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As the novel Coronavirus COVID-19 spreads across parts of Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the US, companies are quickly implementing remote work policies.

Major companies like Apple, Nestlé, Microsoft, Hitachi, and Chevron are asking workers to work remotely or are restricting all non-essential business travel as a precautionary measure against the rapidly-spreading disease.

Twitter announced it had joined the charge and changed its earlier guidance of “strongly encouraging work from home” to all 5,000 employees globally “must work from home.”

The CDC is recommending “that employers establish ‘nonpunitive’ policies, encouraging employees who are sick or exhibiting symptoms to stay at home,” per The New York Times.

If you do work an occupation that’s compatible with telecommuting but are unfamiliar with how to do it, here are some strategies to ease your transition to the home-office life.

Keep a regular schedule. Structure your day like you would in the office. To stay on schedule, segment what you’ll do and when over the day.

Choose a dedicated workspace. Twitter is offering reimbursement towards all home office set up expenses. For the best productivity, designate a room or surface in your home to work.

Get out of the house. Some days your home office might not be working for you. Coffee shops, libraries, or any WiFi-enabled public space can help stimulate the energy of an office.

Set-up remote meetings. Just because you’re not all sitting around a conference table doesn’t mean you still can’t set up and have productive meetings. Create and circulate an agenda ahead of the meeting and use video conferencing to connect.

Stay connected. Make sure you stay engaged and productive. Communicate frequently on the usual channels, e.g., Slack, email, phone, etc. but it also means communicating even more than usual about your projects and progress.

The ability to work from home has morphed into a highly valued perk and looks to continue to grow in popularity regardless of the Coronavirus pandemic. GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com data shows that regular work-at-home, among the non-self-employed population, has grown by 173% since 2005, 11% faster than the rest of the workforce. Telecommuting in the US has seen a 115% increase in the past decade.

Don’t have remote work policies in place? Contact our HR experts to help craft an airtight policy for your business.

Nurses represent the largest single group of medical professionals. They are always on the frontline of patient care, which naturally gives this segment of the medical community a tremendous impact on patient experience as well as health outcomes. It is impossible to understate the important role that nurses play in healthcare.

Not surprisingly, nurses are in high demand not only for the vital role they play in patient care but there’s not enough of them. Employment as registered nurses are forecasted to rise by 12% from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the overall average for all jobs.

A recent study by HR consulting firm Mercer found that the U.S. needs to hire 2.3 million new health care workers by 2025 to aid the country’s aging population. In addition to Baby Boomers’ higher demand for health care services as they live longer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics cites an increased emphasis on preventive care and growing rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and obesity as core reasons that are fueling the nursing industry’s growth.

The Top Paying States

Using occupational data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, we’ve analyzed and compiled a round-up of the average salary of a registered nurse in each U.S. state for 2019.

1. California: $106, 950
2. Hawaii: $98, 080
3. Massachusetts: $92, 140
4. Oregon: $91, 080
5.  Alaska: $89,310
6.  Nevada: $85,620
7.  New York: $85,610
8.  New Jersey: $82,750
9.  Washington: $82,670
10. Connecticut: $81,220

New York City reports the highest wages for RNs ($79,463), according to PayScale. According to the BLS, California holds all 10 of the top-paying metropolitan areas. Still, RNs can find lucrative positions across the country, with Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Oregon among the top-paying states for RNs.

Nursing salaries grow with experience, as well. PayScale reports an almost $20,000 gain in pay from entry-level jobs to late-career nurses. Some of the skills employers seek include telemetry, critical care, intensive care unit, and labor and delivery. Acute care and emergency room skills may also boost registered nurse salaries.

Contact INNOVA People today for our healthcare opportunities in these top-paying states.

Recently, Microsoft Japan experimented with a four-day workweek. While the concept was widely popular with employees, the results may come as a surprise to anyone who buys into the idea that more time at work is the best way to boost productivity. 

Last August, Microsoft Japan carried out a project called the “Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019”. For one month, the tech giant implemented a three-day weekend every week, giving 2,300 employees every Friday off during the month with no reduction in salary and no days taken out of their annual leave. Further, The Mainichi reported that Microsoft Japan also announced that they planned to subsidize employees’ education, or even a family vacation, up to ¥100,000.

“Work a short time, rest well, and learn a lot. It’s necessary to have an environment that allows you to feel your purpose in life and make a greater impact at work,” said Microsoft Japan president and CEO Takuya Hirano. “I want employees to think about and experience how they can achieve the same results, with 20 percent less working time.” 

