Remote work has been going great for a lot of businesses and their employees around the world, but it is simply not for everyone. Some industries need warm bodies onsite to perform certain tasks, while other workers are simply more productive in an office setup than when working from home.
Fortunately, more and more people are getting vaccinated for the coronavirus. This means movement restrictions might ease up soon enough, potentially allowing businesses to revert back to normal after almost a full year.
If you are a business/building owner or manager, you have your work cut out for you in ensuring the safety of workers once they troop back into the office. Here is how you can do just that:
1. Limit office attendance
Managers and building administrators have to agree on a limit as to how many employees will be allowed in the building at all times. While a vaccine is already available, it doesn’t mean that the pandemic is over and the virus is gone. Therefore, it’s still advisable to limit attendance to workers who are absolutely necessary on-site. This will allow for proper social distancing and less chances of transmission in the office.
2. Ensure building integrity
Before letting people back in an office that has been dormant for a while, you need to check if the building is safe enough for everyone. Check for pests that may have sought shelter and multiplied in the building while everyone was away. Also have a professional check if the wirings are all intact and undamaged.
Finally, check if there is any need for commercial roofing repair work. The roof of the office building might have sustained damage over the past year, and surely you wouldn’t want a leaky roof raining over your back-to-office party, right?
3. Check the plumbing
Another thing you have to be wary of is the quality of water you have in the building. Since virtually no water flowed through the pipes in your commercial property in how many months, the conditions in those things may have ripened for the multiplication of the Legionella bacteria, which could make the employees vulnerable to Legionnaires disease.
Granted that it is not as contagious nor as fatal as the coronavirus, but we still don’t want anyone getting sick just as soon as they return to the office. To limit the risks of stagnant water, make sure you run all taps for a good while and flush all toilets multiple times before reopening the building and letting anyone near the water.
After all, what’s the use of frequent handwashing if the water they’d use turns out to be contaminated?
4. Implement health protocols among employees
To reiterate, the rollout of vaccines does not necessarily mean that we can let our guard down against possibly contracting the virus. As long as COVID-19 still exists and possibly spreads in the air we breathe, people spending time in a shared space should continue practicing health and safety protocols, including wearing face masks and frequent handwashing.
Additionally, employees must still be allowed to do remote work or at least, they must not be penalized for missing work on days when they don’t feel well,
5. Have frequent disinfections
Of course, you already know that you have to deep clean and disinfect the entire office building before reopening it for commercial operations, but do keep in mind that you have to continue doing regular disinfecting on regular days. This is to ensure that the space remains clean and does not become a hotbed for viruses, coronavirus or otherwise.
6. Consider offering shuttle services
Finally, you can do everything right in the office building and still have a possible outbreak if your employees are exposed to so many people while commuting to work. So it might be a good idea for you to offer complimentary shuttle services, if only to reduce their exposure to other people who are not part of your ‘office bubble.’
2021 might be a year of recovery, but only if we all do our part in ensuring that new coronavirus cases will remain minimal, even as we try to get our old lives and business running back to normal.
