Returning to the office after COVID-19

It's important to carry out a thorough risk assessment of your workplace, this will likely cover these five key areas.

• Develop cleaning, handwashing and hygiene procedures in line with Government guidance
• Encourage and help staff to work from home
• Take all reasonable steps to maintain a 2m distance in the workplace
• Where people cannot be 2m apart, do everything practical to manage transmission risk
• Share the results with your staff

These are the people who will undertake the assessment, interpret Government guidelines and develop your own unique policy for bringing staff back to the office. Be sure to involve:

• Human resources
• Operations and facilities teams
• Your executive board/team
• Your office manager

It's important to involve your staff in their return-to-work planning. This will help you understand what they expect, what works for them, and especially foster a sense of community in when you re-open your office after COVID-19. This will help develop a robust office strategy.

• Send all of your staff a survey
• Hold virtual focus groups, or online interviews
• Ask about their expectations
• Appetite for virtual or home working
• Any concerns or anxieties

You're going to have to think carefully about how adapting your office for the new COVID-19 way of working will impact different spaces.

• Assess your floor plans and workspaces in their current form
• Establish the capacity of all your office workspaces based on 2 metre space restrictions
• Set standards for your reception and welcome areas
• Ensure consistency across the different spaces in your office

We strongly advise that you limit the number of meetings being held on-site and still try and have virtual meetings where possible. However, there are some instances whereby visitors will still be required to visit your office. Commonly, these will be short-term, high-frequency visitors like delivery personnel.

• Establish conventions regarding external visitors / contractors
• Establish procedures for accepting deliveries
• Revise visitor arrangements to ensure social distancing
• Let staff know of procedures for personal deliveries

This will be staff and guest's first experience of your post-COVID-19 workplace policy. Be sure to get all of the basics right here, as it will influence the rest of their visit to your office. It's especially important to think about all the different types of visitors and ways they may access your office.

• Establish need for additional parking or bike rack facilities to account for reduced use of public transport
• Review storage space for employees' clothes and bags
• What entrance or exists can be closed?
• Set standards for one-way traffic flows
• Set standards for lift lobbies, lift usage and/or escalators

Once people are in your office, it's important to ensure they're still following safe distancing practice while moving around your office. With all of these, make sure you consider fire and building regulations.

• Establish circulation paths to control movement flows
• Set standards for common walkways
• Identify high-risk bottlenecks and address these (such as access doors and security-pass points)
• Identify high-frequency walkways
• Re-assess your floor plans
• Identify where one-way movement flows can be introduced

Establish capacity of desk spaces

This is where staff will most likely spend most of their time while in your office.

• Establish capacity limits for desk spaces
• Replace desk space to allow 2m distance between workstations
• Re-purpose hot desks
• Plan deks booking system for all workstations
• Consider shared utilities/items and if they are necessary

Set standards for meeting/conference rooms:

• Small: Less than 8 capacity
• Large: More than 8 capacity

Set standards for booth/pod areas:

• Establish etiquette rules to avoid selfish behaviours in private spaces
• Determine where repurposing can be achieved

Set standards for relaxation areas:

• Establish etiquette rules
• Assess size and density capacity of all common areas and establish resulting guidelines around:
  
  • Washrooms
  • Single
  • Disabled
  • Group
  • Breakout areas
  • Restaurant/cafés/tea points
  • Shared phone rooms
  • Security hubs
  • Kitchens

Speciality areas

• Libraries
• Multi-faith/prayer rooms
• IT support space/help desks
• Storage areas/coat cupboards/shower rooms
• Fitness areas
• Printer rooms
• Photocopier areas
• Rubbish and recycling areas
• Mail rooms
• Maintenance rooms
• Storage spaces
• Filing areas
• Locker spaces
• Stairwells
• Exits
• Vending areas
• Smoking areas

Set standards for shared equipment/services:

• Rubbish and recycling
• Internal mail
• External mail
• Whiteboards
• Conference room controls
• AV/TV controls
• Window blind controls
• A/C controls

• Start times during the day
• Days of the week
• Week on / week off

Ensure rotated teams simulate your typical work environment

• Once they are established, avoid changes so that where contact is unavoidable, this happens between the same people
• Stagger and lengthen lunch and break times to avoid overloading of shared spaces

• Establish which areas present high/medium and low risks for transmission of the COVID-19 virus and subsequently review the cleaning strategy for each area
• Review standards and procedures for reception and welcome areas
• Review standards and procedures for common walkways, lobbies and lifts
• Review standards and procedures for desk areas
• Review standards and procedures for conference rooms
• Review standards and procedures for booth areas
• Review standards and procedures for relaxation areas

Address reviewed requirements with cleaning company.

Washrooms

• Single
• Disabled
• Group

Breakout areas

• Restaurant/cafés/tea points
• Shared phone rooms
• Security hubs
• Kitchens

Speciality areas

• Libraries
• Multi-faith/prayer rooms
• IT support space/help desks

Storage areas/coat cupboards/shower rooms

• Fitness areas
• Printer rooms
• Photocopier areas

Rubbish and recycling areas

• Mail rooms
• Maintenance rooms
• Storage spaces
• Filing areas
• Locker spaces
• Stairwells
• Exits
• Vending areas
• Smoking areas
• Company vehicles

• Whiteboards
• Conference room controls
• AV/TV controls
• Window blind controls
• A/C controls

Select your “Back-to-the-Office" change champions.

