As the government is slowly starting to relax their stay-at-home work policy, many organisations are setting wheels in motion to safely bring their staff back to the office. The task of how to bring your workforce back safely after a global pandemic, is unchartered waters for many companies and can feel somewhat overwhelming.
“The global pandemic has impacted our everyday lives and our working lives. Impacting and changing how we work, communicate, network, interact and so on. We want to help businesses bring their staff to work safely and smartly by capitalising on what existing furniture they have now and incorporating some small additions and layout changes” – Shane Hanley- Go Green MD.
How your Employees feel
When starting the process of bringing staff back to work, it’s important to understand their concerns about returning back to the office and what changes you can do to overcome this.
Studies have shown that employees returning back to work fit in to one of 3 categories:
Employees that are eager to return back to the workplace
Uncertain on if/when they would like to return
Hesitant to return to the workplace for the foreseeable
Studies also show that in a crisis, people are hardwired to make decisions to minimize threat or harm. Resulting in most people basing decisions on emotion, rather than logic.
The pandemic has affected everyone differently; some personally, some economically and some psychologically. One of the main concern’s employers will need to take in to consideration when starting this process is the physical safety and mental wellbeing of their staff. By undertaking any changes to your office, keeping the mental and physical wellbeing at the core of the design will help to overcome any uncertainties that your employees may have, whilst also increasing staff positivity and morale.
Help to Create the Right Space for when your Staff Return
By creating a safe space to bring your staff back to the office, you are relieving uncertainties and hesitation that may currently exist. Your willingness to adapt the work place to overcome this pandemic will instil confidence in employees who may have firstly been apprehensive.
Our desire to connect and collaborate still exists. And although we have managed to adapt this approach throughout this pandemic, the need for the organic form of collaboration and creativity still remains. This need to interact and socialise with colleagues will be a driving force for many to get back to work, not only to get the job done, but also because it has been greatly missed. So, it’s more important now than ever for businesses to make the changes to the work place in order to facilitate this need. We’ve said it many times before; creating spaces that allow your workforce to thrive not only increases business, but also staff positivity and retention.
Things to consider:
Change in staff behaviour
Re-configuring your office layout
Adding extra protective screens throughout
Creating pathways with floor standing screens or office furniture to reduce contact between staff
The use of signage throughout to promote social distancing and office hygiene
Removal of hot-desking and the promoting of desk ownership
Reducing staff density within departments
How can we help you?
We’ve already been working in collaboration with many companies who are keen to bring their workforce back in to the office. We can help you too!
We offer guidance and support on the government advise on social distancing in the workplace and show how you can implement new office layouts to easily accommodate the 2m distancing rule in your office.
Our Back-to-Work Guide gives a complete overview on how we can help you bring your staff back to work safely including office reconfiguration, COVID signage and PPE.
Our expert team are on hand to assist you with your process of bringing your staff back to work safely. Contact a member of the team and start the process today- [email protected]