Introduction
COVID-19: With minimal change to workstation layouts a sense of community is preserved, and safe distancing is retained.
The Brief
Social distancing applies to all areas within the working environment and not just the place where people spend most of their time, it must include entrances, exits, meeting rooms, tea points and other settings. Workstations must be assigned to an individual and not shared, and the layout should allow employees to maintain a safe social distance wherever possible.
Our client’s foremost concern was that their desking arrangement was in contradiction to COVID Government guidelines. A solution would have been to manage occupancy levels, move workstations further apart and install screens to separate employees from their immediate colleague. This was neither a viable nor practical option as the space was not sufficient in size to facilitate rows of desking; moreover, it is business critical that employees closely collaborate and share information between teams throughout the working day.
On assessing the layout of the space we quickly identified the greatest challenge to reconfiguring the space as fixed power and data floor boxes were chased into a concrete floor making it impossible to rearrange desks and workstations with a safe 2-metre distance between them.
The Solution
In evaluating the clients’ business requirements, it was evident that retaining workstations within the open plan areas was business critical. As such, we devised a plan to work with the restrictions of the fixed power and data boxes, by re-orientating all desks and tables. In this way, regardless of desk size, or where a desk is positioned, employees can safely maintain a 2-metre distance in all directions, retain good visibility, and still communicate effectively with work colleagues.
Every business differs in its requirement, nevertheless, our proven strategy is that we can configure a layout that protects your employees through safely distanced workstations. In addition, we can advise on the installation of cost-effective desktop screen extensions, and others that are designed to be retro fitted to existing desktop screens, both adding an additional level of protection that further reduces the risk of face-to-face interactions.
At this time, the health and wellbeing of your people is paramount as many employees are extremely worried about catching the COVID virus, and as such, will have reservations about returning to the office. As employers have a statutory duty of care for their people’s health and safety at work, they must proactively and speedily, address employee fears with a detailed safety plan.
Whilst recognising that we cannot eliminate all risk of COVID19, we can work together to safeguard and protect your employees in an environment where person-to-person contact has been minimised.