WEBVTT - One Hurdle in Getting People Back to Work: The Commute 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.080 It's Wednesday a I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.720 podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update. 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:11.200 We're making our way to getting back to work, but 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.360 one big hurdle is the commute. For many that rely 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.680 on public transportation, this still poses a big problem for 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.639 companies and employees. Wary of being in close contact with 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.479 many people, Some companies are considering alternatives to mass transit, 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.520 like private bus shuttles or smaller office space closer to 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.280 where many workers live. Chip Cutter, reporter for the Wall 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.080 Street Journal, joins us for the commute back to work. 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.320 Thanks for joining us, Chip, thanks for having me. We're 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.440 all in this conversation now about getting back to work, 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.960 reopening economies. There's already some states that have done it. 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.680 Some of the larger states, let's say, like New York 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.440 was kind of this epicenter of coronavirus COVID nineteen in 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.640 the country, still have yet to formulate those plans. You know, 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.920 the road back is a lot harder for them. But 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.480 one of those biggest hurdles to bringing people back to 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.880 work might be the commute. How do people get to work, 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.720 especially in these big cities, that have these kind of 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.959 density problems where everybody is packed in so tight. A 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.160 lot of people rely on public transportation, and a lot 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.319 of people are going to be very fearful for getting 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.920 in a packed subway car or a pack train car, 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.080 whatever the case may be, because people could be sick. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.400 A lot of people probably maybe not want to wear 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.280 their face mask things like that. So that's a big 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.200 problem that companies are facing, and they're formulating plans on 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:29.920 how to get around this. So let us know a 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.600 little bit more about this chip. That's exactly right. You 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.600 think of the biggest financial capitals in the world, places 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.680 like New York and London and Tokyo, all very much 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.040 dependent on public transit, and companies are realizing that they 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.200 can make lots of plans to sanitize workstations, to distance 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.440 people properly in the office. What they have no control over, though, 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.200 is how people get to the office that commute itself, 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.080 and so that's proving to be incredibly problematic, and companies 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.480 are having to think through, really, what do we do 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.880 from the moment that our employees leave their front doors 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.720 to try to get to work. How do we think 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.640 through some possible solutions here Obviously, some of these are 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.720 bigger companies because they have the capital and resources for 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.280 these things. But some companies are thinking that things such 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.720 as company car allowances, private bus services and shuttles, or 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.800 even if they have to leasing smaller office space in 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.760 locations closer to where some workers live. All of those 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.320 are on the table now. I talked with one organization 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:25.720 that was kind of ahead of this, and that's New 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.760 York Presbyterian Hospital, a large private health care system in 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.519 New York. What New York Presbyterian did was start about 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.720 thirty bus routes. They looked, they did a zip code 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.720 analysis to see where their workers were based in the 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.400 New York region, and then set up all these private 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.320 coach bus routes and so only about the capacity was 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.520 used so they could space people apart. They had a 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.440 cleaner who boarded the bus after every trip. That gave 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.680 them the ability to get these essential medical workers to 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.520 the hospital without them having to go on trains or 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.000 public buses. And so I think we might see more 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.000 solutions like that, more companies looking to people like Google 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.200 and Facebook, companies that have done this for a long 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.400 time now. So all of these are on the table. 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.040 You also see some companies thinking about bringing the company 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:11.360 car back. Others are offering mopet sharing services or bike 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.399 sharing services at a discount for employees, trying to find 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.399 ways to get people to the office if they don't 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.240 feel comfortable getting on public transit, and even the flip 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.000 side something that we're doing right now working from home, 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.360 Some are willing to embrace just doing that a lot longer, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.839 just to avoid having either the expense of this or 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.839 just the overall worry for their employees to get sick. 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.000 They might just say, hey, let's just keep this work 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:35.880 at home thing going. You know. I know there's a 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.520 lot of companies that realize how well they could do this, 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.760 mostly at a necessity, but it has been pretty successful 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.120 in a lot of different companies. I've been talking to 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.880 HR executives at all sorts of different companies over the 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.440 past couple of weeks, and they all say, this idea 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.480 that we can somehow restrict people from working remotely is 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.120 really over now. Our employees have proven that they're able 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.160 to do it. So it's gonna be tough for companies 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.560 to really say you can't do your work at home. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.680 That said, a lot of companies do eventually want to 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.640 get people back to offices. Still, they see value in 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.720 the camaraderie and the ideas that are generated by having 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.160 folks in the same place. And there are also very 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.680 real issues that we're all facing at home, whether that 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.640 child care issues or just a lack of space. Working 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.960 from home isn't always that easy, So I think companies 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.760 do want to offer that choice to people, even if 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.320 only initially say of an office might come back. You know, 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:27.680 the commute obviously is one of the very first things. 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.080 How do you even get to work? Once we get 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.400 back inside the workplace, Companies are also thinking about that. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:35.680 How do you manage the flow? One of the things 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.479 you noted in your article one way hallways could be 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.440 a thing. That's right. Companies are looking at the floor 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.719 plans of their spaces and saying, Okay, this halloway needs 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.240 to be this direction, this stairwell should only go up 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.680 or down, very similar to what we've seen in grocery 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.520 stores across the country. And so some of those approaches 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:54.920 that I think will make their way into offices. But 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.640 this is really a challenge for a number of HR 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.080 executives or for companies trying to figure out how how 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.039 do we do this safely, How do we bring people 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.480 back to the office putting in all of these changes 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.039 that will make it possible to do work while also 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.600 still keeping people far enough apart from each other. Yeah, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.200 it's constantly been a very interesting thing looking forward. And 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.120 you know, we look at places like Japan. Culturally they 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.760 wear the masks all the time, the face mask, and 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:20.840 it just really seems like this is going to be 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.360 a change that everybody's going to have to make. Right 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.719 now in our company here, they're already telling us we 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:27.800 have to wear face masks, and nobody's here. There's a 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.080 skeleton crew of people here. But once people really come back, 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.920 that might be a new normal for a lot of companies. 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.640 I think you're right, And you're already seeing some government 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.160 officials across the US call for this. I think about 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.760 the governor of Ohio and other states have said if 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.799 you're working in an office, you should be wearing a mask, 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:45.799 and I think that is going to become the Norman 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.320 a lot of companies, many HR executives I spoke with, 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.800 said that they are looking to those local officials though, 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:52.760 to kind of give guidance on what that should be. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:54.599 But I think it is. It's I think it's becoming 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:56.480 part of our reality, and I think people are more 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.880 and more comfortable with that. A lot of planning, a 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.919 lot of preparing before all this has to be implemented, 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.080 but it's kind of our new reality that we got 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.359 to get through. And as we mentioned these hurdles of 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.919 getting to work the commute, there is the first big 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.480 challenge that these big companies need to figure out. Chip Cutter, 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:14.480 reporter at the Wall Street Journal, Thank you very much 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:20.160 for joining us. Great thanks for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez, 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.840 and this has been your daily coronavirus update. You don't 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.360 forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.880 me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.640 So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:31.520 get your podcasts.