COVID19 the New Marker

COVID19, a new entrant into the world has triggered thoughts over the last few months. Consolidating all the postings on Linkedin in the following article.

Human Behaviour and COVID19

The virus thrives on human behaviour and it is essential that this is fundamental aspect is not overlooked in the war against the unseen enemy. The enemy is happier when people whether infected or not are willing to move around without keeping Physical Distancing norms that have been recommended. The moment a person steps out into a public space it creates a sense of happiness and fulfilment in the virus that it is getting an opportunity to take down another human being and it accepts it with gratitude.

Do not step out even if asymptomatic in public places without using a mask and keeping a constant alert when you see more people around you. COVID19 is unique that it does not recognize the distinct characteristics of a human being like rich/poor, old/young, male/female healthy/unhealthy, ethnicity, culture, race and so on !!

The virus does not need to be kept happy at all any time neither at you or your neighbours expense, keep it starved of happiness 24/7.Technology allows to identify the behaviour of people as seen in the video below only, but maintaining Physical Distancing norms is your responsibility

Your Behaviour feeds the growth of COVID19!!

Three level defence against COVID19.

The most effective personal defence against COVID19 is in three stages as per the various reports and studies on the route of entry of the virus into the human body. Two cardinal points of entry of the virus is through the mouth and nose, therefore it has to be provided the most effective covering as a barrier. A barrier is the only method that can prevent transmission, therefore us masks preferably N95 as it provides the maximum protection from airborne particles (including virus) entering the human body. Covering the mouth and nose should never be taken lightly at all.The second part of the body that needs to be protected is the hand as the hand has the likelihood of touching the face including mouth and hands. Therefore, the use of gloves to protect the hands depending on the tasks being undertaken is recommended. In addition washing of the hands with soap/sanitizer is mandatory every time a touch is made on a potentially contaminated surface is an absolute necessity. Finally maintaining physical distance from others ( at least 6 feet) is required to prevent the virus reaching your immediate space if that person coughs or sneezes.

Follow this three level protection and prevent the entry of the virus into your body.

Three level protection prevents virus entry!

COVID19 - Management of Change.

The Indian Rail network is the largest in the world and runs more than 20,000 passenger trains daily, on both long-distance and suburban routes, from 7,321 stations across India. A complex and extensive system was running quite efficiently along with the inefficiencies that are attributed to the culture. However media reports are coming in about how trains ended up at 100s of kilometres away from the planned destination. The first one which started from the suburbs of Mumbai ended up at Rourkela in Orissa instead of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

There are more such instances. The government declared a lockdown and when train services were resumed the system was not ready for accepting the change in circumstances and resulted in such goof-ups. Management of Change is important for all organisations and systems that have been shut down by the lockdown and started or planning to start.

COVID19 has brought to the centre Management of Change and requires in depth attention for ensuring order as operations restart post lockdown.

Safety happens when Nothing happens.

The traditional method of reporting safety results is - nothing adverse has occurred for a defined period and hence safety is working. A negative is presented as a positive indicator. Question to ponder - Is absence of accidents imply directly the presence of safety! This is a question that many safety practitioners have been grappling with regularly and are constantly looking at a better balance between what went wrong and what prevented something from going wrong.

COVID19 has given enough time to analyse safety at the workplace as post Corona ( it is not going away anytime soon) most operations are slowly getting back with hopefully a new approach , a new thinking , creating a new culture and working with new benchmarks and metrics. Safety practitioners have a critical and powerful role in this new order with the arrival of Corona.

COVID19 - The Battle Ahead

The virus has two battle fronts - the immediate medical care to be provided to the people affected to save their lives and the steps to be taken to rebuild the economy which needs a deeper and wider approach as there is no one size fits all solution to revive a business that has the virus on its jugular. Is the organisation culture

RESILIENT - weathered turbulence in the past

RELIABLE - clients/customers have faith in your brand

RESPONSIVE - agile to respond to market demands

RECONFIGURE - flexible to change to meet the future

The way forward is to review organisation business practices and quickly change, adapt and bring new sustainable practices which will ensure business continuity on a new revenue/expense model base.

