The Post Covid 19 Office

Millions of people around the world have returned to work, and other countries are considering easing lockdowns in phases.
Businesses should plan how to adapt offices to comply with social distancing rules.
COVID-19 has changed working life, altering how and where people do their work.

As governments and businesses around the world seek to minimize transmission of the virus at work, finding solutions is now at the top of many organizations’ agendas.

Here are 10 ways work and workplaces could change.

1. Office Workstation
In the United States they call it Six Feet Office. It is a way of transforming existing offices into places where it is possible to observe the rule of distance greater than one meter, which governments can continue to impose.
Leading architects around the world predict that the current pandemic will radically reshape office furniture.
It is noted that over the years desks have shrunk, from 1,8 to 1,6 metres, now to 1,4 metres and less, but it is thought that this trend will reverse, as people will not want to sit so close together.

2. Simple solutions
How to keep desks clean? Some very simple precautions could help. In addition to the necessary sanitization of environments and work surfaces, the use of hand sanitizer is recommended.
In several large corporate offices, employees are provided with a paper placemat for their desk.
At the end of the day, the paper is thrown away, this solution could limit the spread of COVID-19 on surfaces.

3. Is the open-plan office outdated?
The trend that has influenced office layout typology for decades has included working in open spaces with total fluidity. But could COVID-19 reverse this trend, will we have a highly compartmentalized floor plan in the future?
We may never go back to the cellular cubicles of a few decades ago, but office density will certainly change, with many architects predicting a move away from traditional open-plan layouts.

4. Signage 
Offices of the future could have visual cues to maintain social distancing.
Think of street signs but for offices. From squash court-style lines in lobbies to standing spaces in elevators, from circles around desks to aisles in hallways, it’s likely that the floors and walls of our offices are covered in visual instructions.
One possible approach is to encourage employees to walk clockwise, creating a one-way flow to minimize transmission, which many hospitals have done during the current outbreak.

5. Technology
Businesses may also need to invest in a new suite of contactless technologies to reduce disease transmission.
Zaha Hadid Architects’ new headquarters for waste management company Bee’ah in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, could be a glimpse of the future. It’s full of what ZHA calls “touchless pathways,” so employees rarely have to touch the building with their hands. Office doors open automatically using motion sensors and facial recognition, while elevators—and even coffee—can be ordered from a smartphone.
The technology could also be used to remind employees to socially distance. Some U.S. offices have installed devices that track employees’ movements via their cell phones, sending alerts when the six-foot rule is violated.

6. Reconstructions
Given the severity of the situation, some companies may need to adapt their buildings, either through partial renovation or more radical reconstruction.
“I think we’ll see wider hallways and doorways, more partitions between departments, and a lot more stairways,” Kaicker says.
So far “it’s all been about breaking down barriers between teams, but I don’t think the spaces will blur together anymore.”

7. Clean air
Good ventilation is key to preventing the spread of COVID-19, a great trend might be to simply open a window, if windows can be opened, as many offices do not allow this.
And where filtered air is the only option, it could be boom time for office air conditioning systems. China's mass adoption of the technology is credited with helping its workers return to their desks more quickly.
All buildings will absolutely have to improve air quality, said Joseph G. Allen, a professor of environmental health at Harvard University and author of the book “Healthy Buildings.”
“You bring in more outside air and you dilute everything that’s inside air,” he said. “And of course, with advanced filtration, you can actually capture virus particles and any other harmful particles.”

8. Collaboration
Will the recent boom in collaborative companies, where startups share buildings, and in some cases, desks, slow down in the post-virus period?
Darren Comber, managing director of architects Scott Brownrigg, thinks it could happen. “We’ve seen a huge boom in co-working spaces,” he told The Guardian, but after that, will companies really want to put their entire team in one place, where they’re closely mixed with other companies?

9. Greetings
We’ve already glimpsed the future, as many organizations implemented greeting policy changes before office staff were sent home.
Handshakes are discouraged, and seem likely to remain so for some time to come. But new greetings have emerged.
Earlier this year, billboards in Beijing promoted hand-holding. Touching elbows was also a common sight, but doctors advise against it because the elbow can be used as a sneeze guard. Touching feet can be a fun alternative between friends and in sports between teammates. In professional life, eye contact and a nod would be fine, but expect other greetings at a safe distance to evolve soon.

10. More savings
How many new workers who have experimented with working from home will want to return to office life full-time?
And finally, will offices continue to be affordable when the world’s legions of new home workers want to return to their expensive jobs?
Have employers realized how much remote work could save them money?

While Zoom dropouts and screaming toddlers have become familiar distractions, McKinseys believes many of the most problematic aspects of working from home—from low productivity to poor communication—can be addressed with strong supervision, small team work, and the right messaging tools for the job.
Many businesses, both large and small, have provided their staff with all the tools they need to continue working through the pandemic. They have accelerated the move to the cloud to enable easy file sharing, introduced real-time communication applications to stay connected, and created virtual private networks for security.
In many cases, the shift to remote work has been rapid, and it may be working so well that some may consider making it a more permanent way of working.

Business psychologist Adam Grant thinks many employees are also discovering the joys of working from home.
“I made a list of all the things that workers are happy not to have to do,” he said, “and that list among many other reasons includes the need to commute.”

There are many questions, in whatever direction we go we must consider that, even before the pandemic, many companies had begun to experiment with flexible and agile working solutions. We have seen significant changes in the design of office spaces before the pandemic. Companies have started to move away from the traditional office layout and favor the development of people-centric, collaborative and engaging spaces.
Many companies will embrace the opportunity to rethink their work arrangements to offer their employees more flexibility than ever before, especially given the proven benefits for productivity and engagement.