Heading back to the office? Not so fast. Many of Toronto’s largest employers are now keeping employees home until at least January - Toronto Star

With case counts of COVID-19 infections on the rise, employers are pushing back return-to-office plans.

Experts are not only applauding these decisions, but are calling on everyone to exercise caution as the holidays approach.

Patrick Saunders-Hastings, an epidemiologist and director of life sciences at Gevity Consulting Inc., is not surprised companies are delaying their plans. Between the new Omicron variant and upcoming holiday gatherings, he predicts cases will continue to rise into the new year and expects companies will further delay back-to-office plans.

“There’s still a lot of unknowns with regards to Omicron,” said Saunders-Hastings.

The City of Toronto took the plunge on Monday, cancelling plans for almost 9,000 employees to return to offices in early January. Just two weeks earlier, Mayor John Tory had insisted that a large number of city employees could safely return to their workplaces, saying it was time to bring life back to Toronto’s struggling downtown.

The Ontario Public Service echoed the city’s decision the same day. It is asking employees to continue working from home until Feb. 7.

Experts say Omicron is spreading faster than previous strains of COVID-19, and potential travel restrictions are once again being floated as the holidays approach. Some Ontario universities are moving classes online in January.

On Wednesday, the province announced that as of Monday, all Ontarians 18 years and older will be eligible to get their booster shot if they are at least three months out from their second vaccine dose.

Premier Doug Ford announced a “blitz” of mass vaccination clinics and business pop-ups.

And effective Saturday, venues in Ontario with a capacity of 1,000 or more will be capped at 50 per cent capacity.

Grant Humes, executive director of the Toronto Financial District BIA, said in an email that some organizations are re-evaluating their return-to-workplace plans due to Omicron.

Scotiabank is one of the major employers in Toronto delaying its back-to-office plans.

According to spokesperson Clancy Zeifman, Scotiabank is pausing its plans for a “phased and gradual return to office,” and will reassess those plans in 2022.

“We continue to make decisions based on guidance from our medical advisors, available data, and in consultation with government partners. When an eventual return does begin, it will be staggered for different groups with the majority of head office employees working in a hybrid model,” said Zeifman in an email.

CIBC is also pausing its plans to return to in-person work.

At KPMG, employees who had gone back to the office are returning to virtual work effective Thursday, said spokesperson Caroline Van Hasselt.

“We will reassess the situation in January based on direction from public health authorities,” she said in an email.

Insurance giant Sun Life is also putting its plans on hold. This summer, the company started a small, voluntary return-to-office pilot for employees who wanted to go back, said spokesperson Nadine Jahangir Gerrard.

In light of the Omicron variant, Jahangir Gerrard said Sun Life is encouraging all employees, including those participating in the pilot program, to work from home until the end of January.

Colin Furness, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, said businesses that are sending employees back home are doing the right thing.

There’s been a “complete lack of guidance” from governments, he said, and a sense of denial at all levels about what’s coming. Meanwhile, the public is “hemorrhaging trust” in the government, Furness said.

Acknowledging that it would be an unpopular decision, Furness nonetheless believes a brief stay-at-home order combined with a heavy booster shot campaign would be the right move by the provincial government.

Jennifer Reynolds, CEO of Toronto Finance International, said employers in the financial district have delayed their plans out of prudence, but are still hoping to bring people back at some point in the new year.

Reynolds said the eventual return to the office is key for the downtown economy.

“You think about all of those small and medium sized businesses that depend on people going downtown … this is impacting them too,” she said.

Peter Geraci, who owns Mateo Fine Shoes in the Royal Bank Plaza, said it was refreshing to see some regular customers return in the fall, even though business was slow, down by around 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

He and his wife, who have been running the store for 17 years, had started feeling hopeful about January as more companies in the financial district announced plans to bring people back to the office.

But in the past few days, that hope has faded.

“When does it end?” asked Geraci, who has taken on personal debt to keep the business afloat. He feels like businesses in the financial district have been forgotten.

Julie Kwiecinski, Ontario director of provincial affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), said it’s been almost two years of “significantly less foot traffic” for retailers in downtowns across the country.

As more employers decide to play it safe, hints of a return to business restrictions are in the December air. The City of Kingston, for example, has limited gatherings to five people and has reintroduced restrictions on restaurant and bar hours.

Employers who had yet to announce a broad return-to-work plan are continuing widespread remote work.

TD bank is monitoring the situation, with an eventual aim to return to the office when conditions allow, said spokesperson Laura Butcher.

“While we do not have a confirmed date for a wider return, the timing will depend on local conditions, capacity constraints under physical distancing guidelines, and on our collective confidence that risks of the virus, including the impact of variants, continue to be managed,” said Butcher in an email.

Reynolds said some companies will likely start mandating booster shots, on top of their existing vaccine policies announced earlier in 2021.

“If that’s what’s required to be safely protected from the virus, then I certainly could see that happening,” she said.

In the longer term, Saunders-Hastings said companies with vaccine mandates will likely add a booster shot to their policies, once it’s available to everyone.

Furness doesn’t think companies will have a choice in the matter.

“They’re going to have to,” he said.

Furness is also concerned that the talk of Omicron’s milder symptoms is creating a false sense of security. We are still learning about the potentially disastrous long-term effects of COVID-19, he said.

“You’ve got to not go to big gatherings, you’ve got to avoid restaurants and stadiums and Christmas parties,” he said.

With files from David Rider, Tonda MacCharles and The Canadian Press

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Heading back to the office? Not so fast. Many of Toronto’s largest employers are now keeping employees home until at least January - Toronto Star
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