Organisations are wanting to bring their teams back to the office because they know it’s the best place for people to come together, create solutions and execute on activities. Effective design complements a safe and engaging return to office.
Below are seven key considerations that you can implement immediately.
Create minimum 1.5m distancing between people in open workspaces, meeting rooms and pods, breakout areas and lounge spaces. Reduce floorspace congestion by removing excess desks, tables and seating, or use alternate desks.
Reduce/eliminate shared desking and shift to more owned individual spaces. If different staff are using the same desks on alternate days, ensure an adequate cleaning program is in place and consider the use of individual desk mats.
Use open spaces for meetings where possible, leveraging flexible furniture with movable whiteboards and screens to create boundaries. By doing this, more people can meet together without the spacing limitations of a fixed meeting room.
Increase barriers between existing workspaces, paths of traffic and communal areas by adding screening, storage units, plants or partitions.
If possible with your workstation system, a simple but effective distancing measure is to reconfigure desking to reduce face-to- face orientation. Turn workstations to 90-degee angles to prevent workers from working directly across or behind one another.
Throughout the workspace, consider increased user-movable screening to reduce exposure. Moveable Perspex screens provide an ideal yet simple barrier to maintaining distancing in high traffic areas such as lobbies, breakout spaces and lounges.
Fix open internal doorways within the office where possible to reduce contact with door handles and door panels. Consider motion-sensor or foot-pedal operated rubbish bin lids. Handle hooks or clips are also a simple but effective means of avoiding hand contact with door and cupboard handles.
With offices now re-opening their doors to welcome back employees, an important element that business owners and property managers must consider in ensuring a good RTO experience is the building’s air quality.
By now, we’ve all heard of the term “modern office” when talking about companies opening their doors and welcoming back employees. Business owners and commercial interior designers have been working hand-in-hand to identify modern office fit out ideas that would best benefit professional office spaces and the people it accommodates.
COVID-19 has turned the work life of most professionals on its head, reshaping our mindset on how we do our jobs, and more importantly, where. Employers have tested different ways to effectively implement flexible work, considering the need of employees to work remotely. In line with this, they’ve also started rethinking and preparing the office for when the workforce starts reporting on-site, especially since there’s a necessity for companies to accommodate ever-changing workplace best practices in the new normal.
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