The coronavirus pandemic has changed the order of society in more ways than one- including how we work. The office culture we once knew is dead. While a majority of employees are still working from home, the lifting of restrictions in some states in a bid to save the economy, have made more and more people gearing up to return to the office.
For the places that start reopening soon or this year, many changes will have to take place like reducing capacity, increasing sanitation, closing off common areas, and even rotating which employees come in on each day. Companies will need to revise their work culture in order to minimize the risk of disease transmission and to keep people safe at the workplace if working from home is not an option for their employees.
One of the forefront concerns of resuming work during the COVID-19 pandemic can be the open offices, co-working or shared spaces that are not separated by walls or cubicles. Such open-concept offices have become standard for many companies, but unfortunately these spaces are not infection control-friendly, rather can be “hotbed of infection”. Working in these situations, for long periods, sharing common spaces and even desks, between different employees would turn the social distancing rule redundant.
So, what do we need to consider as we take those first tentative steps back into the office?
Increase levels of sanitation
To begin with the most obvious, yet one of the most necessary precautions to take- wash your hands often, especially after handling shared items like coffee pots or phones. Washing your hands is the most important thing you can do to protect yourself from coronavirus and other illnesses in an office.
Avoiding sharing items like coffee pots, fax machines, phones, as well as door handles, elevator buttons, and light switches if possible. These areas can harbor a host of disease-causing germs.
Wipe down shared surfaces and sanitize the items before and after each use. Workplaces should also ensure that any shared spaces, bathrooms and other common areas are cleaned throughout the day, not just before and after hours.
Make it your responsibility to keep a hand sanitizer with you to disinfect your hands in between soap-and-water washes.
Avoid physical contact
If you usually come in contact a lot with other people, limit your physical contact with them like hugs and handshakes. Companies have already established this rule of encouraging employees to abstain from handshakes and hugs while in the office in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
Staying in close proximity to people is one way to catch coronavirus. Maintain safe of distance of 6ft even at work, as you do in other public places.
Find a secluded spot
If you don’t have a private office, and work in a more open/shared space, try finding more secluded spot to work, like a phone booth cubicle or corner desk that may keep as far as possible from your co-workers.
Avoiding gatherings of more than five people that aren’t essential to business or work at hand.
Find new ways to communicate and hold meetings
If you can’t work remotely, and have to be in the office premises, employees should adopt the rules of the new normal, including finding alternatives to meetings held in enclosed spaces.
The best way out would be to just hold conducting meetings or conferences or any close physical communication with people until there’s a solid solution found. However, if that’s not possible, the safest way to hold meetings and communicate- even in an office- is to keep using video calls, messaging and phone calls. A meeting in the outdoor, with required social distance can also work, that would also help with more air ventilation.
Continue wearing a mask
Wearing a face mask is not just limited to outdoor spaces, public parks, grocery stores- they equally extend to the workplace as well. You should wear a face mask or covering when you are in an enclosed space.
Encourage your colleagues to practice the same.
Work remotely, stay at home if you’re sick
This is a no brainer, if your work allows you to work from home, stay at home. Companies and organizations should actively encourage working from home, especially for sick employees. They should only allow healthy individuals to be present in office. If you’re sick yourself, do not come into work under any circumstances in order to best protect yourself and other working staff.
It should also be noted, that in such an unprecedented crisis of global scale, employees feel comfortable speaking up when they are sick or think they have been exposed. Employees need to know that it’s OK to stay home.
To combat the spread of the virus, employers need to have an open dialogue with their employees about the virus, it’s potential impact on the organization and what employees can do to protect themselves.
Other safety measures that every re-opening office should take into consideration and implement include temperature checks at the main or multiple entrances of the office, placing hand sanitizers are different accessible spots around the office, and avoiding the use of air conditioning and have better ventilation.
