Seeing the Pandemic through the Eyes of Employees

This year has been a really tough one, starting with a lot of universal issues, but the main one is the Pandemic Covid19, causing a lot of problems; among of which is the attachment of employees to their workplace during this harsh period. Covid-19 is impacting all of our daily routines, our life style our habits, studies and the way of working; this pandemic will also affect the population and its status, and as the covid-19 crisis evolves, companies and their collaborators will have to adapt each decision taken by the authorities to limit the spread of the virus and ported the population.

How did Covid-19 impact the workers all around the world?

Coronavirus has impacted millions of employees around the world in a very significant way causing many issues such as the increase of unemployment and job losses. In this direction, some workers showed more flexibility and started working from home, others decided to keep the work as it is, while few already lost their jobs. Workers are not only worried about their financial and physical problems, but they are also concerned about their psychological wellbeing during this crisis. Penalized by this spread of the novel Coronavirus, more and more Moroccan companies are resorting to partial unemployment for their employees, they are stuck at home, with no work and no payment, others are obliged to opt for the Telework that has been implemented lately, but the worse is about the other category which their companies still refuse to resort to partial unemployment, favoring other measures such as encouraging employees the taking of leaves without pay, or part- time work, and the most serious were the employees exposed to the dismissal.

The current situation is not an easy one, and particularly critical either for small businesses that have been hit hard by the pandemic and the workers in informal employment that is estimated at almost 80% of the work force they are undeclared or precarious, lacking social protection, they fear not the Coronavirus, but how they will survive emergency measures that have cut off their livelihoods. So, with this crisis going on, Morocco, among any other countries, is forced to embrace the remote working. Many employees have to do their jobs from their homes now, as it may sound nice to stay at home not working about having to wake up early in the morning, workers from some sectors cannot do their jobs unless they go out.

As we all see that the sector of education managed to continue giving lessons from home, teachers trough many platforms like zoom, Microsoft…kept the courses going on, as well as some companies business and financial operations are done and discussed by virtual meetings, accounting offices are also starting to work from home. There’s a big chance that Covid 19 may change human resources trend permanently as employees are becoming more familiar with remote working.

So, what is it like for employees who are unable to execute their tasks with Telework?

How can the government protect those people?

In respond to this situation and in order to face and reduce the rate of people in need during this critical period, the Moroccan government has set up a number of facilities to help. The government has founded a charity fund, also known as, Corona fund, in which all the Moroccans are able, in a voluntary way, to donate to face this pandemic and help people in need; these donations will be deductible from the tax result as a reward from the general directorate of tax. The CNSS has also helped to facilitate the task of remuneration of employees who have temporarily stopped their jobs due to the pandemic, by creating a portal dedicated to them, so as to declare their temporary work stopping, in a specific deadline and with smooth procedures.

As this situation will not be permanent, it may take time, but everything will slowly get to the process of reviving their previous position, be it any business or corporation. Employees or company owners have to keep in mind that they have to take this chance to work with more dedication, spend time researching and studying about the further scopes and skills improvement. Finally, this is a message to managers and directors to make sure to get out of the normal box and do something extraordinary for their employees; for example, they should organize online teambuilding activities, send them a gift packages, and if possible organize individual video calls with employees to check and see if they’re handling the situation.

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