When Discover Financial Services Inc. decided to evacuate its 25,000 employees world-wide because of the COVID-19 outbreak, it did so with military efficiency in just two weeks.
Now comes the hard part. When and how does the financial-services giant bring its full-time workers and contractors back to work across the U.S., from Phoenix to New Castle, Del.?
“Bringing back people in waves, based on where they live and what they do, is unlike anything we’ve ever done,” Andy Eichfeld, executive vice president of human resources and administration at Discover DFS, +5.28% , told MarketWatch in a phone interview late Monday.
MarketWatch spoke to companies across the country in different industries to gauge their back-to-work plans, and what they shared provides a glimpse into significantly different work and commerce environments. Workplaces in the near future will likely feature employees wearing personal protective equipment such as masks — sometimes alongside new automation at manufacturing settings — with widespread medical testing and screening on-site.
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Desks will be more spread out and work schedules will be staggered so as to limit people in the office at the same time. Cubicles might replace open-air seating. Company visitors may have their temperatures taken and travel documented before they are allowed to enter. Meanwhile, the bar for business travel will be significantly higher because videoconferencing services have proved to be effective in bringing people together. (Facebook Inc. FB, +2.44% , for example, has called off all travel through June.)
“Things will return to normal in our personal lives, like going to restaurants, but things in business will change forever,” Box Inc. BOX, +0.25% Chief Executive Aaron Levie told MarketWatch in a phone interview.
Some businesses will look at the industries that have been operating during the pandemic for clues to how, and how not, to establish new practices. Kroger Co. KR, -0.04% , the world’s largest supermarket chain with $122.3 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2019, publicly shared a comprehensive in-house plan called “Sharing What We’ve Learned: A Blueprint for Businesses” this week that envisions reconfigured stores that minimize employee-customer contact through online orders, drive-through purchases, expanded pickup and delivery services, digital payments, exclusive early hours for seniors and other high-risk individuals, and plenty of in-store signs and audio messages.
The future of successful coronavirus response: Mass testing at work and in church and self-administered tests
“We want to share what we’ve learned and best practices with other businesses, so they can take steps now to develop protocols and procedures to reopen safely and continue to flatten the curve,” Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said in a video message explaining the report