Step by Step: The Employee’s Experience with Hayday
Picture this: the year is 2019. Your average workday starts with a quick gym workout, a smoothie or green juice to go, and getting to your desk by 9 am. Fast-forward to 2020, and it’s a different kind of reality, and it comes with a vast set of challenges and a daily health screening at work. But routines are important and healthy, so we’ve created a new kind of morning schedule—one that works for our new world and its accompanying considerations. It’s called Hayday and it’s a software solution designed to keep employees and their families safe and healthy. Here’s how it works each day, for each staff member:
The Check In Nudge
Every morning (or whenever management schedules these for), each employee receives a text message and/or email reminder to complete their health screening for work with a link to do so. They’ll be greeted by a welcome screen that is branded to their company, with brand logos and colors. It’s familiar, friendly and easy, but it’s also the starting point for an effective work health assessment.
The Reminders and Announcements
Each company’s HR team—or whoever manages the Check Ins—can customize the announcement screens on a day-to-day basis for their employees’ health screening at work. They may use this space to make company-wide reminders, such as “Open Enrollment for health insurance ends this Friday” or “Happy Birthday, Angela!” or, more appropriate for our times, “extra face masks can be found at reception.” In a way, this part of the Check In process acts as a virtual lobby easel or dry-erase board, with the ability to set the tone for the day ahead, promote company morale, and get everyone on the same page. This screen also has navigation capability so employees can access up-to-date health resources (if the company chooses to include this feature) plus their own Check In history for past days.
Checking In: Location
Once the user reaches the Check In page, they have four default Check In types to choose from: On Site, Remote, Off Work and Out Sick. While these tend to be the most useful, companies can customize these options both generally for the entire business and/or specifically for the employee type (for example, the waitstaff at a restaurant won’t be offered the “Remote” option.) Staff members who regularly move around to different locations of a business, for example, a district manager of a fast-food chain that oversees eight restaurants, can be required to note which location(s) they’ll be working from or visiting that day in their work health assessment.
Checking In: Wellness
The first screen of the official health screening at work experience is where it all gets real. The company can use this space to remind employees how important it is to answer questions honestly, but it then gets to the most important question: Have you tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 14 days? When an employee answers “no,” their screening continues with wellness risk assessment questions, which can be chosen by each company and may include questions about potential exposure to COVID-19, specific symptoms, their body temperature and more, all of which assess the risk level of that employee potentially having COVID-19—but not yet knowing so. Employees who answer “yes” to the first question (“Have you tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 14 days?”), Check In as Out Sick, or report symptoms of COVID-19, are sent to a screen that outlines their designated “cool-down period,” and how they are required to stay home or work from home for a certain amount of time, even if they feel well enough to work. (Each company can determine how long this “cool-down period” must last.) Any employee who reports having COVID-19 cannot come back to work, aka Check In and choose “On Site” for that day until the HR department manually approves them to do so.
Checking In: PPE
Say cheese! Within this section of the Check In, employees might be asked or required to upload a photograph of themselves wearing approved PPE (personal protective equipment), if the company chooses.
Boarding Passes
If and when an employee passes their health screening for work, and they have Checked In to work On Site, their On Site screen is taken over by a boarding pass, which they can be required to flash at a manager, security or receptionist. This boarding pass, which features colors that change daily, indicates that they are approved to enter the office, or worksite, or wherever it is that they work.
HR Feedback and Surveys
Throughout the Check In process, employees might notice fun little asides—anything from memes and gifts to surveys and requests for feedback—that HR or management can integrate throughout. These might be mandatory or optional and can include questions that speak to employee morale, perks and amenities and more.
It’s going to take a while before we can return to the carefree workday morning routines of 2019, but hopefully, once we do, we’ll have integrated some new habits into the beginnings of our days. Habits that force us to check in with ourselves before getting into autopilot.