How To Safely Return To Your Office During A Pandemic

There are several comprehensive methods to keep your office safe during the pandemic. The Coronavirus has forced many employees into months of remote work. Fortunately, many workplaces are beginning to open up using proper safety precautions and health standards. However, just like many other facilities, modern offices look much different after the outbreak of COVID-19. Employees must remain distant, PPE must be worn, and frequent sanitization must be enforced. Fortunately, there are several steps to help you and your employees adapt to the new normal. For small business owners like yourself, the new challenge is how to increase productivity, while mitigating as much risk as possible with policies that prioritize employee safety. Read on to learn about the key methods to keep the office safe during a pandemic.

Ensure Your Facility Is Ready For Occupancy

Before you can reopen your office during COVID-19, you need to ensure that your facility is ready for occupancy. Many commercial facilities have been closed for upwards of six months. Before you resume business, you need to assess your building for any hazards associated with a prolonged shutdown. Water systems like sink faucets, water fountains, or ice machines may not be safe to use after not running for a long period of time. Failure to inspect these pieces of equipment can even lead to the transmission of Legionnaire’s disease in your office. Many commercial buildings may have to now deal with water damage, mold growth, rodents or pests. Other facilities have even reported issues arising from previously stagnant systems. You need to additionally ensure that your HVAC systems are still operating properly. Simultaneously, you should open windows and doors wherever possible to increase the circulation of fresh air. To ensure that your workplace is in working order, consult a commercial building inspection checklist for when you first return to the office.

Promote Social Distancing

Promoting social distancing in the office is essential to keep your employees and workplace safe throughout the pandemic. Putting more distance between workers is critical to reducing the spread of the Coronavirus. With the CDC recommending people remaining at least six feet apart, it is essential to consider redesigning your office layout. Reconfigure your workplace to add more distance between employees. Consider using physical barriers like dividers to ensure that distance is consistently followed. At the same time, you should consider staggering employee schedules to reduce the number of people in the office at once. If possible, you should even attempt to create flexible work schedules that support telecommuting for your employees. Utilize team schedule work apps to ensure that the workplace is properly divided throughout the week. Before you reopen your office during the Coronavirus, strategically plan to promote social distancing.

Clean Surfaces With Botanical Disinfectant

Utilizing botanical disinfectant is an essential method to keep the office safe during the pandemic. Botanical disinfectant solutions are a great choice for environmentally sensitive and hazard-conscious settings. Reputable agencies like Benefect offer botanical disinfectant in wipes, degreaser, and multi-purpose cleaner. You can even purchase Benefit Botanical Disinfectant’s Decon 30 product. Decon 30 serves as an innovative, one-step cleaner that kills over 99.99% of bacteria in less than a minute. If you are in need of these supplies for your office, ProSolutions Direct offers an abundance of powerful Decon 30 cleaners, botanical, and shockwave disinfectants. Use these products to clean frequently touched surfaces in common areas of your office. For example, surfaces like doorknobs, chairs, keypads, and phone receivers must be constantly disinfected. When cleaning these surfaces, be sure to use disposable gloves, masks, and face shields to improve your personal safety throughout disinfection.

Embrace Collaborative Technology

As you prepare to reopen your office during the global pandemic, it is essential to embrace collaborative technology. Ideally, before returning to work, you should attempt to design an office space that embraces ‘socially-distant’ remote work among your employees. Harnessing the power of modern technologies, you can still promote social distancing without sacrificing collaboration and communication in your workspace. Invest in conferencing software, laptops, and phones for your employees. Simultaneously, your business should purchase video calling software. Then, you can begin hosting effective video conferencing meetings. This way, they are never forced to share equipment. Instead, employees can instantly communicate using their mobile devices. To remain productive and safe in your office during the Coronavirus, be sure to embrace collaborative technology.

Make Hand Sanitizer Readily Available

To make your office safe during the pandemic, you need to make hand sanitizer readily available. Soap and antibacterial hand sanitizer have been recognized as essential products to fight the spread of the Coronavirus. With the far-reaching impact of sick workers, providing hand sanitizer is critical in the modern productive office environment. To protect your office and employees, you need to place hand sanitizer in strategic locations across your workspace. Even more, you should purchase small personal bottles for each of your employees to keep on their desks. Companies that encourage the regular use of hand sanitizer and proper hygiene standards often have a much healthier workplace. In order to promote safety and hygiene in your workplace, you need to make hand sanitizer readily available to your staff.

Allow For More Fresh Air

Of course, another major concern for office safety is in your air circulation, fresh air, and ventilation systems. AC ducts and other business HVAC systems can potentially carry the virus across locations. Therefore, you should try to let in fresh air by opening windows whenever possible. At the same time, consider purchasing air vent filters that are meant to kill and trap the virus. This way, you can strategically reduce the potential spread of the virus within your workspace. Surely, there are even a number of plans that can eliminate the spread of the virus naturally.  Certainly, allowing for more fresh air is an excellent business workplace safety tip to reduce the spread of the novel Coronavirus.

There are several key methods to keep your office safe during global pandemic. First, you need to ensure that your facility is ready for occupancy. In addition, promoting social distancing in the office is essential to keep your employees and workplace safe. At the same time, using botanical disinfectant is an essential method to keep the office safe during the pandemic. Moreover, it is critical to make hand sanitizer readily available. Furthermore, it is essential to embrace collaborative technology. This is essential to empower teams to embrace collaboration during the new normal. Follow the steps outlined above to learn about the key methods to keep the office safe during a pandemic.