Helping You During the Coronavirus Pandemic
We are all facing extraordinary times and are responding to keep people safe from COVID-19. Unfortunately, social distancing can lead to customer distancing and employee distancing. Companies, non-profits, government agencies and universities (to name a few) are engaging the people they serve and are responding to their feedback to quickly adapt their organizations to meet the challenge.
At Alchemer, we have built new tools to support our customers. Alchemer is providing free templates to our customers that help them stay connected to their employees and to assess health risk factors when people are ready to return to work. While we are excited to help customers with our COVID-19 solutions, we are truly inspired by our customers and the powerful actions they are taking with Alchemer to positively impact the pandemic.
The Return-to-Work Solution
Safely and Effectively Organize the Reopening of Your Offices
As an HR leader, you are now being asked to plan and organize for the safe return to work for employees. Reopening of offices means that you need to create productive and healthy work environments, while reassuring employees that there will be a defined process for maintaining safety. The Alchemer Return-to-Work Solution provides Human Resources with repeatable, trackable, and easy-to-use processes for employees to follow when returning to the office. These processes will make employees feel safer, because there’s a set routine in place to formally manage workplace safety.
Key Features:
• Daily Return-to-Work Assessment for employees and on-site visitors, including email confirmation verifying approved access into the office to help people know when they should stay home.
• Temperature recording at reception for approved on-site employees and visitors to help everybody feel safe.
• Daily and cumulative reports for tracking who was in the office on what date.
• Desk Reservation workflow, including email confirmations and reporting to help maintain social distancing.
• Visitor and Contractor Request workflow with pre-configured approval process and email notifications to maintain a safe workplace.
• Safeguarded GDPR and CCPA compliant data through Alchemer to mitigate risk.
The Alchemer Return-to-Work Solution includes pre-configured end-to-end workflows for desk reservations and check-in, return-to-work assessments, and on-site requests for visitors or contractors. To learn more call 1-800-609-6480, or email your account manager or sales today.
The Employee Connection Pulse
Keeping a pulse on your workforce, with most everyone working remotely, is no easy task. To help you with a quick check-in, Alchemer created the Employee Connection Pulse. In ten quick questions, you can see how people feel about management, their teams, and their work. It takes employees about five minutes to complete the survey, and we recommend sending it out every two weeks.
The Employee Connection Pulse is free to those with a paid Alchemer subscription. You will find the template in Survey Templates, in the Employee Category.
The Return to Work Assessment
When it’s time for people to return to work, employers will take on a huge responsibility. In many cases, you will need to check on people daily. Anybody showing symptoms needs to stay home, and the same is true for those who are most at risk to contract COVID-19. This five-question survey can be completed in a minute each morning before leaving for work. At the end of the assessment, the employee receives a message telling them whether they can return to the office or should continue to work from home. Managers and Human Resources receive a consolidated report that summarizes and details where employees will be each day.
The assessment comes complete with symptom criteria from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for US customers, the Public Health Agency of Canada for Canadian customers, and the World Health Organization (WHO) for those on the European Union servers. It includes links to the latest COVID-19 information on the appropriate public health websites.*
Again, with Alchemer, there is no additional cost for collecting responses, which makes this assessment completely free for all of your people to take each morning. As with the Employee Connection Pulse, this survey is free for those with a Alchemer subscription. You will find the template in Survey Templates, in the Employee Category.
We are Inspired by our Customers
Our customers continue to inspire us with their missions and their creativity in using Alchemer to meet those missions. Here are some amazing ways that our customers are using Alchemer to fight against COVID-19.
Healthcare
The medical industry has been extremely impacted by this pandemic. Not only are hospitals overloaded, but medical staffs and first responders are being pushed to the limits. Many Alchemer customers are helping the Healthcare industry understand the impact the Coronavirus is having on people and resources.
One customer is using Alchemer to perform mental health checks on their first responders and front-line workers. Depending on the results, the Human Resources (HR) department is notified and they can put the respondents in touch with mental health professionals or to offer time off where needed.
A customer reached out to us for some help in creating a diagnostic and screening survey. Answers to each question are processed through complex logic to arrive at one of four outcomes, depending on their risk of infection.
A major hospital is using Alchemer for a multi-year survey assessing the hospital staff’s mental health as they deal with the pandemic.
A recruiting firm is using Alchemer to identify nurses who would be willing to return to the front lines of the pandemic.
