Dive Brief:
- Hazardous conditions including storms, public disruptions, security issues and infrastructure failures have caused 74% of U.S. workers to avoid going to work, with 32% of employees saying disruptions caused workplace shutdowns or pauses, according to new data from Envoy.
- Of 1,000 workers surveyed, 56% said their workplace itself was unsafe and 53% said their commute was the primary risk vector. Three out of four (75%) employees said that disruptive events impacted their ability to work.
- When precarious situations existed, 54% of workers said they heard about the disruptions through either news outlets or social media. Meanwhile, 39% said they found out via word of mouth and about the same percentage (40%) said they heard about the problems from official employer/HR communication channels.
Dive Insight:
The data relied on responses collected in July from adults employed at physical locations, and the report found that many workers felt they were navigating these disruptions and hazardous conditions without employer support.
More than half of workers (54%) said they avoided work due to severe weather such as blizzards, heavy rain and extreme heat or cold. Others cited factors including transportation disruption (19%), infrastructure failure (16%) and crime (14%).
Among the workers who wanted more help from their employers when dealing with disruptions, 23% said they wanted “faster, clearer communication” before the crisis, while 18% said companies should provide more decisive closure decisions. Another 16% said companies should offer remote work flexibility when conditions are hazardous, and 15% said that companies needed to pair safety protocols with financial responsibility.
The report suggested that companies take accountability for these situations by making their communications about disruptive events “proactive, not reactive,” and connect “presence data to incident response.”
Making workplaces safer isn’t just an ethical consideration but a financial one. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recently estimated that workplace violence costs approximately $121 billion annually.