COVID19 Change to Stay

Construction industry has large numbers of people employed and their stay on a project is also in cycles of 3 or 4 months. The workforce are generally from an agricultural background with no particular skills except a few who may have gained the necessary skills from earlier assignments.

The introduction of sanitising, social distancing and use of masks into the additional requirements for work has become a challenge for supervisors to enforce, hopefully it becomes a way of life. Social distancing has led to the deployment of fewer hands for the same task - improved productivity. The workmen accommodation/habitats are seeing improvement with less crowding and much cleaner environment, thanks to social distancing norms and increased monitoring.

COVID19 has Changed the DNA in the Construction industry and improved safety practices will be the new norm.

Post lockdown - Restart of Work

The news trickling in from various sources reported in the media is pointing towards allowing work to restart in certain sectors based on the studies, discussions and inputs from various sectors being collated by the government.

A golden opportunity has arisen for the safety practitioners to bring in improved safety practices within the businesses they are employed. Sectors which struggled with enforcing safety like the construction sector will reopen but with more controls in place to fight the spread of COIVID19. Welfare arrangements for the workmen have to be hygienic and a healthy ambience has to be created for work to happen.

All organisations are preparing plans on how to restart work with controls , the government will also issue guidelines for safety post lockdown with COVID19 in pockets of the country. To have better grip on the site safety post lockdown a Responsibility and Accountability Matrix should be prepared based on the size and nature of business and this can be the monitoring tool post lockdown - return to work driver.

Personal Protective Equipment - PPE

The acronym PPE was mostly connected with the construction, manufacturing process industries. Safety practitioners had to use the term multiple times a day as part of their work related activities. COVID19 has made the term PPE, Personal Protective Equipment a household term with every person having to use it at some point.

This will be a plus once work restarts post lockdown when large numbers will be back to work and use of PPE will become mandatory as governments will decide on the level to which controls need to be exercised when work is allowed to resume. The concept of why use a particular PPE becomes easier to communicate too.

COVID19 is changing the outlook on safety and post lockdown safety will be understood from a different angle hopefully, requiring safety practitioners to be ready to take up this challenge.

Asymptomatic transmission of COVID19

The possibility of asymptomatic transmission of the corona virus increases the challenges of COVID19 containment. The magnitude of this impact is dependent upon the extent and duration of contact while a patient is asymptomatic, the social contacts the person carries out without being quarantined.

People with strong immunity due to a variety of reasons, can be carriers without displaying any symptoms. Only on testing they will be identified as COVID19 positive and by that time will have transmitted to many who have low immunity. The only way to eliminate this possibility is to move on from screening to testing. The availability of mobile testing facilities will assist in testing large numbers in thickly populated residential areas. This is not a conventional war, the war against Covid19. The enemy can surreptitiously creep into humans and they need to be ruthlessly dealt with by preemptive/evasive action.

Prevent transmission by breaking the chain

COVID19 and Way of Working

The arrival and spread of the COVID19 virus has changed the way of working across the world and in India the number of people working remote (work from home) has increased in leaps and bounds.

The model of engaging people in the IT related industry was to house people in huge office complexes with some of them housing tens of thousands and with a whole support system for transport, food and facility management. These office complexes was literally a beehive - there was a buzz all around - but today they are silent. All those who were housed in these complexes to carry out the contracts are at home doing the same activity. The pressure of crowds post Covid19 will reduce Digitisation and industry 4.0 is the watchword the past decade and Covid19 is fast tracking digitisation, much faster than expected.

Organizations post Covid19 will reconsider bringing large number of people to one location and put them to work, instead the work from home concept will continue in many places. The costs will come down and the necessity of constructing huge complexes will be reconsidered if work at home and remote working practices increase.

Covid19 will be a marker in history and newer business models which are cost effective will develop, brace up for it.