The new workweek model challenged employees and managers to find ways to get more done in less time. Meetings were shortened, cut, or conducted remotely so to eliminate the commute. As reported by the Asian news site, SorelNews24, the trial resulted in an incredible 40 percent increase in productivity.  

Employees didn’t feel as much need to take time off during the trial, which helped improve productivity rates. Microsoft Japan’s workforce took 25 percent less time off than they did before the four-day workweek experiment began. 

Other welcomed changes, employees printed almost 60 percent fewer pages and used 23 percent less electricity in the office since it was empty an extra day. Changes that not only saved Microsoft Japan money but are a welcomed benefit for the environment. 

It may seem obvious; it’s also worth noting that 91 percent of employees said they liked the four-day workweek at the end of the trial. Microsoft Japan reportedly plans to repeat its 4-day work week experiment next summer, and possibly expand it to other times as well.

Other businesses apparently have found their results compelling enough to give it a try. In the U.S., Shake Shack started testing the idea a year and a half ago. The burger chain shortened managers’ workweeks to four days at some stores and found that recruitment spiked, especially among women.

Shake Shack’s president, Tara Comonte, told NPR the staff loved the perk: “Being able to take their kids to school a day a week, or one day less of having to pay for daycare, for example.”

The company recently expanded its trial to a third of its 164 U.S. stores.

AI will have the greatest impact on healthcare organizations in 2020 and beyond according to a recent Accenture survey. The consulting giant polled healthcare executives on trends they see on the rise and more than two-fifths (41%) of respondents ranked AI as the top emerging technology.

 

“In 2019, there was a fundamental shift in how AI is understood,” Dr. Kaveh Safavi, senior managing director, head of global health practice at Accenture told Healthcare IT News. “People started to realize that AI is best used when augmenting the work of humans, rather than substituting them. This will have a tremendous impact on how AI is utilized in 2020, and I see it becoming a self-running engine for growth across healthcare, helping clinicians make better decisions and extending their reach.”

 

For now, healthcare AI is being implemented mainly in operational areas, which is less likely to cause anxiety among patients and clinicians and may help to mitigate the typical disappointment cycle often experienced during the adoption of innovative technologies. AI technology could support the labor shortage, rising healthcare costs, and the evolution of patient care.

 

According to Accenture analysis, when combined with key clinical health AI applications, AI has the potential to create $150 billion in annual savings for the U.S. healthcare economy by 2026. 

 

So, “Why aren’t even more AI projects underway?” The answer: People skills. People skills matter most to AI success, and insufficient skills within the health organization workforce represent nearly two-thirds (63%) and insufficiently skilled workforce as the number one obstacle to their implementation according to the survey.  

 

Any new technology is expected to experience an early shortage of skills. This shortage is exacerbated by the fact that AI does not require just AI skills themselves. A successful AI project demands training, data organization, data cleansing, explainable AI (so that decisions are transparent), and requires business, data, analytics, and AI experts. It’s not simply a question of writing requirements and creating the code.

 

Dr. Safavi expects to see growth in the DARQ – distributed ledger (blockchain), AI, extended reality and quantum computing. These technologies together will become the foundation for the digital healthcare future, he predicts. 

 

“According to Accenture research, 89% of businesses already are experimenting with one or more DARQ technologies, expecting them to be key differentiators,” he noted. “Each technology is at a different point on the adoption curve, but the first wave of companies using DARQ technologies to drive differentiation is already here. Next, we will need to grapple with each of these technologies becoming more and more complex and learning how to adopt them into the healthcare system.”

 

Contact us for our open healthcare/IT positions. 

Trust is essential when building a healthy and productive work environment. Whether you’re leading an entire department or work hand in hand with a just a few coworkers, it’s important to build trusting relationships.

Here are several tips to help build trust with both your coworkers and your superiors:

• Be honest and share information completely. Be straightforward and honest with everyone and expect the same in return.

• Be open to the ideas of others. Don’t dismiss an idea simply because it doesn’t align with what you had in mind. Take everyone’s feedback into consideration before making a final decision and let others be heard.

• Stand up for what you believe in. If you feel strongly about an issue, make sure you voice your opinion–but be sure you can share some evidence to support your view.

• Follow through on commitments. The easiest way to lose someone’s trust and confidence is to let them down. Make sure you meet your commitments and don’t set deadlines you can’t meet.

• Learn from your mistakes. Mistakes will happen, and when they do, own up to them. Taking responsibility and developing a process to ensure the same mistake isn’t repeated is a great way to build trust.

At INNOVA People, we take great pride in helping people. If you’re looking for a great new opportunity, please contact us today.