A number of top companies have already begun setting the bar for adjusting to this new normal of social distancing in the post-COVID business landscape.
However, you don’t have to be a retail or fast-food giant to establish safe and realistic goals for your workplace’s social distancing measures.
“While we’re deciding who gets to sit in the office, on which day, you can start advanced planning scenarios for physically distancing people,” says workspace efficiency consulting leader Robin. “Desk management with social distance projections helps you understand how to manage the capacity of your office so you can return prepared.”
After years of moving toward a more egalitarian open office layout, COVID is forcing a return to cubicles and even separate office spaces.
According to Dr. Richard Arriviello, CMO for InHouse Physicians, in addition to reconfiguring everyday workspaces, businesses must also have a plan for protecting employees and stakeholders during business gatherings.
“Essentially, we need to re-establish health security in the meetings industry, and doing so means applying three main principles from which a sound plan can be formed,” said Arriviello, who emphasized that prevention, detection, and response should be a company’s three-pronged approach.
Arriviello said planning should include:
- Seating configurations that allow for social distancing.
- Sending out communications about protocols.
- Encouraging frequent breaks for handwashing.
- Disinfecting surfaces more frequently in heavily trafficked rooms.
- Provide PPE like masks and gloves.
Strategies developed by the CDC to help your business create a safer social distancing environment include:
- Implementing telework policies.
- Rotating or staggering shifts to limit the number of employees in the workplace.
- Increasing physical space between employees at the worksite.
- Increasing physical space between employees and customers with drive-through and curb drop-off service, or physical barriers such as partitions.
- Using signs, tape marks, or other visual cues such as decals or colored tape on the floor, placed 6 feet apart to indicate where to stand when physical barriers are not possible.
- Institute flexible meeting and travel options or postpone non-essential meetings or events in accordance with state and local regulations and guidance.
- Close or limit access to common areas where employees are likely to congregate and interact.
- Prohibit handshaking and other forms of close contact.
- Deliver services remotely by phone, video, or web.
- Adjust your business practices to provide click-and-collect online shopping, shop-by-phone, and delivery options.
- Move the electronic payment terminal/credit card reader farther away from the cashier, if possible, to increase the distance between the customer and the cashier.
- Shift primary stocking activities to off-peak or after hours, when possible, to reduce contact with customers.
- If you have more than one business location, consider giving local managers the authority to take appropriate actions outlined in their COVID-19 response plans based on their local conditions.
Returning to work doesn’t have to be a huge challenge. Let Corporate Coffee Systems help you get on the right track with our cleaning supplies, PPE, and innovative touchless dispensers.