How to protect your office and employees from COVID-19?

Although the coronavirus still poses a real threat, more and more offices and workplaces are deciding to abandon home office tasks and return to normal work routines. However, during this general relaxation, we must not forget that the pandemic is still ongoing, and not following the guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization and health authorities may result in infections among employees and quarantine for the entire workplace.

Hands Full of Work

Despite the fact that in the 21st century there are many ways to work remotely and more professions can be performed without leaving the home computer screen, returning to the office often involves more efficient information exchange and task coordination, especially in companies that have not previously experienced remote working. Meetings in conference rooms and daily briefings not only bring benefits but also pose the risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus among participants. Properly securing the workplace against such an eventuality is not easy and requires serious attention, but all efforts are worth achieving the desired effect by everyone who visits or works in the office – ensuring the highest level of hygiene and thus avoiding further spread of the worldwide raging disease. How to achieve this? Here are some of the most important things to remember.

1. Designated Hand Sanitizing Station

One of the simplest and most effective ways to avoid coronavirus infection is hand hygiene. Alcohol-based disinfectants recommended by the World Health Organization containing at least 60% ethanol have proven virucidal activity and are highly effective against enveloped viruses (including COVID-19), so their presence in the office has a significant impact on the health of those who work there daily. However, it is not enough to stock up on one bottle of disinfectant and hope that employees or clients will remember to use it.

The hand sanitizer dispenser should be highly visible and located in the common lobby or right before the entrance to the workspace. To ensure no one misses the opportunity to use the dispenser, it is good to place it – or at least information about it and the need to use it – at eye level. Although it may be challenging in some buildings due to open layouts or the inability to mount the dispenser directly on the wall, there are solutions to circumvent these issues.

Tabletop dispensers work well, placed directly on tables or on surfaces of other furniture near the entrance, requiring no installation and easy to move if needed, but if not properly marked, they can be overlooked. Moreover, most of these dispensers are operated by hand, which significantly reduces the hygiene level around the sanitizing point. The best effect can be achieved by using professional automatic stand-alone dispensers, which use motion sensors for touchless spraying of disinfectant mist. This form of dispensing not only reduces the risk of transferring bacteria and viruses to the surface of the body but also avoids unnecessary mess as these types of dispensers do not drip and stain the surfaces they are placed on.

An alternative that brings even more benefits is the use of specialized stands for disinfectant dispensers. Equipped with properly weighted bases and suitable for many models of elbow and touchless dispensers, they are highly visible and come with information boards where you can place company logos (if the sanitizing station is in a public part of the office) or handwashing instructions and other useful information (if these stands are in warehouse spaces, for example). These sanitizing stations handle high-traffic areas well and are an elegant and durable solution, versatile and ensuring the highest level of hygiene.

2. Distance Between Workstations and Social Distancing

Maintaining appropriate distance from others, particularly challenging in small offices and places visited by many employees, is as important as hand hygiene. COVID-19, like many other viruses and bacteria, spreads through droplets, meaning that every sneeze and cough of an infected person releases tiny droplets. These, floating freely in the air, carry the virus and can be inhaled into the lungs by healthy people who are too close. Remember that the risk of these particles entering our bodies arises even during a simple conversation, so it is crucial to ensure a sufficient distance between people in the workplace at all times.

Currently, the World Health Organization recommends maintaining at least one meter distance – and this is a good practice to follow in common areas – but regarding workstations, in Poland, there is an additional regulation from the Council of Ministers from May 2, 2020, establishing specific restrictions, orders, and prohibitions related to the state of the epidemic. According to its provisions, the employer is obliged to ensure a distance of one and a half meters between workstations, or if this is not possible, provide personal protective equipment (such as masks and gloves). How to avoid such unnecessary expenses while ensuring a high level of hygiene in the office space?

Rearranging the furniture is unfortunately the easiest and most beneficial step. However, if it is not possible, you can still increase the distance between people working in one place by excluding some desks from use and delegating the employees who use them to work remotely. It is essential to appropriately mark excluded workstations, using red tape in the shape of an "x" on the desktop, and around the occupied ones, place "protection zones" on the floor, so anyone wanting to consult with their colleague will know where to stop to avoid spreading viruses and bacteria on the keyboard, mouse, and other equipment used by the other person.

