Hi Everyone, just as governors are regionally deciding how to reopen their economies, it's probably time we started thinking about what getting back to work looks like for us. And, just as governors are leaning on each other for ideas and coordination, we can benefit from discussing strategies as a group. To that end, I wanted to get your feedback about how we think we should "return to work" as we have stay at home orders being lifted in coming weeks.
Ultimately our leadership teams will have to decide what makes sense for our companies, but they shouldn't have to make these decisions alone, and I believe we can help them by suggesting ideas and potential best practices crowdsourced from across the industry of sustainability professionals. One interesting thing about this is that we are all going through it at the same time, for the first time, so there are truly no established "right" answers or "experts" to many of the questions about returning to work.
(Admittedly there are certainly guidelines from public health authorities, but they don't answer everything, and we'll have to figure some things for ourselves. But if you want to share guidelines you've found useful, by all means please do. And, don’t be bashful, if your company has come up with something you think is good don’t hold back. I’ve attached something I’ve found very helpful from Marguiles Perruzzi, especially pages 5-6 and 8-10.)
I think based on how much time we invest in studying occupant health, occupant behavior, building systems and operations, and various related topics, we are pretty well situated to generate some good ideas. Granted, a lot of this might traditionally fall to "HR", but I don't necessarily see them as any more versed in these issues than we are. Here are some pieces to contemplate:
- What family considerations and support should be offered with schools still closed when the offices reopen?
- What are appropriate levels of protocol within the reopened office: hand sanitizer, social distancing guidelines, temperature checks, masks, gloves, etc.
- If we try to implement staggered office days, what is the best way? Red team and Blue team office days? Mandatory work from home opposite days? Going by the seating chart (when there is one) and using that for alternating office days to ensure social distancing?
- What additional steps can be taken in the immediate in the office to make you feel safe? What about long term? Touchless everything?
- What is the right frequency for whole-office professional cleaning? Do we need training videos for staff to understand their own responsibilities for keeping the work environment contamination free?
- Do we expect our employers where we are tenants to work with landlords to increase outdoor air delivery and set up monitoring that we have access to? IAQ monitoring for all offices?
- What about benefits to people during the COVID crisis such as an Employee Financial Assistance Fund to support those that may fall on hard times because of this crisis, may fall ill themselves or have a spouse lose employment? What things are we not doing that we should be?
- What would be your recommendation in regards to remote working moving forward?
- If offering an indefinite timeline for anyone to work from home, how do we measure productivity and accountability? How do we ensure collaboration? What could we tell our employers to help manage efficiency?
- What does our culture look like if/while we continue the remote work model indefinitely, and how do teams and the company maintain culture?
- This is going to sound kind of silly, but what the hell do we do about bathrooms? I've read a number of studies pointing to toilet flushing as a very real source of disseminating a viral/bacterial plume, but the recommended fix is closing the "lid" which our commercial offices likely don't have. Is there any way to stagger usage to keep people separated and safe?
- What about break rooms? Off-limits for time being, along with refrigerator access?
Those are just a few ideas that our employers are going to need to address in the coming weeks that I'm sure we could help them with for those with suggestions. I certainly welcome any additional points to the list as well.
It's probably too big of an ask considering how busy we all are, but in my ideal world we could create a cross-industry resource guide from our sustainability designers, engineers, and builders of approaches to take when restarting for the office, updating the HVAC, and getting back to the construction site. Thanks in advance, and be well and be safe
