How to prepare your office for work in the time of COVID-19?
We’re all going to have to get back to work sooner or later. With the right precautions of course. What exactly are those?
Here’s a guide to get started with based on our own, researched internal policy.
Should you disinfect your office every week or month? How will you guide your customers, partners and employees as to how to follow best practices? Here are some basic highlights so visit our website for the full version including a ready made checklist and a suggested employee manual which you can use for free. Try to come up with innovative ideas to make the best of things—for example, Presidio now offers customers virtual site visits using Zoom or Skype which has also resulted in better opportunities to better serve our customers abroad.
Corona virus and its challenging impacts on businesses are here to linger for long. Shutting down businesses until a vaccine is found is not an optimal option and it would kill your ambition and idea. In the face of the crisis everyone will benefit much by exhibiting resilient ability to adapt, creating a new normal.
This means taking the right precautions. But what exactly does that mean? Should you disinfect the office every day? Weekly? Monthly? How about masks? Should you require employees and customers to wear them all the time? In general, what are the most critical changes you should apply to get your business back to work in the time of Corona? Here are key steps to implement.
Keep Symptomatic People at Home
- Allow employees to stay at home if they are experiencing common and severe COVID-19 symptoms such as dry cough, high fever, unusual tiredness, difficulty breathing and chest pain.
- Encourage staff to stay at home if their family members or someone, they have been in contact with started showing COVID-19 symptoms.
- Encourage employees to seek treatment as soon as they start showing common and severe COVID-19 illness symptoms.
- Make sure there is a medical clearance by health care providers allowing the employee to return to work from office.
- Review your human resource policies to make sure that internal procedures allow paid leave for sick employees as per the legal requirements.
Implement Physical Distancing
- Reduce the number of employees at the workplace by implementing flexible work from home through email, phone and video conference arrangements and shifts.
- Serve your customers remotely via email and phone. Inform them about your new way of delivering service.
- If your business can not be done virtually inform your clients to pre-schedule a visit to receive a service.
- Place desks two meters apart and encourage staff to avoid gathering during lunch breaks and meetings.
- Ensure fresh air constantly flows into and out of work spaces.
Apply Mandatory Infection Prevention Methods
- Provide multiple washable fabric masks to employees.
- Make wearing masks at office and other places as mandatory protective gear.
- Offer employees and customers branded face mask to double its benefit by promoting your business.
- Use visible posters in local language to constantly remind staff to wash their hands, wear masks and keep physical distance.
Employee Guidelines and Reinforcement
- Prepare enteral guidelines to equip employees with hygiene keeping skills to protect themselves and others from infection.
- Provide clear briefing on the guide reinforcing it with posters and regular verbal reminders.
- Encourage employees to share safety tips with their families.
Elevate Standard Operating Systems
- Devise a carpooling scheme to help employees avoid mass transit.
- Boost your employee’s mental well being by encouraging optimistic and positive views to minimize chronic stress and fear caused by the pandemic.
- Reduce the number of paperwork and encourage virtual filing when possible.
- Cross-train employees so the workplace can operate even if key employees are absent.
- Regularly clean office spaces in the morning and at the end of the day.
- Disinfect desks and shared materials such as office phones and desktops using 70% or more alcohol content antiseptic.
- Encourage employees to wash office cups and dishes after using them.
Until this public health emergency abates being more aware of risk mitigating systems will allow businesses to transcend the health and economic crises caused by the pandemic.