20 Changes To Workplace Life – The New Normal After Lockdown

Welcome to the new normal after lockdown. We will know how office life has changed after lockdown. It is just another day at the office. You are stepping out of the comfort, safety, and protection of your home brings a lot of concerns.

This goes for you and also for your family. We have been working in the office cleaning industry, and the demand for having a business clean and healthy is the top priority of each and every business like real estate venues, membership clubs, and other non-essentials which are now slowly reopening – embracing the new normal.

It is every business’s responsibility to instil confidence and ensure safety for each and every employee and customer that comes and goes. A few simple measures will go a long way in promoting a healthy and safe workplace and working spaces.

Reimagine the Future – After the Lockdown

The pandemic had dictated us to adapt to the new normal. Many businesses ceased operation during the first stage of spread of the Coronavirus.

Life has to go on, and many companies have seen through the new norm to resume operation. Simple measures that will give long-term benefits if everyone will be vigilant in following the set guidelines.

Covid 19 has taken us by surprise during the early part of the year 2020, and it has dragged the whole world for almost a year now.

Many employees had lost their jobs over this pandemic. Now that the world is slowly transitioning to the new normal, it is our duty to look after one another. Businesses are slowly coming back. Workers are being asked to report for work.

Regardless of what industry you are a part of – retail, health and wellness, manufacturing, real estate, and many more, this is the time for you to be responsible and welcome this change.

We will talk to you about the 20 changes in offices that were caused by the Covid 19. Office life will never be the same as it was before, but there will be better days ahead.

Reconstruct your Working Force

Consider the work from home set-up. Again, this is the future which is very far from the culture that we know when we have not been in contact with Covid 19. Now, remote work is offered to employees by different companies to limit the number of people who will report for work on the actual site on a daily basis.

For almost a year, we had understood how the Coronavirus gets passed from one person to the other, and we want to stop the spread in every possible way.

Your Human Resource Department could review all the employees’ profiles and carefully analyze who are essential to work onsite and who can operate their department by working from home. People in the HR Department should consider the following in reconstructing your business flow:

• processes that have a significant effect on the company
• geographical location and function of employees

Even if you are doing remote work, your management can instil the same core value and culture that you follow as you would when you are working in your office.

Be Open to Use Technologies

Working remotely was made possible by many technologies available for us to use. Companies are using Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, and other platforms to make communication possible among all the people who keep their company running during the pandemic. Do not be challenged by these technologies.

Teach your employees to self-taught new processes and embrace the change. We need to accept these changes because Covid 19 may take a while. It is far from being over, and working from home may become the trend until we get a cure for the disease.

Having Zoom meetings provides an open plan for people not to convene in one office space. They can still talk about their issues and plans without being physically present at work. Working from home could be challenging, but this is all that we have for now, and we need to live by it until this whole Covid 19 pandemic ends.

Redesign Your Office to Promote Social Distancing

Here are the new ways. Some employees are tasked to return to work. Their company may have thought that their function is essential, and they need to be physically present.

At this stage, your workplace should only be 50 per cent occupied. Apart from deciding on how far apart the desks should be placed, you need to look into the schedule of the workers and plan it well.

People cannot take their breaks all at the same time because it will defeat the purpose of social distancing. You need to see to it that people will not crowd at a particular time.

This is also where hiring a commercial cleaner comes in. Redesigning your office to support a smaller number of employees is the first step in fighting the Coronavirus pandemic, but it does not stop there.

Cleanliness and high-level disinfection cleaning are the key factors to fight the deadly virus that may be harbouring on the surfaces.

our office space needs to follow a routine cleaning schedule to ensure the health and safety of your employees and the other people who come and go to your workplace.

Simple Covid 19 Measures After the Lockdown

Make sure that the offices and all other areas of your business are thoroughly cleaned every morning before your employees and customers start to come in.

Do the same thing when everyone has left at the end of each day. Office cleaning and disinfecting are highly recommended.

Use disinfectant with 1 per cent sodium hypochlorite when mopping hard floors and surfaces in all rooms.

You may get excited to meet your colleagues after a long time of not seeing them in person. Social distancing is highly encouraged.

Covid 19 pandemic had caused anxiety and worry about being infected with the virus. Distancing yourself at least 1 metre from your colleague will ensure that droplets that may be contaminated by the virus will not be passed on to you.
Assign a designated person to check the temperature of everyone entering the office.

Keep the entrance door open throughout office hours. This will ensure that the employees will not end up touching the handrails or the doorknobs.

Always use sanitisers placed in your business as often as you can. As a business, it is your responsibility to have hand sanitisers available at arm’s length or your employees and customers always.

Wash your hands as often as you can. Washing of indicators needs to be at least twenty seconds with soap and running water. If soap and water are not available, you can use an alcohol-based rub.

You can also ask your Human Resources Department to post hand washing signages to show the proper handwashing process.

Social distancing will continue to be a part of our new normal. Desks in the office should be at least one seat apart or six feet away from each other.

This goes the same for people using the meeting rooms and conference rooms. Avoid having too many people in one room.

You can assign a schedule when people can take their breaks one at a time so that the lunchroom will not be crowded.

Bring your own water bottle and cutlery when going back to the office. If you failed to do so, use the disposable cups and disposable cutleries provided in your pantry.

It is essential to have everyone wear their face masks. Have disposable masks ready and give them to an employee or customer who will come in without a mask. Make sure that everyone who enters your business wears a mask.

Your management must make your employees understand the significance of following these protocols. Negligence can be a potential failure point that can result in the spreading of the virus unknowingly.

We help ourselves by helping each other. These measures are pretty simple to follow and will allow us a long way. Staying alert can help us contribute to our society in building a healthy nation for a better world amidst this pandemic.

We have seen many different approaches to how staff and other workers are cautious and alert to the new normal. The key here is to have a clean and sanitized environment and be responsible.

There are several people that you can see wearing face masks as they walk on the streets. Being aware that the Coronavirus is there is enough reminder for us not to let our guards down. Do not go out of the comfort of your home if it is not necessary.

All of these will go back to cleanliness. Practice hand hygiene and disinfect your hands as often as you could.

For sure you have read so many articles that look similar to this. Coronavirus is not new to us. I want to hear from you.

Can you share with me your experience when your company decided that you will be part of the work from the home team? What are the challenges that you encountered? I also want to hear from the people who are asked to report to their worksite.

Did your company practice all of these things that we talked about in this article? I want to know how you see the future while working from home. Please drop us a comment below and let us know how you feel about this article.

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