Social Distancing Tips and Adjusting to the Realities of Covid-19 in the Office

Social Distancing Tips and Adjusting to the Realities of Covid-19 in the Office

(IMPORTANT NOTICE: The recommendations on this article about Covid-19 in the office are NOT from health experts, and have not been medically tested nor proven as an effective cure or prevention for COVID-19 or any other diseases.)

Amazing changes are shaking work environments as the world tackles the prevention of spreading Covid-19 in the office.

The open office was the trend with clusters of employees sitting together until the pandemic hit. Now, the puzzling question is how do workers keep their physical distance and still collaborate?

How far apart should people be?

Six feet is the best answer, but do you know why?

That’s the average distance that respiratory droplets from a sneeze or cough travel before they settle and aren’t likely to be inhaled by other people.

In the real world, people sneeze at different levels of intensity so we can’t accommodate every person, and staying six feet apart isn’t always possible. But we can make adjustments to help create a healthy environment and show workers that your company is looking out for their best interests.

Ways to Help Achieve Healthy Social Distancing in the Office

Covid-19 in the Office Groupe Lacasse Paradigm
Photo: Groupe Lacasse Paradigm

Modular furniture to the rescue!

Workers can use their office furniture with flexible set-ups to help keep a proper distance and stay productive.

Here’s what you can do:

  • Change seating arrangements
  • Install counter shields, desk shields, space dividers, or freestanding panels
  • Create modular rooms for meeting space
  • Use breakrooms with caution

Change Seating Arrangements

Benching solutions brought workers face to face and side by side in the open office. Remember those long rectangular benches with several people on one side and then several on the opposite side? The only separation between the two sides was a low-profile divider.

In cubicle work pods, employees looked toward each other, but that was before the pandemic hit.

How do you make it work now?

Reconfigure work pods so employees are working at angles and turn their seats so they’re back to back. This minor change can also help create more personal space and privacy.

Once you’ve chosen your seating arrangements, install what are now known as sneeze screens.

Screen styles are tailored to fit a variety of desking options and counter needs.

Use Clear Dividers


Photo: Enwork Acrylic Screens

Challenges create the need for solutions. Dividers may offer protection from the spread of Covid-19 in the workplace and 2010 Office Furniture carries a wide variety of these office essentials.

Don’t worry. Workers don’t have to feel like they’re stuck within canyon walls because the dividers are clear and allow light to filter through. They can work well with rectangular bench seating stations by helping to protect workers on either side of the screen.

The dividers are crafted from glass and can easily be installed. Certain products like the Fulbright Isolate Mobile Glass Screen are easy to re-arrange so they can also be used in places like lobby waiting areas and between office workers.

Partitions can work well in open plan workspaces and restaurants.

Create Signage Guides to Help Prevent Covid-19 in the Office


Photo: OFS Obeya Archictectural Structures

Use signs with positive messages that let visitors and employees know the office follows guidelines for personal safety.

Marketing teams talk about the customer journey, but your employees have their own journey from home that leads to the office. Gensler, a global design and architecture firm, advises businesses to create signs with their brand to guide employees as they travel that path. It’s easy to buy off-the-shelf signs, but mass-produced signs can bring on stress since “the color palettes and typography of some signage can make a space feel harsh, dangerous, and unwelcoming. Shifting the design to something more friendly and human can help to instill a sense of community and common purpose.”

Use brightly colored duct tape as guides along floors or walls, and to mark 6-foot distances near elevators, restrooms, the break room, and other places people gather.

Install Architectural Walls to Help Prevent Covid-19 in the Office

Covid-19 in the Office Trendway Clearwall
Photo: Trendway Clear Wall

Modular furniture of all types is economical and that includes architectural walls to create conference rooms or delineate private working spaces. You can define private spaces that look inviting and help provide the health security people need. You can create spaces with floor to ceiling walls or cubicles with guards to help reduce the likelihood of moist droplets spreading from one person to another.

Trendway offers three options for offices that want a sleek, modern look: Clear Wall, TrendWall, and Volo Wall. Clear Wall is a floor-to-ceiling solution with no framing between adjoining walls, while TrendWall provides the same services with framing. The Volvo Wall is another alternative that combines aesthetic with functionality with its glass sliding door. Glass options include clear or glazed.

Offices that want a framed wall with a wood grain look can choose the OFS Obeya Architectural Structures. Walls can be open or closed and make it possible to install tables, media equipment, and planters or other accessories.

