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What are your employee's biggest concerns coming back to office?
by Martin Straus, April 1st 2021
With COVID-19 lockdowns lifting worldwide, bringing employees safely back to the workplace is a top priority for management teams everywhere.
To achieve this goal, companies are adapting quickly and making the necessary changes to keep their employees healthy, focused and productive.
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Boosting workplace hygiene
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Limiting person-to-person contact
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Providing personal protective equipment (PPE)
Despite these measures, a recent survey showed that a shocking 68% of employees feel unsafe in their physical office space.
Perhaps most surprising was the 23% who reported they would consider a new job over coming back to a site that did not implement adequate safety measures.
In today’s fast-moving, highly-competitive landscape, talent is one of your most precious assets; their safety and well being is vital to the success and future growth of your business. Let’s take a closer look at some of your employee’s biggest concerns coming back to the office and how you can help ease the transition.
Back to the office anxiety.
Having worked from home for some time now, many employees are reluctant to make the transition back, many of them expressing concern for their health and well-being. A study by Envoy found that some of the most common employee concerns coming back to the office include:
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Overcrowding and coming into contact with someone sick
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Lack of proper ventilation
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Inadequate and infrequent hygiene
The themes of social distancing and inadequate hygiene in the workplace were also reflected in a US study by Perceptx.
The workplace of the future.
It’s up to management teams to make the proper risk assessment, reinvent the workspace and enforce measures to make their employees feel safe and confident to come back to the office. Although there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for all workplaces, there are a few general measures you can take to elevate employee confidence, resilience and trust.
23%
of employees would consider a new job over coming back to a site without adequate safety measures.
MEASURE 1
Enforce social distancing and track employee health
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Change the layout of your workspace to allow for social distancing of at least one meter.
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Create shifts and give employees the option to work from home part-time to avoid overcrowding at the office.
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Add touchless technologies, track symptoms, and automate the reservation of workspaces.
Proper handwashing reduces respiratory illnesses, in the general population by
16-21%
MEASURE 2
Provide personal protective equipment
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Provide a back-to-work kit for employees that are newly back at the office. It can include PPE, new office rules/guidelines, hand sanitiser and other welcoming supplies to make them feel safe.
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Ensure that any visitors (e.g. customers, external teams, etc.) also follow the internal PPE requirements and have access to the necessary equipment.
MEASURE 3
Encourage hygiene best practices
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Make sure hand sanitiser is available in every prominent place of the office, and they’re filled at all times.
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Add touchless technologies in washrooms to reduce contamination and encourage more people to wash their hands.
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Ensure proper hygiene guidelines are available and visible throughout the workplace, so your employees don’t forget.
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Create sanitation breaks for your employees to facilitate regular cleaning of workstations. This makes it easier for cleaning staff to do their work effectively.
Above all,
employees want to know that companies care about their well-being. Clear communication, transparency, and empathy from employers will be key to creating a thriving, healthy workplace that employees are confident to rejoin.
Make Intellimix part of your back-to-work plan
Proper handwashing is a prominent guideline across organisations like the WHO, the CDC and the International Labour Organisation, which isn’t surprising when you consider:
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One in four office workers doesn’t wash their hands after using the washroom.
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95% of people cut corners when washing their hands.
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The economic loss associated with infections that can be avoided through proper hand hygiene in Europe is €7 billion per year.
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Proper handwashing reduces respiratory illnesses, like colds, in the general population by 16-21%.
Ideal Standard’s Intellimix is changing all that with its new, touchless, handwashing solution. With Intellimix, the handwashing process is automated, ensuring that each wash is effective and thorough with just the right amount of soap and water 100% of the time.
Check out our website and find out more about how Intellimix can make your return to work safer, more comfortable and more productive.
Intellimix®
is a product of
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