WELLINGTON NORTH – Staff at Wellington North will continue to work from home for the time being.
At the Sept. 28 meeting, council discussed a report regarding the township’s work-from-home policy.
The municipality has been closed to the public since mid-March when the COVID-19 pandemic began and many staff have been working from home.
“I’m in favour of what’s going on now, where we don’t have a full complement of staff in the offices and I think this is a great report to support them,” said councillor Steve McCabe.
“But how long do you think that’s going to go on if you had to have some sort of a guess?”
CAO Mike Givens said that prior to the rise in COVID-19 cases in Ontario at the end of September, he had planned to bring all Wellington North staff back to the office on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (Oct. 13).
“It sounds like case numbers won’t peak for the second wave until the end of October … I think we’ll keep our provisions in place to try to limit contact as much as possible,” Givens said.
“Keep restrictions in place as it relates to the number of people in the office.”
He said contact with township employees would continue to be limited to appointments.
“Obviously things happen quickly,” Givens said.
“We’ve done a good job I think from a staff perspective keeping everyone informed and trying to keep everything in mind as it relates to the medical officer of health and the recommendations that we are addressing as quickly as we can.
“It’s a long-winded answer, but I would say it would have been different a week ago than it is tonight and that’s just the nature of where we are in the world right now that we’ve got to make quick decisions based on the information at hand.”
Councillor Dan Yake asked if the township would consider a permanent work-from-home strategy once the pandemic is over.
“I think we’ve learned as an organization, because of what we’ve gone through, that it is something that can happen with certain positions,” Givens said.
“Obviously there are certain positions that it’s not a viable option.
“But yeah, I think from an organizational standpoint we think that long-term work-from-home arrangements can work and will need to be part of what we look at from an organizational standpoint going forward.”
Mayor Andy Lennox thanked staff for being “flexible” and working well during these “challenging times.”
“We should all be very proud of the team,” he said.