While preparing our workplaces to fight the coronavirus, we must not only focus on the desks in the main rooms but also secure other common areas within the office. Maintaining appropriate distance during conversations is important at all times, not just while sitting at the workstation, and small conference rooms and office kitchens, where large groups often gather, are often neglected and not given enough attention when preparing the company for the epidemic. Meanwhile, increasing safety in these areas can usually be achieved by removing half of the chairs (or marking every other seat with tape) to increase the distance between users, and designating standing spots on the floor at appropriate intervals in queues to the microwave or coffee machine. Another idea worth considering, if possible, is designating one-way corridors, ensuring that even in narrow passageways, employees do not have to reduce the distance between themselves.

3. Rigorous Hand and Workspace Hygiene

Setting up a hand sanitizing station equipped with alcohol-based cleaning agents (or providing employees with disposable gloves) is mandatory, but very often skin disinfection is remembered only when arriving at and leaving the workplace. Studies published by the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene show that in office conditions, while performing various tasks, we touch our faces with our hands almost 16 times per hour. This means that even if employees use disinfectant upon entering the company and stay at their desks most of the time, they can carry the COVID-19 virus on their hands to other places – such as the common bathroom. Can the risk of such disease spread be reduced?

First and foremost, it is worth focusing on the human factor and promoting among office workers frequent and thorough hand cleaning and maintaining order around the workspace. Infographics with proper hand washing instructions placed in appropriate locations (near the entrance sanitizer dispenser, in the office kitchen, and next to sinks in bathrooms) will help maintain the highest level of hygiene in shared spaces, while small, handy bottles of disinfectant placed individually on desks will encourage employees to disinfect their hands more regularly and give them a sense of comfort and safety. Desks free of too many various documents, pens, and other unnecessary items will allow quick, thorough, and frequent cleaning with professional cleaning agents, significantly facilitating maintaining a level of hygiene that will greatly reduce the risk of infection during daily work.

Let's also remember that even small changes can positively affect the overall cleanliness level in the workplace. Buying antibacterial liquid soap for the company's bathroom and kitchen dispensers instead of regular soap does not incur much higher costs but allows more bacteria and viruses to be eliminated during hand washing. More frequent desk cleaning and sanitizing common areas with appropriate detergents eliminate places where the coronavirus might transfer to the hands of careless employees. And while the optimal solution would be to sanitize the office three times a day – before work starts, during work hours, and after all employees have left the office – any increase in cleaning frequency significantly reduces the risk of an infection wave in the company.

Safety First

The COVID-19 pandemic, according to WHO data as of mid-July 2020, has already killed nearly 600,000 people worldwide – and unfortunately, there is no indication that it will disappear from our lives anytime soon. Thanks to the quick response of many governments, a surge in infections was avoided, but numerous restrictions have severely impacted many industries. There is no denying that running businesses during a global quarantine is extremely difficult, but all additional precautions and maintaining high hygiene levels in the workplace are necessary and fully justified. An example can be the situation in Kępno, Wielkopolska. In one of the local furniture factories, a coronavirus outbreak affected 297 out of 966 employees. Fortunately, most infected people were asymptomatic, but this case perfectly illustrates how quickly COVID-19 can spread and how significantly its appearance can affect the operation of a business.

The safest form of running a company is still limiting human contact. Optimally – in the form of remote work whenever possible. Fortunately, there are many programs and services (even free ones) that facilitate communication and collaboration between employees. Notable mentions include communicators like Skype, Slack, and Zoom for video conferencing, Google Drive for creating and sharing documents, and Dropbox for quickly downloading large files. There are many ways to organize work efficiently in a home office setup, and it is worth thoroughly considering this topic, but if this solution is not entirely satisfactory and you still want employees to meet directly in the office and feel safe, consider introducing shift work, where half of the company's staff works at their usual workstations, while the other half remains at home, performing their tasks online. After two weeks, a shift can take place, allowing "office" employees to work from the safety of their homes while "home" employees return to their desks.

This way, you can be sure that even in the worst case, only half of the staff will be quarantined.

Ryszard Kurek