What measures, if any, are your workplaces taking?

[bilboraggins]

Curious to know the types of organisations and different measures.

I work for a corporate and UK travel has stopped and all external meetings have to be changed to teleconferences.

My husband also works for a corporate and they have dotted hand sanitizer all over the office but no other measures yet

Both still expected in the office as usual

Not a lot. A few emails with basically just reminders about handwashing.
Think there are bans for any work travel to the regions affected.
Vague mentions about possible supplier impacts.
Have supplied extra sanitizer foam and wipes.
Not sure if its company wide or just our department, but were sent a little business continuity questionnaire. Asking if we had a company car etc. And probably more importantly if we had a PC at home and were prepared to use it for work.
I expect there is a lot more going on we are unaware of. Setting up for home working being one of them, as there are probably a great number that are not.

They’ve banned external meetings and training courses and we’ve had a few “keep calm and carry on” type emails assuring us our welfare is important to them 😀. To be fair there are lots of anti-bac dispensers around all departments plus packs of wipes placed near printers etc. We’ve also noticed more cleaners in the building and they’re paying attention to things like doors, stair rails, lift buttons etc which I think are usually overlooked.

Unfortunately they’re a very conservative company and have always been reluctant to allow WFH so only a tiny number of staff have company laptops and the telephony set up is designed for bums on seats, not people logging in off site. That’s biting them on the ass now as they’re scrambling to get more laptops, sort out IT and so on. If they had to close the building there’s a good chance they’ll only have skeleton staff available to try keep things going. I suspect plenty of other companies are in the same boat 😬.

I work in a huge office. We have sanitiser on our desks plus tissues (!)

Been told not to travel unless we absolutely have to (abroad) and we've had to tell them what holidays we have planned.

People coming to our office have to sign a form saying which countries they've been to recently which means there is a queue out onto the street every morning.

They have wfh plans in place and as far as I can see are just waiting for someone to get it before putting them in place. Which I think is fucking mad.

I am making sure I don't take public transport and am wfh as often as possible on the slightest pretext.

Two jobs.

First there's always industrial antibac handsoap and santizer but the latter have been upped to more locations. Doesn't state it's for current situation, but there's a Tel no gone up fo if you have any personal worries/anxieties.

Second job a school, I'm disgusted -nothing

Large London business. Suspected cases in company (being tested). Nothing being done apart from some inadequate hand sanitizer (under 60%)

We've had a week's Mockdown this week, we shut the London office as a Business Continuity test, timed to avoid what our exec had predicted would be the virus-spread tipping point (not doctors, but generally smart tech people).

Working from home has been advocated for anyone who needs/wants it.

Travelling off peak, also encouraged.

Sanitizer in place (don't know what %abv as we're on Mockdown).

Business travel cancelled.

Training courses/meetings of 100+ people switched to online meetings.

Two weeks mandatory work from home upon return from any holiday.

I'm self employed and work from home so not applicable.

DP works for an international company engineering company and he usually travels extensively. He is officially home based but generally only works from home 3 or 4 days per month.
3 weeks ago all travel to China was banned.
On Tuesday all business travel outside of employees resident country was banned.

Today travel to UK office was prohibited for British employees who live outside of the local area where the office is based (roughly 12 employees are based around the UK) Showing and visits to business exhibitions were banned and domestic visits to customers must only to take place if customer confirms they are happy to receive visits.

All restrictions are provisionally in place for the next 28 days and will be reviewed in 21 days and may be extended.

Large, global company. No travel to or from affected areas for weeks now. No non-business critical travel to Asia for a couple of weeks at least. And then this week we moved to no non-business critical travel at all, even within country without sign off.

Add to that, I am based in a manufacturing site, along with about 800 other office staff. So now we are not allowed external visitors on site, have to self-check for symptoms every day before going in, and we will soon all be temperature checked before going into the office (once they manage to buy some scanners!).

I can work from home, so will do that more I think, but I do find I miss interaction if I don’t go in at least a couple of times a week.

Business as normal. No face masks or extra PPE. No extra hand sanitizer.
1 email about what to do if you’ve been in contact/ travelled and have symptoms.
Coronavirus pod next door to the department (I work in AED).

Large tech company
Just following government advice.
Reminders about hand washing.
No travel bans. We’re mostly UK based anyway but still travelling to other offices and clients.
Everyone is set up to work from home already so being reminded to take home laptops (and chargers) every night
Considering postponing some of the events we run for customers and employees but not decided yet.

