Reimagining workplace post COVID-19

Navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath will be one of the biggest business challenges for any organisation. To keep operations running while minimising the risk to employees, most companies had left their offices, factories, stores, and other facilities shut. And rightfully so!

While bringing organisations and people to the “business as usual” when the crisis ends seems slightly complex, organizations must do a great deed of work in reimagining the workplace post-COVID-19. 

Needless to say that the leadership teams bear the primary responsibility for navigating their companies through this disruption. Once the government restrictions in their respective countries are lifted, it will be up a lot of planning and execution to determine when and how to resume the complex task of returning to the workplace. It is necessary that management teams, along with the help of the health experts chalk out a plan to bring their workforce back to the office – bringing them from crisis to recovery. 

Safety First!!!

Whether you are a manufacturing unit with 50 labours or a nice trendy and best in class office with 2000 white collar people, the health and safety of the workforce should be the topmost priority for any organisation. What is another important aspect to consider is an idea around which measures are taken to bring their offices back to LIFE. This, apart from being a moral/ethical code that organizations need to follow is also paramount as people are the biggest asset for any organisation; and no plans to resume normal operations can work without them. 

All of this requires a transition in not just the way things were being operated, meetings were being held, or the production was being concluded, this is about a change in the behaviour of the workforce. It is, therefore, imperative that the organisations lead the period of transition with empathy and demonstrate a sense of understanding that while we have all gone through (some are still) a critical phase and experienced a crisis, not all of us have experienced it in the same way. While there would be employees who have conditions that lie in the high-risk category there would be others who cannot join office due to their caregiving responsibilities at home. All of this needs to be managed well with enough consideration and sensitivity.

Companies need to establish guidelines for the use of personal protective equipment and establishing norms for employees who been infected to return to the office. It is essential to also understand that the workforce would take some time to transition into this new set-up of work. Human Resource teams should make sure that employees are aware of the measures taken by the organisation to maintain safety and what is being asked out of the employees. Needless to say, communication plays a critical role in managing this.

This may be a reiteration of a lot that you would have already heard in the past few days, however, here are four ‘Golden Rules’ that need to be implemented by the organisations to reset work from office. All the employees returning to the offices must be encouraged to comply to this.

• Wear Masks at all times
• Practice Social Distancing (at least 6 feet)
• Sanitise hands after touching any surface
• Wash hands regularly (for 20 seconds)

While in office, apart from following the ‘Golden Rules’, the employees can be asked to prefer e-Meetings over physical ones and bring their own food followed by responsible disposal. Some of the best practices to prevent the spread of the virus at the workplace are: 

• Mandatory thermal scanning of everyone entering and exiting the workplace.
• Provision for hand wash and sanitiser preferably with touch-free mechanism should be made at entry and exit point and common areas
• Large gathering and meetings of 10 or more shall be discouraged. 
• Seating at least 6 feet away from others at workstations and in gatherings, meetings & training sessions shall be arranged
• Not more than 2/4 persons (depending on the size of the lift) shall be allowed to travel in lifts or hoist
• Non-essentials visitors at the workplace shall be discouraged
• Authorised hospitals/clinics in the nearby areas to treat COVID-19 patients to be identified and the list would be available at the workplace.
• Employees to be allowed to eat at their respective workstation
• Hand sanitiser shall be kept at lobby, meeting rooms, photocopy machines, etc. 
• Sanitiser tunnel to be installed at the entrance
• Dedicated entry and exit points to be defined at each floor
• No usage of finger scanning or biometric machines
• Employee entry in the restrooms to be restricted to 2 at a given point in time

I hope this helps. Happy Reimagining! Leave your thoughts & suggestions - it may benefit anyone of us. And please stay safe!