RETURNING TO WORK

One way to mitigate against some of the challenges posed by homeworking is to encourage employees to do both.

Working from home part of the week, and in the office on other days, is becoming a popular working practice. It also presents an opportunity to reduce the number of desks we occupy and, in turn, also the costs associated with having an office that has to accommodate the whole workforce. A common way of doing this is a switch to hot desking, though at this time, it is not advised that we do so. We will, therefore, allocate every member of staff with their own desk in the office, but staff will not be expected to come in on every day of the week. We will then look into hot desking at a later date, when it is safe to do so.

Returning to the office will raise many concerns with regards to the health and safety of staff following the covid-19 crisis. Therefore, new health and safety measures will be required following new risk assessments. Desks will be 2m apart whilst covid-19 is still an issue. We are also looking into a one-way system so that nobody passes on the stairs or in the corridors and disposable gloves, masks and hand sanitizer will be made available throughout the buildings. See Government advice on Working safely during COVID-19 in offices and contact centres: http://ow.ly/vhPm50zH4Wd

The cleanliness of desks is important. Accordingly, hand sanitizers and wipes will be available and desks will be cleaned daily. To reduce contamination, lockers will also be provided to ensure personal belongings can be stored safely and not left on desks. Providing personal lockers will also reduce the strain of persistently carrying equipment and materials around and will allow confidential material to be kept safe. For those that deal with confidential files on a daily basis, we will provide several filing cabinets so that staff are able to safely store files before returning to work later in the week. It is important that all files stay at work and are not taken home. We are currently looking into ways to electronically store files and client signatures so that less paperwork is required and files are more accessible.