As an entrepreneur, you need to be certain that you are taking proper care of your customers, staff and stock. Achieving this can sometimes seem hard to do, but fortunately there is always a way to make it work. The truth is that getting to a place of real office safety is mostly about making lots of little changes – in practical, real-world terms, but also in relation to how you approach the topic of safety psychologically, and what your attitude is. In this post, we are going to have a look at some of the wisest moves you can make towards implenting office safety especially for returning after Covid.
Strategies for better office safety
Access control
Something that always ensures a greater degree of office safety for everyone is to have absolute access control. This simply means that you are entirely in control of whoever comes and goes to and from the building. Clearly, there are many office safety advantages to this approach, but the question is how do you actually go about making it happen? One of the best ways is to ensure that you have proper security doors on every entrance and exit for the building. You might also want to think about hiring an outsourced security team who can monitor who comes and goes. And having ID passes for all staff will ensure that nobody enters the building who shouldn’t be there. With the access under complete control, everyone will be safer.
Training & retraining
One of the most essential aspects in office safety is ensuring that all members of staff know exactly what to do in case of an emergency. You never know what is going to happen, but what you can do is make sure that everyone knows what to do when the worst does occur. The first thing here is to make sure that everyone is as well trained as possible in office safety – something which should be taken care of as they start working for the company. But you should also be on the lookout for those who could probably do with a little more retraining, and provide it as soon as possible wherever this is necessary. Stay on top of this, and emergencies will be much less of a worrying thing.
Limiting staff
It might sound strange at first, but one of the best things you can do for office safety is to limit the amount of people you actually have working for you. Many new entrepreneurs get excited and end up hiring too many people to begin with than they really need. This is something of a mistake, as it only means that you will end up having more trouble with many different aspects of health and safety. Have just as many employees as you need to carry out the work day to day, and stop there. It really does make all the difference.
Office safety after covid
1. When do companies return to the office?
If your company is faced with the question of when to return to the office, here are some things to keep in mind:
- First, make sure you have a “re-exit” plan . Employees need to be sure that you have a plan in place in the event that coronavirus infections occur. Determine what the plan’s triggers and responses will be.
- Plan the security measures in the office . Depending on the policies, equipment, and technology that are in place to keep people safe in the office, you may need more time and money to prepare, which will affect your return date.
- Make employees feel safe . It is not enough to just lay down security measures; employees actually need to feel safe. Be transparent and specific with your plans so that employees understand the measures and perceive them to be safe. Offer training on specific security measures if required.
- Wait until your employees are ready . If employees are unwilling or unable to return to their jobs, you shouldn’t force them to do so. Conduct employee surveys to assess the mood and well-being of employees about their return (see “Employee Survey Software” below in the article).
Once you’ve set a reopening date, you need to address the question of which workers will be returning and which will have the option to stay at home.
2. Who will come back first?
Break the return down into segments. Some organizations have already formally segmented their employees based on their roles, activities, and skills. Add insights from recent remote work experiences to these segments to determine which segments were able to adapt quickly and stay productive from home. Then you can plan your return accordingly.
However, it is very important to be flexible with regard to the needs of the employees. For example, some workers are immunocompromised. Others look after older parents or relatives. Then there is one major disruptive factor that every working parent struggles with right now: school.
In addition to giving employees the option of whether or not they want to return, you should also give options on how they will return. This is how companies can:
- Allow your employees to come at night so they can look after children or parents during the day.
- Define groups that come to the office on different days. Group A comes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Group B on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- Give employees more flexibility and the ability to work remotely. 70% of employees who work remotely tell us in a study that they like to work from home.
Of course, the more options you give employees to return to work, the more difficult it will be to track and manage. As soon as you know how many employees will be in the office at one time, you can start developing a strategy on how to make the workplace safe.
3. What security measures do I need in the office?
To start your business, you need to come up with a plan to keep the office safe and prevent the spread of Covid-19. That means maintaining a distance of 1.5 meters everywhere in the office, taking thorough hygiene measures and protecting employees from the risk of contamination.
After you know how many employees there should be space in the building, you can start customizing the office. There are measures that are easy to implement and more complex measures.
Simple office safety measures:
- Separate the desks.
- Mark the 1.5 meter zone around each workstation with stickers.
- Place transparent plexiglass fenders around the workstations to separate employees from one another.
- Place disposable paper table mats on desks to limit physical contact with the table and prevent item contamination.
- Establish rules as to how many employees are allowed to be in meeting rooms or break rooms at the same time.
- Create one-way traffic in the office by marking sidewalks with arrows so they don’t cross.
- Keep the office clean with daily cleaning schedules and stock up on masks, soap, and disinfectant. Partner with a healthcare provider that offers workplace testing in Los Angeles. They can often offer valuable insight beyond test results.
More complex office safety measures:
- Place sensors in the corners of all common areas that measure the distance between people and indicate with a sound or a red light signal if the people are too close together.
- Provide contactless access to the building with access cards / iris scanners and motion sensors.
- Implement contactless payment in the cafeteria and at vending machines for drinks and snacks.
- Use temperature checks at the entrance to the building.
- In many offices the windows cannot be opened. The use of a well-developed ventilation system is very important here.
4. Which software can support office safety?
There are several tools that can be used to plan a safe return to the office. These include:
Employee survey software
With an employee survey tool, you can create custom surveys and email them to your employees to capture their return-to-work preferences. There are many free survey tools out there that you can check out.
Duty roster software & shift planner
With a duty roster software , optimized shift schedules can be created that take the preferences of the employees into account. Employees can log into the software to request shifts or vacations, cancel shifts and exchange shifts with colleagues. Approval and reminder notifications can be automatically sent to employees via email, SMS, or push notification. Online duty roster software enables employees to be actively involved in planning and to access work schedules and changes in real time.
Workplace allocation software
There are various software programs for reserving workspaces and meeting rooms. Employees can see in the software which workstations can be booked on a certain day, book a workstation next to the colleague with whom they are working on a project and choose a desk that has the required inventory (such as two screens). The same goes for meeting and conference rooms.
You can specify in the software that only workstations that comply with the 1.5 meter safety distance can be booked. A fixed time can be blocked between staff changes to clean and disinfect the desk. If someone in the office is infected with COVID-10, the most important thing is to quickly identify all employees with whom the person has been in contact. Occupancy software can help with this. HR managers can keep track of who was sitting next to whom, when, or who was in a meeting room.
Real-time tracking software
There is software that enables not only workplace booking but also real-time tracking of employees in the office. These programs provide real-time reports on capacity and usage rates. There are several methods of real-time tracking. Some products require devices such as smartphones or identification tags such as beacons to be carried by employees. Other systems use sensor-based technology such as passive infrared. This enables occupancy information to be recorded without the user having to carry anything with him. Employees can use such programs to ensure they work on a floor that is less busy, go to the break room when there are fewer employees, and so on.
Visitor management software
Visitor management software tracks visitors who enter your office or business. This could be a customer, a courier, an applicant for an interview, a business partner, a consultant, or even a relative of the CEO. Anyone who is not a full-time employee can be considered a visitor. At these times it is not only important to follow the movements of your own employees, but also of all visitors.
Conclusion
Given the above, all of your employees will feel much safer at work. That in turn will mean higher morale, and a boost in business, so office safety is definitely worth doing no matter what.
