Is It Safe For Your Staff to Return to The Office?
As a manager of a business, this should be a question you ask yourself every day in the lead-up to your employees returning to work as normal. Is it safe? Are all correct health and safety measures in place? Should I be holding a Health and Safety Risk Assessment? Is there anything else I can do? These are just a few of the burning questions that would cross your mind at this time, but what can be done about it?
What can you do?
- Look at why your staff don’t want to come back to the office.
- Understand what their problem is and discuss it with them to generate a better understanding.
- Re-assure them that you will do and do everything you can to help eliminate their problem.
- Make sure the space provided around the office is COVID-19 safe.
For example, one reason employees may not want to return to the office is because they believe cleaning and hygiene will not be implemented to a high enough standard. Our suggestion is to have new COVID-19 guidelines in place, so your staff feel safe in your business location. These can include:
– Placing signs around the building with clear instructions on:
- What distance people should keep between them.
- How many people are allowed at the same time in a room?
– Making available hand sanitiser and anti-bacterial spray in every room.
– Asking your staff to disinfect the table and any other objects used in meeting rooms.
– Asking your staff to disinfect their workstation before they start their day as well as when they are finished.
These are just a few simple measures that can help employees feel safer as they know there are ways to reduce the risk of COVID spreading.
Looking at the possible reasons why your staff may not want to return to the office is crucial. If employees are not happy, it can have a massive impact on the quality of work they produce for the business. A small price to pay for the health and wellbeing of your staff, right?
Our health and safety experts can help you with a workplace Health and Safety Assessment to measure the COVID-19 Risk in your organisation so you can learn the exact measures to implement to make your staff feel safe and motivate them to return to the office.