What will offices look like?

[TazSyd]

I haven’t been into my office since 13th March working from home). I was told last week that I’m not expected in until September, unless something urgent comes up. Some people are going back from July, it’s dependent on job role. I’ve always done 2 days from home and 3 days in the office, before all this, so that will probably stay the same from September.

I was talking to our facilities manager on messenger last night. She has been in to organise a few things:

The smaller meeting rooms will be locked.
The room booking system will change - so the boardroom that used to fit 16 will now only fit 8 (and they’re going to remove half the chairs). Big meetings will have to be done online.
We’re having a Perspex screen fitted at reception.
They’ve bulk bought masks for staff (and visitors, if we have any).
Bulk bought hand sanitizer to have around the office.
The cleaners hours will increase and they will be using virus killing products around the office.

A lot of this would have seemed odd a few months ago. Just wondering if other companies will be doing the same sort of thing, or more or less?

i am still working:
zoom meetings,
2 metre distancing.

although back to back and side to side working was mentioned for the future
no face to face.

Massive open plan office. Corridors & walk ways one way with barriers, meeting rooms closed, group meeting tables in open areas removed, cleaning supplies available in multiple locations, desks removed to allow 2 metres, hand sanitiser on entrances & dotted around, disposable masks available at entrances. Coffee outlets closed, the only food available is pre packaged.

This is head office of a pharmacy chain though so I'd expect them to be shit hot

Max 25% capacity at the moment as well, manager approval needed to go in

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/14/what-could-a-physically-distanced-uk-look-like-after-lockdown?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1TOyJ-a8hV4oblAy4Kt1fhUQ8Z4fGvMSyHCskhXeDrbtmk0nhq_2n-yhg#Echobox=1592129365

Banks of 12 desks will sit 4 people, provided they can be moved so that people can socially distance when moving around the desks (so not too close to walls).
They are switching off our electronic reception screens as they are touch-operated, people will need to call on their own mobiles.
Someone is sobbing in a corner trying to design one way systems through our 1m wide corridors.

DH is military and he says that they are BAU in offices!

I won’t see it til September, as my manager says that in reality he can’t see me being called in before that, as I can do 100% from home.

The colleagues that are going back earlier have roles that they can’t do 100% from home.

I think that they are relying on only having 25% to 50% of the workforce in at one time and by September (when more of us are back in) the R rate will have dropped enough for the measures above to be enough.

there is not meant to be hot desking i read in the paper however I am hot desking, but giving everything a wipe over, and using my own pen

Just wondering what to expect!

Interesting guardian article, thanks for sharing.

I don’t imagine ours will change at all because it would probably mean spending money! My boss would rather keep us WFH till things ‘go back to normal’ I imagine.

The other thing our FM said is that she is removing chairs from every alternate desk and taping signs across the desks with no chairs, to say that no one can sit there, due to social distancing. (Have no idea where they are storing all these chairs).

I'm in FM (kind of). We've taken chairs, keyboards etc from desks where we don't want people to sit, and put dots on desks that can be used.
No eating in the canteen. One at a time in the toilets. One way system around some parts of the offices which doesn't work, meeting rooms have signs on to say how many people can use them, Hand sanitiser everywhere, chap at reception taking temperatures, booking system for desks if you're not identified as having to be in the office. Increased cleaning.

It's very quiet everywhere.

I wonder what's going to happen to all the co-working hubs if hot desking isn't going to be allowed for the foreseeable. Can't desks be wiped down between users?

@cologne4711

I read that one of the big ones is in serious financial trouble.

We are going to downsize our office space and move to increased home working permanently. People will still go into the office but more like once a week as opposed to every day.

@blusterylake

Yes, I think we will have more people doing more from home. Which leads me to wonder how big commercial landlords will fare.

Our Offices will prob have sanitiser but there was not enough room anyway and our jobs cannot be done from home permantely but we won't go back until November I disagree with the guardian there is not enough room in the world let alone country to social distance e.g trains /buses to get back to work.

We have been told we are not allowed to go into the office if we are ever ill even with a sniffle but I can't see much else changing . We have been told we cannot work from home permantely but we can a couple of times per week

gosh, ,i cannot believe where i work will change its sickness policy!
on your 4th episode in the year it creates some sort of issue, which really does need looking at.

@crowded

Yes, usually an occupational health issue. HR / your manager will look into why you are off sick. This could be anything from taking the piss (a young employee on my team was phoning in sick every Friday as he’d been out the night before) to another employee who needed support due to ongoing MH issues.

@CrowdedHouseinQuarantine

We don’t know how this is going to play out yet, but if employers are sending staff home if they have a high temp, or a sniffle, then the investigation caused by that 4 instances of sickness will be self explanatory. This shouldn’t be an issue for employees in contracted hours but will likely be an issue for people on 0 hours contracts.

Our office opened for a small number of people last week. They said they were allocating the desks a day of the week and were spread out accordingly, so two Monday desks weren't next to each other etc. We've always had a hot desk set up so I guess this stops people accidentally sharing a desk over a couple of days. Each person is also restricted to one floor, meeting rooms have to be booked through the facilities staff so they can be cleaned between meetings, and there's a one way system in place. I'm not one of the people who have gone back, and unless the social distancing rules are relaxed I doubt I'll be in any time soon. Since they are encouraging virtual meetings for people who've gone back into the office anyway, I don't really know why they've bothered having people back in. If you're not meeting face to face and sitting really far away from each other, you may as well be at home in my opinion.
This is at a massive international company.

@Meredithgrey1

Yes, I wonder if they are trialling things now and hoping the R rate keeps going down, so they can gradually get more staff in. I think it’s going to increase working from home, for those that can though - not sure if we can go back from this.