Returning to the office
I am curious how people are handling their efforts to "open" and return to the office? How many staff you have and how does that figure in to your considerations?
Comments
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Our region in PA goes to yellow on Friday. This classification still recommends telecommuting where possible. Currently planning to keep things as they are for now. We only have 3 employees. I (E.D.) work from home. The Administrative Assistant works in the office. The Office assistant is able to work from home on assigned projects. So it has worked for us so far.
Haven't chatted with my board chair since the official announcement last Friday late afternoon, but we were planning for the board meeting on 5/21 to be Zoom. I've got some plans that need to be developed before we go open, so I'm not in any hurry.
Bettie Stammerjohn
Community Foundation of Greene County PA
Bettie Stammerjohn
Executive Director
Community Foundation of Greene County, Pennsylvania
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Hi Celeste,
We have 5 people in our office, with our own offices/spaces. I've been working from home since mid-March, our ED just returned to the office last week, and the rest have been in and out of the office this whole time. I plan to continue to work from home until the end of May. I'm not as concerned about returning to the office as I am about resuming travel, which is typically a big part of my job. I imagine it will be a while before I'm on the road again.
Kara L. Geiger
Development Director
North Dakota Community Foundation
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Thanks @KaraGeiger We are 4 people, and mostly working from home, with some time as necessary at the office. None of us travel much, since we are only county specific. Currently, we are thinking we'll go back June 1, but that date keeps changing based on local, state and federal recommendations, so we'll see.
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We are in Houston. We work in a 20-story office building.
Because our our office is only 2 people, we returned to office on May 3 to a ghost-town of a building. People are still pretty scarce around here... my parking garage row that normally has 40 or so cars has had about 6, 10 on a busy day. Until schools started back, this 20-story building was running less than 200 people.
But THANKFULLY, because there are so few people, I have felt VERY safe.
🙂
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Our office is 24 people. We just learned today that we are continuing to work from home until Jan. 19.
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I am confident that if we had more than just the two of us, we would all be working remotely.
I confess I have fluctuated between wishing I were home and grateful for not being confined.
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We found out last Thursday that we will continue to work remotely until August 2, 2021! We work out of our corporate office and when we do go in, we have to request permission and it is really creepy to be in there with just 2-3 others.
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@JulieWright Wow, that's a long way out, but I think it's great you have a date to go on. Yes, it may change, but knowing in advance allows you to plan accordingly. Have you found that helpful?
Kara Adams, M.Ed., CAE (she/her/hers)|Community Manager|kara.adams@foundant.com
Headquartered: Bozeman, MT| Remote Location: Chicago, IL | Direct: 312-802-1374 |www.foundant.com|
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WOW! August 2021! That's a long time!
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We have a staff of eight with two locations. One location is a satellite office with one staff member and the other location is our main office. The main office has 7 staff members with three staff members that go in everyday. And the other four alternate between three days virtual and two days at the office. Not sure as of when that will change.
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When we do go in to the office, we are limited to 10 people at any one time. We have a scheduling app to secure a spot. Because I work for a health care system, we also have to go online and fill out a health questionnaire within four hours of showing up in person,
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We have eight staff with the majority of us still working from home every day. A few on the team are rotating days going into the office but our policy is to only have two people working from there at the same time to allow for adequate social distancing. If anyone else needs to go in on an unscheduled day, they have to get approval from their supervisor and our VP of Operations. We just found out last week that the projected date for us to return is July 1, 2021 which is the start of our next fiscal year.
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I administer a grant program for the wholly-owned insurance company of a national health care system. Our leadership recently announced we will work remotely until July 1, 2021, which is the start of our fiscal year.
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We fund and provide support for pre-k classrooms and have 201 employees. We worked remotely for 6 weeks and then set policy for working from our normal offices. Because we support teachers and childcare providers we didn't feel we could ask them to do something we were not willing to do. Our employees go into schools and daycares to coach infant and toddler teachers so we've set very strict policies about how they do their jobs during the pandemic. We've been lucky and have had very few positive cases. We self-quarantine at the first sign or report of exposure and no one is allowed to work outside their home if they have any symptoms or even are not feeling well. We reduce the amount of time spent one on one and require masks and distancing and conduct virtual meetings whenever possible if a group is needed to collaborate on a project or for training. I'm in Alabama and work for a state agency so I do have the challenge of making sure we stay within guidelines set by our State Personnel Department too :)
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We never closed the office. One of the five of us worked from home April and May, and resigned at the beginning of July. The rest of us have been here for the long-haul. Our May board meeting was held as a conference call, and we were going to do a Zoom meeting last week, but the board pushed back and we held it in person, socially distanced, at a local venue.
Question to you... have you noticed that it is taking longer to hear back from grantees than it did when this started in the Spring? I have, and I haven't figured out why just yet.
Heidi
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We're a team of 20 and have all been working from home since March. With that being said, our office has been accessible and most of the senior leadership team have been going into the office frequently. I've popped in once or twice to collect printer paper, mail letters, switch out laptop batteries, etc.
Every time the senior leadership team talk about a return-to-the-office plan, COVID cases in Austin, TX, seem to get worse, so I don't think it's realistic that we'll all be returning to the office anytime soon. Personally, I am happy to work from home as I have converted the spare bedroom into my own workspace - two monitors, office chair, standing desk.
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