The aftermath of the pandemic could divide your workforce post WFH: Everyone has experienced the pandemic differently and this divergence in experiences could possibly lead to “organizational resentment” and the development of an “us vs them” mentality in offices going forward, Pilita Clark writes for The Financial Times. People who have lost a loved one, gotten sick, lost a business, or otherwise felt the awful effects of the pandemic in their personal lives might feel some resentment from other employees who have not felt the pain the virus inflicted on many. Many workplaces already saw this kind of resentment emerge in past attempts to return to face-to-face work, and HR experts are braced for a repeat of frayed tempers and angry words.

The disparity in vaccine acceptance could only make things worse: Workplace vaccine discrimination is already becoming a talking point, with law firm Seyfarth Shaw writing that, “a dividing line is being created between employees who are vaccinated and those who are not.” Employers are currently contemplating whether they can return to physical work with only employees who have been vaccinated, or whether they should prioritize the return to work of vaccinated employees over their counterparts. Offices are also signaling that they could look to only allow vaccinated employees perform job duties in which they interact with the public, visit customer sites or travel. This could build more resentment as vaccination status leads to a gap in job positions.

What can you do as an employee? Empathy and flexibility will make all the difference as thousands of workers are being thrown back together for the first time in months, often without a clue of what each has been through. Asking colleagues how their experience of covid-19 has been, rather than assuming everyone’s experience conforms to your own, can go a long way to diffusing tensions.

As for firms…. Rule #1 Don’t be like Bezos: When Amazon found itself reeling to cope with spiking demand during the holiday season, it offered a USD 3k sign-on bonus for new workers, reported Bloomberg. This coincided with last year’s Thanksgiving where existing Amazon employees, who had been working through the worst of the pandemic, were given coupons for USD 15 to buy a Turkey for the holiday. Old employees began to resent the new workers and the firm that had doled them the “ultimate insult in compensation,” explained Fred Whittlesey, a compensation expert and former Amazon employee. This also came as then-Amazon head Jeff Bezos was nearing a net wealth of USD 200 bn, adding salt to the employees wounds.

The moral of the story: Firms should make sure they don’t exacerbate existing resentments by creating further disparities in job descriptions, compensation, and responsibility, while providing fair incentives for both vaccinated and unvaccinated employees alike, and explaining the rationale behind them.