. I'd love to, I'd love to get your, your advice on, you know, the, the short, sharp reality of, of what to express to an employee so that they do respect those guidelines.

Speaker 3: 24:34

Yeah. Okay. I think what we would have done in the past, I was traditional business surpass. Then that becomes a confrontational situation. They actually, it goes into performance management. It goes into constructive criticism, et cetera. But I think when we've got a member, I'm going back to my Swan syndrome here. You don't know, looking at that uncooperative employee, what's going on in their mind, what's going on in their life. You don't know any of their beliefs. So the first thing that I would ask is for the person who is their manager, et cetera, somebody who's close to them just to quietly take them aside socially, in essence, with masks on, into an area where you can have that quiet conversation and just ask, first of all, a simple question and ask the same thing to everybody. And I would encourage somebody to use and use the same three words. How are you? And they will say to you I'm okay. And then you repeat, it always says, how are you really? And start that dialogue and ask to understand it and point out to them. Look, we are in a difficult situation. We trying to present prevent the spread of this fire as well. You don't appear to be actually following our guidelines. And I'm worried about you. Is there anything I can do to help? So interpersonal tell the stories really slow with that individual or the initial stages as to what's going on. And you may well be surprised as to why they aren't doing it. Now, remember, there are certain people who may well have claustrophobia, and they're actually fearful of wearing a mask. You might have somebody who's got asthma who have difficulty breathing with a mask on, you might have somebody with all other medical or mental health problems who can't face wearing a mask. Let's be courageous. Let's be kind initial and explore that. And so the initial ones, I think they would come out of that with other, some new ideas and working with that individual to change their attitudes and behaviors at the end of the day, to themselves and to other people. Now, if very quickly, I mean quickly, cause obviously this virus spreads pretty quickly. Some people are fear for roundabout. You, if that doesn't change, then you may need to go into some other procedures dependent upon your business, your protocol, your codes, or practice, how to date with it. But my initial exploration is all about how are you and trying to understand why that individual is non-compliance.

Speaker 2: 26:59

Okay. Thank you. Um, we've only got a few minutes left now for this particular interview. I'm afraid I'd love to get you on again. Um, but that's it. And we're going to do it in kind of rapid fire fashion, dr. B, uh, so in 60 seconds or less, uh, what other health factors should organizations be considering at the moment outside of COVID?

Speaker 3: 27:22

Right. Remember there are some well-being or risk factors. We know that people who are obese are highly at risk people with heart problems, lung problems, et cetera, develop an, explore your wellbeing program, et cetera, to look at these underlying risks and help these issues in the first place. So go back to beginnings, let's do something to help our risk people. Remember just a simple thing about exercising, more, getting your weight down, giving them slim help, et cetera, will help prevent the likelihood of severe complications if you did happen to catch COVID.

Speaker 2: 27:55

Excellent. Thank you. And I wouldn't mind if you, if you, uh, perhaps just recap something you were talking about earlier and that's be it besides wearing masks and washing our hands, some of the other measures that should be taken in the workplace to ensure to ensure that employees are safe. If you can just sort of offer again in 60 seconds or less, just leave that with our listeners today. I think it would be quite important, right?

Speaker 3: 28:19

Look at how they get into work. And they said, get into work, look at how they get into your offices. Have you got clear communications about what the expectations are? Have you hand washing facilities? Have you got signage on the floor about how they should move around? Have you got out of equips cleaning facilities? I going through around your desks? Are they socially distance? Have you got chairs, mom? I do know where they're going, et cetera. I mean, exits on look at meeting rooms as well, the same time. So it's about planning. It's about communication. It's about signage. And I would say, remember, people get bored with the same signs, the same messages, change them every month or so. So they've got something different to lick look at and listen to

Speaker 2: 29:04

Well better yet. Get the store signage. It's 20, 20 people. Okay. And then that just leads me to ask you, um, how can our listeners connect with you? Uh, are you on LinkedIn? Um, maybe you're on Twitter, perhaps you want to share other ways and also, uh, how can they learn more about all the awesome work happening over at the Virgin pulse science advisory board? Okay.

Speaker 3: 29:28

From a cost point of view, I avoid Twitter. Like the man he's late in the month thing. It makes me stressed. Like I can't do with Twitter. I am on LinkedIn and you can find a LinkedIn. No problem. So if you go to the Virgin website, which is very clear too, to find you'll find everything that we have there in terms of offer communications, there are lots of webinars and lots of replays. There's lots of very helpful advice in terms about our tool kits, et cetera. And I've got some extremely helpful colleagues far, far better than me, well versed in our product suite that we've got an hour on our range of suppliers on that. So, uh, if you, if you won't make a LinkedIn or go to the emerging, post-war

Speaker 2: 30:11

Excellent. And in addition to that, uh, you can also learn on that website about the return to workplace solution, BB passport. Of course. So do check that out too. Well, that just leads me to say for today, this has been an absolute pleasure and education. Um, dr. B, thank you very much for joining me on this episode of the HR chapter.

Speaker 3: 30:31

It's been an absolute pleasure and I wish you listen as well. And on my cotton, my Pontings above my office. I've got a saying everything will be all right in the end. So if it's not all right, it's not the end. It's going to be a long ending, but we will get that stuff.

Speaker 2: 30:47

I like that. What a great extra, I can't add to that. So I'll just say goodbye. Goodbye.

Speaker 1: 30:53

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