As we enter Week 11 of physical isolation and working from home, the Crisis Management Team continues to explore the implications for us regarding the South Australian Government’s Roadmap for living with COVID-19.

 I want to begin by saying a big thank you to all staff for the generous and patient way you have responded to the Synod’s approach to caring for our staff and keeping people safe. There have been many challenges for everyone and everyone has done a great job in adjusting to the changes. The Synod continues to promote and resource congregations and presbyteries, and you have enabled this work to continue efficiently and with grace.

A couple of weeks ago Wayne Booth (WHS Coordinator) conducted a survey on behalf of the Crisis Management Team. We had an extremely high response rate, so again thank you. The survey revealed that most staff are managing well working from home. We enjoy, travel time saved, increased family and/or exercise time, familiar surrounds and wearing our ugg boots to work. At the same time we miss the informal conversations in the kitchen, face to face meetings, catching up with colleagues in neighbouring teams, and we are not totally enjoying the rapid increase in the number of meetings or being isolated from family and friends.

Some of you are looking forward to returning to the office as soon as it can be arranged. The survey will help EO’s and managers to map our return to working in the office. Some of you will be interested to talk with your managers about continuing to work from home part of the time.

As with congregations, the government advice for organisations such as ours, who are seeking to return to office based work routines, is predicated on our adherence to the guiding principles of;

• physical distancing (1.5m between people),
• numbers of people gathered is dependent on your ability to have 4 square metres of space for each person,
• strict hygiene practices in place – cleaning before and after activities,
• documenting who is in our building – asking people to sign in and sign out, and
• extreme care and caution around the involvement of vulnerable people.

With these principles in mind, we have developed a plan consistent with the Step 2 guidelines. A copy of the Roadmap is attached below to help you think about how you might participate in conversations with your managers and EO’s.