Workplace Changes Post COVID19: What will the professional office environment look like in the future?
Now that COVID19 has rocked the entire world socially, geopolitically, and economically: what will the professional office environment look like in the future? How are employers going to protect their employees, vendors, stakeholders, and themselves from potential contamination and the spread of the virus or other illness that may develop in the future? What preventive measures are appropriate and reasonable?
U.S. News and World Report published an article on May 19, 2020 entitled "As Americans Return to Work, How Will Covid Change the Workplace." The author, Dennis Thompson, poses this same inquiry along with some helpful insight as to what changes may be appropriate moving forward post Covid19.
(1) "Going forward, companies also will have to design workspaces and employee schedules with an eye toward reducing disease transmission."
(a) "[y]ou'll likely find the office more sparsely populated than it had been prior to the pandemic.
'If people go into the office, it will only be for a day or two a week, at least until we have a vaccine,' said Robert Siegel, a lecturer in management at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business."
(b) Nellie Brown, director of workplace health and safety programs at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations states "[t]hose who do go into the office on set days will probably have staggered shifts, to prevent clusters of people trying to enter the office all at once. . . 'You don't want people congregating in the elevator,' . . .'You don't want everybody arriving at the one time.'"
(c) "But experts agree that the open office plan will probably be one of the casualties of COVID-19.
'If we try to keep density fairly high, you're going to have to put up a lot of barriers,' Brown said. 'You're going to have to look seriously at private offices and higher cubicle walls, and not just have open plans with desks all over the place.'"
(2) "You'll also be less likely to have your own private workspace, Siegel said.
'Why would you give someone their own permanent space if they're only in there two days a week?' Siegel said. Instead, a business might set up a series of shared cubicles that people use when they come into the office.
Such shared cubicles might have computer keyboards covered with plastic film to make disinfection easier, or companies could simply buy employees their own keyboards and other personal equipment that they use during their office time, Brown said."
(a) "Companies also might become more adamant about discouraging what Brown calls 'presenteeism' -- workers who insist on coming to the office even when they're ill."
(3) "'I can imagine a lot less business travel, because it's just not needed,' he said. 'And if there's less business travel, you don't need these big fancy boardrooms.'
In fact, Siegel thinks companies looking to cut back likely will reconsider whether they really need all of the office space they've maintained in the past.
'We're going to get to a world where you're going to say, do you need to be spending that much money on real estate?' he said.'"
Finally, Dennis Thompson points out several benefits that might arise from these potential changes to the workplace. He suggests "'Commutes will go down. People won't be spending an hour in their car every day each way,' Siegel said. 'That's good for health. That's good for stress. That's good for the environment.'"
To the readers, please post your thoughts and insight as we move forward post Covid19.
Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-05-19/as-americans-return-to-work-how-will-covid-change-the-workplace (accessed on May 20, 2020)