These are office walls that define spaces without blocking out people.

Greater Use of Teleconferencing in the Office

Covid-19 in the Office OFS Slate
Photo: OFS Slate Media Wall

Even with all these modifications, social distancing may be even more effective with the use of teleconferencing equipment.

The digital platform makes it easy to livestream meetings. With projectors, screens and monitors to video conference, there is no need to crowd in small spaces and heighten the risk of COVID-19.

Inter-office streaming between floors or departments can help reduce foot traffic and people moving from one space to another.

Modify Food Events and Breakroom Habits

Covid-19 is changing how people will gather in breakrooms.

The Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM) says social gatherings to celebrate retirements, milestones or birthdays may still be conducted if you’re careful and aware of your surroundings and how you serve the food.

Let’s say a company is providing pizza to its employees.  Instead of having the pizza readily accessible to everyone in a buffet-like setup, consider designating one single person wearing a mask and gloves to serve the pre-cut slices to each person.  This is much more sanitary as it will help minimize the number of people the pizza comes in contact with.  Also, for those who would like to share homemade goods at work, make sure each cookie or brownie has been carefully and individually wrapped, and that the person who made it wasn’t sick.


Photo: OFS Obeya Archictectural Structures

To help maintain physical distancing during typical workdays, reduce the number of chairs available in the breakroom and stagger break times for different departments.

Use fun signage to mark six foot distances and make sure tables are wiped down after they’re used.

Extra precautions and a few strategic configurations will promote a healthy office environment and help reduce the risks associated with the potential spread of Covid-19 in the workplace.

Ask your teams to get involved and supply them with adequate amounts of hand sanitizer.

For employees who are telecommuting, ask if they need additional equipment to work from home. You can create guidelines for home office best practices.

A virus like the coronavirus doesn’t have to shut down operations. Taking smart steps that follow public health guidelines can help make employees feel secure and take ownership of their own health and the well-being of those around them.

Get the Expertise You Need to Help Prevent Covid-19 in the Office

Get expert advice on re-configuring your office and making it safe. Talk to the team at 2010 Office Furniture. They have more than 45 years of combined experience advising corporations, non-profits and small businesses throughout Southern California.

Read Also: How to Help Protect Workers in Open Office Floor Plans from Covid-19
Main Photo by: OFS LeanTo
Resources & Special Thanks to Respective Product Manufacturers: OFS, Groupe Lacasse, Enwork & Trendway

(IMPORTANT NOTICE: The recommendations on this article are NOT from health experts, and have not been medically tested nor proven as an effective cure or prevention for COVID-19 or any other diseases.)

Ways to Help Create Social Distancing in the Office

Ways to Create Social Distancing in the Office

(IMPORTANT NOTICE: The recommendations on this article about social distancing in the office are NOT from health experts, and have not been medically tested nor proven as an effective cure or prevention for COVID-19 or any other diseases.)

Without a doubt, Covid-19 slammed the brakes on the popular open plan trend –  where office space is maximized by seating employees together in open office spaces. Implementing an abrupt change to help remedy this by creating more social distancing in the office will take some smart space planning, but it’s quite do-able.

Integrating innovative COVID office furniture solutions into a productive work environment may help employees return safely to the office.

Here’s a suggested easy-to-follow reference list:

  • Re-configure seating distances using modular workstations
  • Place transparent screens and dividers strategically
  • Maximize use of teleconferencing media for off-site and on-site employees
  • Reduce the number of chairs in waiting areas and space them apart
  • Clearly mark six-foot spaces for breakrooms and other areas where people gather
  • Create a clockwise foot traffic flow
  • Get expert input – the team at 2010 Office Furniture has decades of experience in space planning strategies for corporations, universities and growing businesses of all sizes.

You can do this!

Let’s dig further into each of the tips by understanding the concept of the 6-Foot Office Space.

The 6-Foot Office from Cushman & Wakefield


Photo: Groupe Lacasse PanGram

The 6-Foot Office concept from Cushman & Wakefield was designed to help reintroduce people to office workspace in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The global commercial real estate firm has laid out guidelines that include:

  1. Making a quick scan of where your office already has six feet of space and where additional space can easily be created
  2. Post 6-Foot rules and guidelines to promote employee safety and well-being
  3. Route traffic through a safe flow such as a clockwise pattern around the office
  4. Fully equipped and adapted workstations for employees to work safely
  5. Designate someone to work with building managers on a comprehensive 6-Foot plan
  6. Create and post a 6-Foot safety certificate to show your company is working to reduce the potential of person-to-person spread of germs and the coronavirus

Essential Equipment to Help Social Distancing in the Office


Photo: Groupe Lacasse PanGram

Scan your office to know how much equipment you’ll need and what you’ll need. One person who’s active at a reception desk may need a different type of shield or divider than a group of three or four people working in a pod.