Oh yes and guidelines for managers if one of their team develops symptoms or returns from a high risk country

Yep I’ve been grounded with no UK traffic unless urgent and if that’s the case car travel only no public transport, I WFH and the head offices are sending those who are able to, to work from home, offices sanitised and any sign of illness to go home.

Traffic = travel

Public sector. We had an informative email.

Civil service
Business as usual but we can't get any hand sanitiser to put onsite so doing the hand wash reminders and posters
My role particularly, I'm doing background planning for my site so although official word is 'business as usual' we are being asked for local planning incase of reduced staff so I'm doing a lot of that.
I'm sure public facing side of the building are doing their planning as well but my bit is separate to them

NHS. Mental health not physical health. Currently business as usual and no emergency plan that I am aware of.

ifonly4; I work in a school and feel the same. We are having a hand washing lesson next week that was planned into timetable 2 weeks ago that’s it. No meetings or info, not even hand soap or gel supplied in staff toilets . I am disgusted

NHS - nothing really.

Often work as a GP locum in places where soap and hand gel have run out - I carry my own. And most of the bins don't flip open properly so you have to touch them to dispose of paper towel. It can be a struggle to find a paper roll to cover the examination couch.

That's the baseline. So not feeling optimistic. Since there is precisely no change from this.

Have a mask fitting appointment next week. Hasn't been confirmed and not getting answer to my email re location so who knows. Have had to set up childcare to cover going.

Also worked in ED today where x2 viral people turned up to get checked because they weren't happy with their GP's perfectly adequate telephone advice. They hadn't travelled but made it through triage with no evidence anyone had actually checked. Waiting room then consultation room. Managed to find some hard surface wipes so cleaned the door handles, computer keys and mouse - a Brucie bonus there!

OOH tomorrow - three GP shifts uncovered so really looking forward to manning the base on my own - this will be especially frustrating as I have to spend hours trying to arrange complicated hospital transfers for swabs and treatment in isolation. Threats of complaints as usual and people walking in without appointments.

Have three shifts in OOH booked - usually book a month ahead but will need to see how this pans out. I don't want to work without PPE and there just isn't enough to go round apparently

None.

International tech company -

Last week - wash hands more, we’ve installed more hand sanitiser dispensers and please avoid handshakes.

This week -
International travel is paused for now, and we will be holding our meetings primarily online. They’ve asked that we also consider limiting our domestic work and if we can use zoom or phone calls when we’d usually go in person.
Anyone who has a compromised immune system should work from home, anyone who wishes to work from home may work from home, and we’re having a test day next week where we all have to work outside the office to make sure our systems would cope if we have to close another office (we have offices in hotspots) and if anyone is diagnosed with the virus even if they would not usually be eligible for company sick they will be paid for it, and should anyone have to self contain, they will be paid in full for it.

I appreciate that even if it may seem like overkill to some, they are taking it seriously and have removed any financial worry from us.

Big corporate too.

No business related foreign travel. Travel for meetings / events assessed week by week. Big events in April and May postponed. Hand sanitiser everywhere and able to WFH as and when we like.

NHS organisation - we have been advised that it's business as normal so travel is still fine (not sure why it shouldn't be tbh), we've got to wipe desks and equipment down every night and we have some new posters about hand washing etc. We have to take laptops home every night as a precaution.

Aside from all that, our main focus is on what we actually need to do for the public and that we're as ready as we can be for any sort of ramp up.

NHS
Yesterday we were told our dept wouldn’t be getting fitted for masks so we requested a policy on wtf we are supposed to do with infected patients. Today we were told they would see about getting some of us fitted.

Some bossy emails telling us a ward rumoured to be being prepared for Coronavirus patients is actually for flu patients and we have no provision for Coronavirus patients so don’t put on Facebook that we have. Not sure if they meant that in a reassuring way.

It's ironic NHS preparation is so poor.

Not really feeling the risks we are taking are appreciated. It's a really isolated position to be in hearing of other workplaces taking precautions and parliament possibly being suspended.

We are dealing with the double whammy of the coronavirus patients (plus the extra work of the worried well) and essentially no workplace precautions. One of these may be part of the job but the other could be addressed if anyone gave two hoots.

Two jobs.

Public sector - nothing, not even hand-gel. I stuck a poster up.

My own private work - have cancelled everything after this weekend except video conferencing and things I can do from home. In the meantime carrying hand-gel and anti-bac wipes, masks and gloves.