One pharmaceutical company used Alchemer to better understand the pros and cons of using Hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 cases.
A large medical practice uses Alchemer to have patients register for telemedicine services. The registration is automatically forwarded to the scheduling team who contacts patients for medical history and to schedule appointments.
Another customer is using Alchemer as a platform for feedback on healthcare providers; making sure that patients continue to receive the best care during the pandemic.
Social Impact
The global, cultural, and social impact of the pandemic could last for decades. People are changing the way they work, shop, and entertain themselves. Several Alchemer customers are looking at how the Coronavirus is impacting their lives.
One customer is using Alchemer to track the impact of COVID-19 on the food supply. The survey looks at the agricultural input supply, as well as food prices for the region. They are also studying the potential implications of global trade policies on the country’s rice supply.
Another customer looked at how the global pandemic is shaping the sentiment, behavior, and outlook of Australians. They found that Australians believe leaders need to be strong, confident, and open right now while people feel anxious and uncertain about the future.
Another group is running projects to explore which changes in the COVID-19 situation would elicit changes in people’s comfort with returning to public places. The survey explores what efforts by governments, businesses, changes in available treatments, vaccines, testing, and spread would alter people’s levels of confidence.
Several customers are conducting research to look at the social and behavioral changes people are adopting due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of these surveys are being conducted weeks apart to check for changes in beliefs and behaviors. Most are studying the effects of working from home and other new habits during the isolation period.
One firm surveys people on their investments during the pandemic. The survey asks about their specific demographic, investments, estimates on how long the virus will last, and which industries the investors think it will affect.
A major European university is using Alchemer to assess possible fiscal stimulus responses to the pandemic.
Another researcher is studying people’s grocery shopping habits during the pandemic. They found that the different parts of the United States have very different shopping tendencies. In the Northeast, people are spending more on food, while the Midwest is spending about the same that they did before the pandemic. The South feels safer shopping in stores than the rest of the country.
It will be fascinating to see how these sentiments and trends change over time.
Education
The combination of schools closing and parents working from home has created interesting and challenging changes in people’s habits and behaviors. One firm is surveying students and the effect the pandemic is having on their schooling and life.
Another firm is surveying daycare facilities about caring for the children of first responders and critical care personnel.
The Department of Education for a major metropolitan area is engaging employees to see what they need, how well they are working from home, and how to support them during this crisis.
Human Resources and Staffing
Working from home has changed the dynamics of the office. Those who cannot work from home need to follow social-distancing policies closely to work safely. Many Alchemer customers are helping people and companies better understand what is needed and what is missing in the work environment as we try to flatten the curve.
One customer runs a benchmark survey for state and county governments across the United States. These surveys allow state and county government IT organizations to perform a self-audit of their systems and accomplishments in updating and maintaining their infrastructure. They can then compare strategies with other states to get ideas for improvements and capabilities by reviewing the benchmark report. This year the client is introducing questions regarding readiness for working from home, systems to enable remote work, and other questions specific to the effect of COVID-19. They are also utilizing the Section Navigator Action in Alchemer to allow these organizations to distribute portions of the overall survey to different departments to collaborate on a complete response.
Another team is using Alchemer and working with one of the US’s largest federal government departments to track project changes and keep timelines on track now that all employees are remote.
A Canadian company used Alchemer to determine the root cause of poor video and sound quality on teleconferences. The survey included a link and instructions to test the speed of connection to determine who might need support. They are looking at ways to embed the speed test into the survey.
Customers are also using Alchemer to check employees for COVID-19 symptoms. In one example, the employer sends notices to the employee’s supervisor when employees are affected. In another, a manufacturing company needs employees on site. As people come to work, their temperature is taken and logged. If employees have a fever, the results are immediately reported to HR.
More to Come
We are inspired by these amazing stories. While the Coronavirus pandemic has brought these stories forward, Alchemer customers have positively impacted their organizations with our software for years. We will update this page regularly to include new solutions and new innovative ways people are making a real difference with Alchemer.
If you are using Alchemer to fight the impacts from the pandemic, or to help people in need, we would love to share your stories too. Please email [email protected] to share your story.
*The Return to Work Assessment template has been provided by Alchemer in response to customer requests. This template does not replace any public policy decisions or remote working decisions that you as an employer must take to comply with any federal laws or local ordinances.