Employee schedules and work habits matter as well. Modular workstations make it easy to take out a desk or put one back, depending on who’s working remotely or in the office. Modular furniture gives you the flexibility to accommodate changes in habits and preferences.

Dividers and Screens


Photo: Groupe Lacasse Stad Benching

Select the best shields and dividers for needed physical barriers.

Track-mounted screens and surface dividers may work well to help create protection among low cubicle and open plan benching workers. Use transparent and semi-transparent dividers between assigned work areas to let light filter through.

Cubicles like the Friant System 2 Workstation can act as partitions, too, and offer an attractive look.

Workstations


Photo: Enwork Zori

Many workstations are designed to accommodate employees to work facing each other, such as DeskMakers TeamWorx Open Plan Desking. Instead of workers directed toward a common point, workstations can be arranged where seating is back-to-back so your team members are facing away from each other, with six feet of spacing between seats. Fortunately, it’s easy to re-configure all parts of modular furniture including tabletops, panels and storage.

Benching solutions like the Friant Verity Open Plan Benching can have single sides or double sides. With the double sides, workers sit opposite each other. You can move the desks apart so they’re not flush up against each other and then use clear dividers to create space.

It’s easy to use table-top dividers with a set-up like the Friant Interra Cubicle where modular storage units can be used to create space between employees.

Tables and Rolling Whiteboards


Photo: DeskMakers ReFit

Place sleek tables around the office to mark at least six-feet of space where necessary. Office plants placed on counter tops bring a touch of nature indoors and freshen the air. Vary the shapes of tables by using furniture like the Arcadia Delen Table, a product which comes in circular and rectangular styles.

Rolling whiteboards have already been used as separators in open office settings. It’s a way to re-imagine meeting areas where employees can sit at a distance from each other. Select a variety of multi-purpose chairs or stools to vary seating heights and provide small tables for easy note taking.

Use Remote Co-working Spaces as Needed

You may find it more budget-smart to use outside co-working space instead of completely re-configuring an office. Companies were already leveraging co-working spaces before the coronavirus pandemic, according to Mark Gilbreath, the CEO of Liquidspace, a platform that helps companies access shared offices.

Keep In-person Meeting Attendees to a Minimum for Social Distancing


Photo: Trendway Clear Wall

The use of virtual meeting applications such as Zoom has become as commonplace as gathering with co-workers around the office water cooler.  You can now expect teleconferencing and streaming to remain a normal part of business communications. Consider architectural walls like OFS Obeya Architectural Structures as office solutions that can integrate well with video conferencing equipment including projectors and monitors.

Include Everyone when Creating Space in the Office


Photo: OFS Re: Benching

Person-to-person communication was much easier when people were expected to work primarily in the office. Announcements could be posted or messages passed along to an entire department. Now that some employees work remotely, ensure that your communication flow includes everybody. Don’t just send out important emails and expect people to automatically read and respond. Follow-up. Make personal phone calls or set up a phone chain to alert your team of special announcements and important topics.

Effective communication boosts morale like providing upbeat signage personalized with your brand to make people feel safe.

Share accurate health information from the CDC and your county’s public health department.

Remember to continue celebrating and acknowledging company and personal milestones to create camaraderie.

Get Expert Input and Guidance to Help with Social Distancing in the Office

Make use of expert space planning and project management to help get the results that benefit your company.

2010 Office Furniture is more than a source for purchasing quality modular office furniture. The team offers informed guidance in establishing and re-imagining office spaces for companies and non-profits of all sizes.

Tap into 2010 Office Furniture’s more than 45 years of combined experience working with Southern California’s most distinguished brands.

Contact them with your questions and needs.

Read Also:How to Help Protect Workers in Open Office Floor Plans from Covid-19
Main Photo by: Trendway Volo Wall
Resources & Special Thanks to Respective Product Manufacturers: Trendway, Groupe Lacasse, Enwork, DeskMakers & OFS

(IMPORTANT NOTICE: The recommendations on this article are NOT from health experts, and have not been medically tested nor proven as an effective cure or prevention for COVID-19 or any other diseases.)