Ômicron makes Google delay returning to the office and frustrates other companies’ plans

Corporate executives are beginning to evaluate different models of permanent work for their employees, as the coronavirus pandemic and the spread of the omicron variant destabilize their latest plans to return to the offices.

With omicron so new, companies struggle to understand how the variant could affect their operations and profits. Most have taken a wait-and-see stance while assessing the speed at which the variant could spread and its potential harm, though Alphabet’s Google is indefinitely postponing its plan to return to offices around the world.

Jim Montesano, director of personnel at Lixil, a luxury bathroom maker, told the Reuters Next conference this week that the company has deviated from the rigid Japanese work structure, scrapping fixed work hours and morning meetings and rethinking what it should be like. desk.

“It’s not the place to work anymore…anywhere you can work is where you work,” Montesano said during a group discussion about the future of work. “What we want is to reinvent the office.”

Countries acted quickly this week to impose bans or tougher rules on travel testing after the omicron variant was discovered in southern Africa.

“We could almost compare it to a war situation,” Philip Morris CEO Jazek Olczak told Reuters at the conference. “Everyone pretends things are normalizing, but they aren’t. We’ve all changed.”

Dr. Neal Mills, medical director of benefits consulting firm Aon, said his team has been meeting with clients all week to discuss possible alternatives.

“They are recognizing that they will need to review a lot of decisions already made. If this changes the effectiveness of treatments, what level of risk is the organization willing to tolerate by bringing employees back in January?” he told Reuters.

The WHO (World Health Organization) said that as more countries report new cases, the new variant of Covid-19 carries a “very high” global risk of outbreaks. Scientists said it could take weeks to understand its seriousness, although early indications are that most cases are mild.

The prospect of a fast-spreading variant has raised fears of a return to restrictions like those that closed a number of industries in 2020.

“Companies at this point have created schedules for people to go back to the office, and then put them off so many times that what I’m hearing is that they’re looking to not commit until it’s certain,” said Jeff Levin-Scherz, managing director of the firm. Towers Watson benefits consultancy.

More than half of US employers (57%) surveyed by Willis Towers Watson require or intend to require vaccination of employees, according to a survey released on Tuesday (30) but that was conducted before the discovery of the omicron.

In addition, the survey found that just over a third of employees were working remotely — and that number was expected to drop to 27% in the first quarter of 2022.

Wall Street banks, for example, are not immediately modifying their return-to-work plans, but, like many industries, they are closely monitoring the situation. Global airlines are bracing themselves for the possibility of being forced to change the entire schedule.

“We are in what could be called slow-forward mode, but a number of concerns could surface at any time, and we need to adapt our schedules accordingly,” Emirates Airline President Tim Clark told the Reuters conference.

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said the company learned during the pandemic.

“Each successive lockdown wave has had less of an impact on our business,” he said this week at the Redburn CEO conference. “That adaptability and flexibility makes us feel better.”

Companies not limbo

Meanwhile, companies operating in the United States are being squeezed between the government of President Joe Biden, which has pressured companies to demand vaccination, and the courts.

On Tuesday, two courts blocked the government from imposing orders requiring millions of American workers to be vaccinated against Covid.

Biden unveiled regulations in September to increase the US adult vaccination rate as a means of combating the pandemic, which has killed more than 750,000 Americans and damaged the economy.

The more comprehensive regulation, a vaccinate or test order for companies with at least 100 employees, was temporarily blocked by a federal appeals court in early November.

The orders had been seen as providing cover for companies to demand that workers get vaccinated, and the court ruling leaves them in limbo as they pressure workers to return to the workplace.

Of course, for some companies the office is still the preferred location.

“Almost two-thirds of my customers are men who buy jewelry for their girlfriends, women, grandparents or daughters. And we know men who buy jewelry need help,” said Alexander Lacik, CEO of Pandora jewelry, at the Reuters conference.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves