Organization of social distance in the office. Practical tips
2020-07-03
After a two-month quarantine, offices gradually began to come to life. Each company applies and tests new working methods. Someone obliged 100% of the staff to go to the office and work as before from 9 to 18. Someone organizes several days a week to work at home, some companies create flexible working hours.
All these approaches are designed to minimize the crowding of people in a confined space and to comply with the requirements for social distance. Based on the new realities of work, it is worth thinking about the rearrangement and redesign of office space. Here are some tips to help you evaluate space and build your work accordingly:
- If the whole office does not go to work at the same time, and one or several days a week employees can work at home, then it makes sense to think about reformatting into a flexible office. That is, an office where there is no attachment to jobs. If out of 100 employees at the same time no more than 30% can be at work, then it does not make sense to leave 100 jobs, 30-35 tables will be enough. It all depends on automation. For example, accountants and lawyers are unlikely to take this approach, since they operate with a large number of paper documents, and it is difficult to drag them from place to place. For them, it is better to leave the assigned places. A flexible office allows you to significantly increase the distance between tables or to optimize costs by occupying a smaller room.
- Partitions and zoning spaces. At the moment, all of humanity is under a certain psychological pressure. People are afraid to be close to each other, try to avoid crowds, and begin to feel discomfort with the close proximity of tables. Partitions will help you feel the personal space that no one is invading, in addition, as one of the surveys shows, employees work more efficiently by getting some separation between the tables.
- It is best to refuse to place the tables close to each other and face to face. This provokes some discomfort and reduces productivity.
- Be sure to inform staff about disinfection measures and other methods to minimize the risks of infection. It is proved that feeling safe people work more efficiently.
In order to properly organize the workflow without losing productivity, it is best to contact a professional facilitation company. Diverse specialists in the field of office work organization will help maintain cleanliness and hygiene, organize the space correctly in compliance with all requirements, take care of the building’s internal communications, arrange delivery of goods and monitor the safety of the facility.