Protecting our colleagues who are returning to the office

Time can be a challenging construct. Incredibly, it was 12 weeks ago that our entire UK workforce began working from home. Like so many others, we did so at speed and en masse. The UK was one of the first markets at Philips to move its entire workforce online in a matter of days and the rest of our global operation quickly followed.

An entire business quarter has since passed. From our kitchen tables and home offices we have completely re-worked new business processes, training models and source of supplies. Our health systems teams were completely focused on doing everything possible to equip UK healthcare professionals, hospitals and trusts with lifesaving healthcare technologies. And our consumer teams were fully dedicated to helping the tens of millions of people in the UK make home the best possible place it could be during lockdown conditions.

During this quarter, our manufacturing teams have been able to maintain rigorous social distancing without missing a day’s production. Our warehouse and distribution teams maintained full functionality. And our field service engineers have continued to respond to more than 500 calls from hospitals to service and repair lifesaving diagnostic equipment – including the installation of 100 ventilators and patient monitors ordered by the Department of Health.

Now today marks another important milestone. The first wave of our office-based colleagues have the option to return to the workplace.

As a leading health technology company, we have always been dedicated to the wellbeing of our employees. During the Covid-19 crisis, we have taken a preventative, whole person, whole organisation inclusive approach. It is critical that any plans for returning to the workplace must meet these same high standards. In preparation for today, we have worked very carefully to structure a return in a safe and measured way – the safety of our colleagues will always take precedence over any arbitrary date to open office doors.

The reality is that Covid-19 still exists and one of the safest places for our colleagues to be is at home. And although we expect that the majority of our office-based workers will continue to work from their homes for several months, some of our colleagues have very pressing, legitimate needs to return to a physical office space. Some of these needs are business-driven – such as the requirements from small teams to meet face-to-face in order to co-creating new planning processes. Others will have personal drivers for returning to the office, such as employees who are living alone and seeking to add more direct interactions into their daily lives in as safe an environment as possible.

For those who are returning to the workplace, we have worked diligently to ensure that our offices are the safe havens they deserve to be, with the full ability to meet our teams’ working needs. This has been planned in anticipation that some form of social distancing will continue until the end of 2020 and potentially beyond. We have therefore amended the setup of the Philips offices in the UK and Ireland to meet new social distancing guidance and ways of working and to ensure the right levels of distance will be maintained between employees. 

Whether Philips employees choose to work from home or from one of our offices, we will continue the funding of programmes and initiatives that support the wellbeing and development of our employees during this time.

This includes doubling down on our culture of trust and role-modelling, from the top-down, the supportive behaviour our employees deserve when balancing work and home life. No one should feel guilty that they have children at home, or need to take time to get some fresh air and go for a walk. We will continue to support parents and those managing childcare responsibilities through practical guidance, the introduction of two days ‘Emergency Time Off’ and launching a “Children as Co-Workers” learning playlist to providing creative content and activities for children.

During the last 12 weeks, we re-promoted our existing Wellbeing Champions and Wellbeing Mentoring Programmes within Philips, with eight specialists in mental health and resilience who are available to support peers through key moments in life. Philips also created new mental resilience training materials, deployed globally through the Philips University, to help our employees develop strategies for coping during this time. 

We further trained over 200 office and field workers to support their physical and mental health whilst working long-term from their home environment. This interactive program was designed and delivered by our physiotherapist and Health & Wellbeing Manager to educate on the best way to set-up a home workstation and practical tools to boost mental wellbeing. One of the programmes they launched was a ‘Healthy Back’ Classes that focus on prevention of pain and alleviation of postural discomfort through a physiotherapist-led exercise programme.

Working from home was not a barrier to providing tools and training sessions in support of Mental Health Awareness Week which took place this year from May 18-24, 2020. Our focus this year was on kindness, with a Philips Kindness Day where we encouraged colleagues to anonymously send three kind words to one another, which were delivered by our internal Kindness Team. That day, over 522 anonymous messages of kindness were met with resounding thanks, virtual smiles and feelings of appreciation. These acts of kindness are not trivial and go a long way in supporting each other during a time when we are physically apart. Noticeably, the more messages of kindness that were received triggered further messages of kindness to be shared – nearly everyone wanted to pay a form of kindness forward. I think this speaks volumes of the culture at Philips and the values our colleagues hold.

This last business quarter has been truly extraordinary, but it has also brought out the very best qualities in our people and strengthened our own Philips community. I know that this culture of inclusion and ambition to strive for the best will continue whether we are housed in Philips official offices or working from home.