In the simpler days prior to 2020, offices were heaving with staff members going about their daily business. It’s almost unimaginable now, as the vast majority of office workers have been working from home for months thanks to COVID-19.
Eventually, though, the world will start to open back up, and you should make sure your office is ready for a return to normality. How can you do this? Here are some measures for you to take to ensure that the transition back to office life will be as seamless – and as safe – as possible.
Consult the Guidelines
A crucial step to take before opening your office back to workers is to check the relevant guidelines and follow them to the letter. This should entail carefully reviewing the suggested measures and implementing as many of them as possible to ensure a safe return to work, whether this means getting rid of your hot-desking system or improving office ventilation. As well as ensuring that your staff is safe, this will also reassure your employees that their health and safety is paramount.
Be Understanding and Consider a Staggered Return to Work
These are strange times, and people are likely to have anxieties and concerns about returning to a crowded office space. Consider setting time aside before you open up the office to have one-on-one conversations with each staff member to gauge how they are feeling about the prospect of returning to office life. If any of your employees live with vulnerable people, why not allow them to carry on working from home until they feel safe to come in?
You may also want to consider a staggered return to work. Set a return schedule to avoid the entire staff returning on the same day at the same time. You could bring the senior management team back first, or bring specific teams back each week. This will allow your employees time to re-adjust to office life at a more comfortable pace.
You could also implement flexible working hours, with different start times, end times, and break times for different people. This will help you avoid any busy periods of arrival and departure from the office building, thereby reducing person-to-person contact.
Have Your Office Professionally Cleaned
Another key step to take to ensure the safety and reassurance of your staff is to have the entire office space professionally deep cleaned. Office desktops are thought to be home to 400 times more germs than a toilet seat, and with germs, viruses, and bacteria now at the forefront of everyone’s minds, addressing this issue is a must.
There is a huge number of professional cleaning teams available to take on this job, such as those at best-clean-direct.co.uk. Professional cleaners can be brought in at a time to suit you, with minimum disruption to the workday.
Informing your employees that you have hired a team of professional cleaners to disinfect the whole office will also bring peace of mind, allowing their return to the office to be as stress-free as possible.
Follow these recommendations to ease your employees’ return to the office and reduce the risks associated with crowded or unclean workspaces.
