It is nearly the end of covid-19 and after your company has been shut for more than 2 years, you might have to ask yourself these questions.
Is your company fit for reopening?
Are you going to make a big mistake if you are wanting to open the office?
These are common things that might come to your mind if you are in a managerial position in an office. You do not want to risk the health and safety of your employees but at the same time you still have to operate a business and a business survives by staying open.
So, what do you do?
In this blog, we will talk about this problem and we will also talk about a few important points that you need to consider yourself, if the answers to these points are positive then and only then can you safely open your office.
Local Authority Permission And Guidance
One of the best ways to ensure that your office is safe for operation and opening is to consult with the local health authorities. This local authority is may consist of any medical board officials and health officials of your state. You can also consult the opening of your office with health officials like the chief doctor at any hospital which is nearest to your office. You need to do this because these medical professionals are the only people that know the exact situation of Covid and if they tell you that it is still not okay to open the office as the cases are not going down or if the cases are seeing a sudden rise, then you must stop yourself from opening the office. You can also consult them regarding when will be the perfect time to open the office and when is the time that they can predict that the cases will go down enough to make it safer to open your office.
Employee Safety
Another important factor regarding opening officers is also dependent on what kind of office you have. If you have a large corporate office wherein you can alternatively have employees come in a way that the total occupancy is never over 50% then that is the best-case scenario. That way there will never be two people sitting next to each other and this can prevent the virus from spreading. You can also if you have the resources tell your employees to work from home and that is only possible in a few industries and a few scenarios. But if your office is a physical oriented office such as construction and other specialised manufacturing and accounts wherein 100% attendance is always needed and any other kind of office where human to human contact is mandatory, then it is impossible to maintain the 6 feet distance mandate to have employees safely working in that office. You simply have to wait for the virus to die down in your area to open the office.
Workspace Reconfiguration
One of the ways to prevent a covid transmission is the reorganisation of space. You can simply do this by employing the vacant areas in your office and spreading out the workforce so that no
2 individuals come close to each other. You can also take other measures like installing sanitization booths as well as body cleaning areas and a few more sanitation areas wherein the employees can clean their hands. Reconfigure can also mean allocating a percentage of the budget to buying various health equipment which is necessary for today’s post-pandemic days. This includes the purchase of masks and other safety gear so that the employees do not have to pay out of their pockets and this can encourage them to follow hygiene.
Health Monitoring of Employees
Health monitoring may seem quite new to your industry but in a few industries such as pharma and food industries and other sensitive manufacturing industries, this is quite common. If you can ensure that a part of your workforce is engaged in medical training and can be assigned to the regular health monitoring of the other employees then it is possible to stop any virus breakouts in the office. This can be achieved by consulting any nursing home and hospital and assigning a part of the management team to go through medical training so that they are equipped and trained enough to identify symptoms so that they can monitor the other employees and if some of these employees feel sick or do not behave normally then they can immediately report it to HR so that they can decide to close down the office.
Regular Health Training
Regular health training includes training a part of your workforce in handling hygiene and in maintaining hygiene. This is also a crucial time when you can hire experts and trained workers to help in the housekeeping and other plumbing and cleaning services and you can hire these people from any reputed facility management company in India. We would suggest that you hire experts in this case because taking hygiene and sanitization into your hands, especially during a time when a dangerous virus is going about is not only risky it is irresponsible.
Carrying Out a Census
A workspace must always be a democratic place wherein all the employees must agree to something and only then should this something be enacted. This also goes true for Covid and you must conduct a poll where you can ask all the employees to fill up a form to see if they agree to the opening of the office and if all of them or a certain majority agree to the proposition of the office opening, then you can think about opening the office. This is a good step because it will also allow you to avoid personal responsibility, especially when the health of so many people is at stake.
These were a few of the important points you must consider if you want to open your office after Covid. If you want to open your office and you are looking for a reliable facilities management company that can handle everything from regular cleaning, plumbing to regular housekeeping as well as advanced cleaning and virus disinfection then you can always reach out to us at DMM Facility Management Pvt Ltd because we are the most trusted housekeeping service provider in India and there is no facility that we can’t manage and sanitize.