Planning to reopen your workplace soon? 20 lessons learnt from running a UK manufacturing workplace 24/5 during lockdown

After weeks of lockdown many businesses are now turning to planning to reopen their normal workplaces at the start of a journey towards the new ‘normality’. Here at Mercian Labels we manufacture food and medical packaging and so as ‘key workers’ have been committed to operating as close to normality as possible throughout this crisis. 

To help other businesses returning to work, many of which have been isolated and home working for weeks, I thought I’d share some of the changed workplace practices we have adopted which have worked for us in the hope that others can learn some lessons and get back to a new ‘stable norm’ quicker.

If you’ve been away from your workplace for a few weeks, this is what the new normal looks like:

1.      Your company values and culture dominate the natural behaviour of people, and what you came into this crisis with will dictate how your teams respond and adapt to it. Anything that conflicts with your culture and values will fail within days.

2.      Nobody is welcome into the building unless they are essential visitors. If you can prevent anyone other than an essential members of staff entering that’s the new norm. Routine maintenance, engineering, customers, auditors, suppliers, stakeholders, all are told they are not welcome to visit unless its essential i.e. in our case manufacturing will stop unless its allowed. Visitors are politely turned away before they enter the building via intercom.

3.      Alcohol gel hand cleaning is mandatory when coming and going into the building, and when moving between floors, with gel stations every floor.

4.      Teams are split across floors for infection control reasons, so if one room/floor goes down, the rest of the business can continue. No team stays together in the same place.

5.      Those who self identify as more vulnerable to infection are prioritised for sole worker offices. At one stage, I reallocated my MD office for someone who needed it more than me.

6.      People who are compulsory homeworkers because they can work from home ask/crave/beg to be allowed to return to work after a surprisingly short time!

7.      All spare offices are used for single person occupancy for key functions.

8.      You are not allowed into other people’s offices unless essential, and not allowed to enter any canteen other than your own.

9.      Daily self measurement of body temperature is mandatory before you start work. Preferably at home, but if not then on arrival for work using a pool non contact medical IR thermometer at the entrance door (warning – can take 30 mins for forehead temperature to stabilise from extreme sunlight / wind on arrival into the building).

10.  Every routine physical meeting is cancelled, and all done via Microsoft teams sat at your desk if possible, or stand up meeting in reception of the biggest space you have, 2m distant, and very short meetings.

11.  Get used to people self isolating during the working day out of caution, and immediate deep cleaning of their workspace area on departure for everybody else safety and reassurance.

12.  Get used to people coming back to work after a period of COVID19 illness with a residual cough, and welcome them back, they are not infectious and are desperate to resume their place in the team and get back to work.

13.  To keep 2m distance in the building at all times odd corridor manoeuvres are allowed!

14.  Provide cleaning sprays and clothes for every office worker to clean their own area.

15.  Increase the frequency of cleaning of communal banisters, handles, door push plates etc to multiple times a day.

16.  Get used to video meetings with staff, customers and suppliers as the new default meeting method.

17.  Lead times for normal consumables and devices are erratic and extended as the global supply chain is out of routine. For example getting webcams and speakers setup for every desk is now expensive and challenging!

18.  Your diary becomes very empty, but strangely productive.

19.  Quarantining incoming post/boxes/courier bags is normal, as the virus can live for 24 hours for cardboard and 3 days for plastic, and as couriers are high risk by nature of their job, incoming deliveries are treated carefully.

20.  The rules change often as government policy develops, so be prepared to act quickly. Honest and transparent communication is vital.