These will ideally be people who train, communicate and are points of contact providing procedural clarity, and:

1. Have influence over others;
2. Are senior enough to make decisions;
3. Know your business inside-out; and
4. Are great communicators.

It's important to phrase your return to work communications so that they stand out from normal, 'business as usual' messages. Establishing channels for colleagues to openly ask questions or voice concerns will be crucial in ensuring everyone feels engaged in this change journey.

It's important your teams know when they should come into the office and when they should continue to work from home. For most roles, in the immediate future, staff should continue to work from home unless they have a critical reason for commuting into the office.

• Face to face meetings
• Technology or facilities unavailable from home

This is still the preferred way for office-based workers to continue to work. If they can work from home, then they are encouraged to do so.

• Follows government advice
• Reduces contact with others
• Work/life balance
• Culturally acceptable
• Reduced office capacity

It's important to get your message out there as wide as possible. Not all of your employees may have regular access to each communication channel, and some may understand different mediums better than others. That's why it's important to diversity your approach.

• Email
• Intranet
• Posters
• Conference calls
• Videos
• Infographics
• Stickers

It's important to reinforce your messaging throughout your office. After all, this is a new process for everyone, so plenty of gentle reminders may be required.

• Circulation path markers
• Handwashing and sanitising instructions
• Distancing and protocol reminders
• Cleaning and disinfecting guidelines
• Room capacity reminders
• Guidelines on sending/receiving post and packages (internal and external)

You may still be hosting guests in your office space, and it's important that they are provided with the same guidelines as your normal office-based staff.

• Entry point signage to communicate how procedures are being implemented
• Documents for external personnel on your protocol for receiving inbound deliveries

It's crucial to keep in touch with all of your office and home-based staff, regardless of if they have 'returned to work' yet. This ensures everyone is on the same journey together and no-one feels left behind.

• Regular updates
• Open feedback channels
• Health and support contacts

This is going to be the first encounter many staff and potential visitors will have of your office's new COVID-19 policy. It's important to set the correct tone and from the outset. Here's how you can adapt your reception space for COVID-19.

• Provide hand santiser
• Develop clear and concise signage for:
  • Entry and exit route
  • High-usage areas and corridor
  • Person limits in smaller spaces

• Install plexiglass screens at reception or areas where visitors frequently visit or check-in
• Remove or cordon off seating to promote a two-metre distance
• Remove magazines and other items guests could touch while waiting at reception

This is the area of your office that staff spend most of their time and are going to be most familiar with. It will be strange at first, but this is also where the most COVID-19 adjustments are going to take place as you scale back your office's capacity.

This will be one area where 'muscle memory' will kick-in for your employees, so you need to ensure they don't revert back to 'normal' habits.

• Reduce the number of desks based on your space plan
• Ensure any occupied workstations are two meters apart
• Place stickers or notices on workstations that aren't to be used
• Consider plexi-glass screens around each workstation
• Have sanitiser and cleaning equipment readily available
• Re-orientate parallel furniture (such as sofas) so they aren't facing each other
• Stickers with reminders of distancing policy and capacity limits.

Most of your meeting rooms will need capacity adjustments to comply with social distancing rules and adequate signage to help staff company.

• Reduce meeting room capacity so there is one person per 4 square meters
• Remove excess chairs and evenly spread out remaining chairs
• Remove shared or communal items, such as pens
• Provide cleaning materials and sanitiser
• Consider posters or stickers to remind teams of social distancing and sanitation
• Ensure rooms are cleaned thoroughly after each meeting has taken place

These are usually small and more confined spaces, often with fabric that could easily hold on to germs for longer than other surfaces.

• Repurpose two-seater pods or high-backed sofas to single-use only
• Ensure your booking policy around these areas is clear and communicated
• Have cleaning materials and sanitiser available
• Ensure the space is cleaned thoroughly after each use

Used for downtime, lunchtime and often casual meetings, these spaces are going to be heavily impacted.

• Ensure furniture is only available for the correct capacity limits
• Discourage people from dwelling longer than needed
• Remove communal fresh fruit
• Remove communal utensils
• Remove excess furniture that doesn't comply with your capacity limits or distancing rules
• Provide signage about who should use the space, and when they can enter
• Provide cleaning materials and sanitiser

These are spaces that most people in your office will use on their way to other areas, so it's important to ensure they don't become crowded. However, since they are high-usage, they're great places to remind staff and visitors of your policies.

• Implement one-way corridors where possible
• Use floor markers to remind staff of social distancing
• Mark out 'waiting' areas in stairwells to avoid bottlenecks in narrow spaces
• Check compliance with building and fire regulations

Just like washing our hands for 30 seconds, regular and thorough cleaning of your office space is crucial to reducing the spread of the virus.

• Review when normal cleans are undertaken
• Focus cleaning on areas and spaces that are regularly in-use
• Establish a protocol for when a deep clean is required
• Develop signs/posters to reinforce DIY cleaning and the use of sanitiser

If you are cleaning after a known or suspected case of COVID-19 then you should refer to the specific HM Government guidance

• Constantly review your back to work plan

Via Back-to-the-Office Change Champions:

• Survey to gauge staff feelings
• Observation studies to see how capacity is fulfilled