The road to re-opening your office after COVID-19 will start with thoroughly assessing your office with capacity limits in mind, and understanding how you can adapt your space to welcome staff back.

Engage with your staff from day one, as their input into developing these procedures will ensure trust and increase adoption. This will also help teams re-connect with the buisness after working apart for the past few months.

All business-related activities must follow HM Government guidelines and this document should be read in conjunction with those as they are updated.

Where social distancing guidelines cannot be followed in full, you should consider whether that activity is business-critical.

Your workplace COVID risk assessment

  • 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

Your assessment and planning team

  • 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

Talk to your staff and begin your research

  • 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

Begin assessing your workplace

  • 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

Visitor policies

  • 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

Entering your office

  • 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

How people move around your office

  • 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

Your desk and workstation areas

  • 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

1.5 DEFINE STAFFING LEVELS

  • Plan for the minimum number of people needed on site to operate safely and effectively

  • Establish a rota system based on workspace assessment and protocols

  • Assess IT requirements to fulfil rotating teams and continued home working

Plan to stagger teams by rotation:

  • 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

1.6 ASSESS CLEANING REQUIREMENTS

  • 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

Review standards and procedures for common areas:

  • 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

Review standards for shared equipment/services:

  • Whiteboards

  • Conference room controls

  • AV/TV controls

  • Window blind controls

  • A/C controls

  • Address reviewed requirements with cleaning company