For the past few weeks, companies around the world have had to make major adjustments to normal operations to keep customers and staff safe and healthy. The global public health crisis caused by coronavirus has forced desk workers to work from home, and led to an ever-expanding list of policy changes to protect the well-being of workers on the front lines.
With constant changes to schedules and policies, and an increased risk posed by deviating from health and safety best practices, communicating with frontline employees has never been more important. Beekeeper has responded by offering a Crisis-Ready Kit (which offers extended free access to the platform, 48-hour roll-out, and a detailed Crisis Communication Checklist) to help organizations communicate with staff during the crisis. Now we’re adding a free suite of new health and safety features to help all companies ensure frontline employees are safe and connected.
As a company providing communication solutions for frontline workers during this unprecedented crisis event, we’ve had the opportunity to witness the inspiring efforts of operations and communication teams across non-desk industries. We’ve seen activity on our platform increase almost threefold across Hospitality, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Construction, Logistics, Retail, and Energy.
Companies are also getting a lot more deliberate about how they’re communicating with their frontline teams during the coronavirus crisis. We’ve heard from customers about how they’re using their digital workplace to keep employees safe, healthy, and up-to-date on the latest best-practices guidelines from public health agencies.
“We’ve seen companies really pulling together to provide quality care and service, and to keep their teams safe. It’s been inspiring to see how companies have responded to this crisis and we want to do our part to help them communicate and operate as effectively as possible in these difficult times. Together with our customers, we identified the key capabilities for companies to reach every single employee and give them the information and tools to address their needs in a single, pre-configured package,” says Beekeeper’s Chief Product Officer, Kees de Vos.
With our customers in mind, we’re offering an additional set of tools for free to help teams communicate during this crisis.
In addition to the Crisis-Ready Kit, users will now be able to access Beekeeper’s Shift Schedules communication tool, a mobile-first Document Library, Inline Translations, health-related Forms to help employees report symptoms or request sick leave, and FAQ chatbots to help employees get information about COVID-19 and best practices for health and safety. These tools will be available for free to anyone using Beekeeper for two months. The offer ends May 31st.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen teams struggling with rapidly changing schedules as stores and healthcare facilities have dealt with surges in customers and patients. We’ve seen hotels working hard to provide resources, support, and updates to employees who are temporarily furloughed. Manufacturers have needed to adjust scheduling structures to reduce on-site staff numbers. We’ve also noticed an increased need for access to documents going over updated policies, guidelines, or instructions. There’s been confusion around how to communicate if you have symptoms that seem consistent with coronavirus, or where to find information about how the disease is spread and how to protect yourself at work.
With procedures changing quickly as we learn more about how to keep staff safe, Beekeeper’s mobile-first tools can create consistency and efficiency. Policies or schedules may change daily, but frontline staff can always find the most recent version in the same place on their mobile device with Beekeeper’s Shift Schedules and Documents.
Employees can get all the facts to prevent infection from a conversational COVID-19 chatbot, and easily request personal protective equipment via a mobile-friendly form in the app. With Beekeeper’s new Symptom Alert form, frontline workers don’t need to think twice about who to alert when they think they might have COVID-19 symptoms—they just need to submit a form and the people who need to know will be alerted. In the event that a staff member does get sick, they can also request sick leave from the Beekeeper mobile app.
This is a difficult time for virtually every industry, and frontline workers in particular are facing new and unique challenges. With compassion, planning, and clear communication, we know that companies can pull together to come out stronger and more equipped to handle crises.
If your team is already using Beekeeper and you’d like access to these tools, contact support@beekeeper.io or get in touch with your Customer Success Manager. If your team isn’t using Beekeeper but you’d like to learn more, you can request a demo and we’ll get back to you shortly.
