Welp, we are living through a crazy season of our lives right now, what with COVID-19, social distancing |isolation and a looming financial crisis.

For this workplace investigator, last week was an especially crazy week.  Usually I investigate allegations or complaints related to discrimination, harassment, violence and | or misconduct in the workplace – but guess what the demand was for workplace investigations last week?  

You got it…zero.  

You know why?  Because people were (rightfully) focused on surviving – both literally and figuratively – last week.

Fortunately, I also have 20+ years of experience working in Human Resources, so I was able to support and coach 31 clients though the crisis that was last week.  

These aren’t my regular clients.  These are people who reached out to me because they heard that I was willing to help them in any way that I could.  Most of them are  small businesses who normally don’t have (or need) HR, when the world is spinning on its axis as it normally does.  But last week was anything but “normal”.  

These are small businesses trying to navigate unprecedented and tumultuous times amidst information chaos and while dealing with their own personal stresses.  So many of them were trying to balance the health, wellness and safety of their employees and customers with social responsibility and financial survival  – and it was incredibly stressful.  

These clients were trying to make decisions in the face of very difficult scenarios. For example:

• They had employees returning from overseas travel and needed to make QUICK decisions as to how to implement the mandatory period of isolation (i.e. as paid leave or unpaid leave, and in the absence of clear information, under what potential circumstances an employee could apply for Employment Insurance).

• Some had to move all of their operations to a remote environment and navigate all of the challenges associated with working from home (i.e. ensuring that employees had access to laptops, conferencing solutions, and all or most of their work tools and files.

• They needed help with clearly communicating (without inciting even more fear and panic) the differences between social isolation and social distancing, and why someone who had just returned from international travel couldn’t go to the grocery store to pick up their own groceries.

• One client provides in-home care to seniors and other vulnerable populations, which comes with a host of practical issues to navigate.

• There were clients trying to support employees who was experiencing heightened mental health crises.

• Many clients, who in addition to working from home, now had children to home-school (and no real alternate options for childcare).

• And many clients had to make hard decisions to shutter their doors and temporarily lay off their employees with no real confidence or knowledge as to whether or not their employees would qualify for Employment Insurance.

These are just some of the issues that my clients were facing.  Normally, I’m pretty good at navigating grey, complex situations.  But this was anything but normal so I took a breather, a brisk, fast walk around the block, and gave myself a quick pep talk. Whenever I find myself struggling, I look to my personal values (truth, trust, and kindness) to guide me….and guess what?  It worked.

Here's how I applied these personal values to helping these clients.

Tell the truth.  

My advice to clients was to tell their employees the truth.  Tell them what we knew and what we didn’t, that the situation was changing minute to minute, and that decisions made today could very well change tomorrow.  

• I advised my clients to tell their employees what they could afford to do (to support employees) and what they couldn’t afford to do.  

• I advised my clients to tell their employees that the government was promising financial supports, but that we didn’t have any (or at best, very limited) details about what those supports would entail, how they would access them, if they would be eligible and when they would be able to access the supports. 

• I advised clients who were having to have difficult conversations with their employees about the need to temporarily lay them off to be vulnerable, to demonstrate genuine care and to tell employees that this wasn’t personal (even though it felt so personal), that they still valued them and that if they thought they had any other option, they would make a different choice. 

• I advised clients to tell employees to do the right thing and commit to social distancing protocols so that we could live out our best case scenario – that soon this would all be over, they can reopen their doors and recall employees and get back to life as we know it – all the while not making promises that could not be kept.  

Be someone that people can trust (and respect).  

I firmly believe that trust and respect are the foundations of all good relationships.

• For clients who now had employees working from home (many with small children to take care of), I advised managers to trust their employees to do their best work and make their best efforts in a time where everyone was experiencing challenges and obstacles and trying to establish a new normal. Even if employees are working at 80%,  65% of the time, that might just have to be good enough in these uncertain times.  

• For clients who were having to lay employees off, I advised them to do whatever they could to treat their employees with compassion and to provide as much of a financial cushion (in the form of pay in lieu of notice) as was appropriate, under the circumstances.

• I advised clients to tell their employees what other measures the organization had explored in order to mitigate negative impacts on employees and why these measures weren’t enough or wouldn’t work.  

• I advised clients (even those who had temporarily laid off employees) to check in on their employees – on their mental, physical and emotional health – and check in on them often.  

• I advised clients who had temporarily laid off their workforce to extend benefits and access to the Employee Family Assistance Program, where financially feasible and possible.  

• I advised clients that when we did have clarity on what financial supports were available to employees, and how employees could access these benefits and insurances, that they should communicate as much information to employees as they could  and offer as much support to employees as they could – because in these difficult times, these things make all the difference.

Kindness, compassion and empathy, first.  

I had an organization reach out to me who had made the difficult decision to shutter their doors and temporarily lay off their employee base but wanted to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to permanently lay off employees who were poor performers. I advised them that while I was not suggesting that poor performance wouldn’t have to be dealt with in the future, I asked them whether THIS was the right thing to do RIGHT NOW from a compassionate and humane perspective?  I also asked them if they had considred the potential repercussions. For example:

• Had they considered how other employees would react to their decision to permanently lay off these employees who had families to support and who had limited opportunities for reemployment in the very near future (due to the COVID-19 crisis)?  

• Had they considered how treating employees in this manner would affect how they are perceived as leaders? 

• Had they considered how doing this would impact their ability to attract new employees when things returned to “normal” at some point in the future?

I reminded all my clients that right now is the time to be the best version of yourself – even when it’s the hardest thing you’ve had to do.

On a personal note, one of my friends who works in HR said that I should “be careful about helping these clients who contacted me for help because I likely wouldn’t get paid”…  

My response to her was:  These companies are struggling with REAL problems that impact their employees, families, health, security and survival.  I’m not going to turn people away out of fear of not getting paid.  I believe in extending support, kindness and care to people that I can help when they need it most.  I also believe that even if they can’t pay me, it’s not because they don’t want to.  And I know that through helping people now, I am also building relationships for the future.  These same people will think of me when they need help with workplace investigations. That’s called karma (with a dash of humanity).  

I know that the next two weeks will probably be chaotic as many businesses have to make the hard and heavy decisions, but inevitably, there will be a lull (until this whole situation is resolved) and that’s when I’ll focus on writing content for my business, working on SEO for my website, doing puzzles, working out and binging Netflix.  

But today, I’m needed and I’m going to work my butt off to try to do a bit of good in the world.

March 26, 2020

Saira Gangji is an independent licensed Workplace Investigator at hrology in Calgary, AB.  She investigates allegations of discrimination and human rights, harassment, violence and misconduct in the workplace.  For more information about hrology and our process, see the work with me page.