Gale Moutrey, global vice-president of brand and workplace innovation for Steelcase, talks about how employers can make offices safer for workers.
Employers are urged to make offices compelling and safe as businesses prepare to reopen
People have talked about the workplace going away for the past four decades. There’s one thing that hasn’t changed: that is the fact that work is inherently social.
Working from home will continue postpandemic. But so will going to the office. That means employers will have to make the workplace sufficiently compelling and safe for their employees if they want to encourage the kind of collaboration and innovation companies need to thrive.
“People have talked about the workplace going away for the past four decades. There’s one thing that hasn’t changed; that is the fact that work is inherently social,” said Gale Moutrey, global vice-president of brand and workplace innovation for Steelcase, a 108-year-old office, hospital and classroom furniture and design company based in Michigan.
She and Ben Avery, the Steelcase vicepresident of regional sales for Eastern Canada, spoke about the changing workplace as part of the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s “Road to Recovery” webcasts aimed at helping Toronto-area businesses regain their momentum in the emerging COVID-19 economy.
The future workplace will incorporate home-based work and satellite offices to accommodate workers in big urban centres where commutes and lineups to the elevators will present challenges in a pre-vaccine environment, said Moutrey. How many people work from home remains to be seen, said Avery. He cited a recent poll of 450 business leaders that showed more than half were willing to have 25 to 75 per cent of their employees’ time spent working at home.
Only three per cent to eight per cent were contemplating having employees work at home full-time and 91 per cent said they were prepared for some kind of work at home.
But that isn’t a huge change from Steelcase research of four years ago that found 79 per cent of companies were prepared to support work at home for the vast majority of their employees, he said.
It’s important for employers to understand that most of their employees will struggle with issues such as family, space constraints and a sense of isolation when they’re at home, said Avery.
“Work at home can lead to a disconnection with your employees. You don’t want to have that happen,” said Avery.
Companies are going slow in adapting their workspaces with dividers and rearranging furniture, he said.
Employers are focusing on behaviour changes and bringing back their employees slowly, he said.
Among the findings and suggestions that Avery and Moutrey offered were:
Companies are using lowcost solutions including removing chairs from meeting rooms to maintain distance and creating temporary screens from recyclable materials.
Ninety-two per cent of openplan office designs provided by Steelcase don’t provide appropriate distancing if fully occupied.
Steelcase’s Toronto-area clients are overwhelmingly hearing that employees are reluctant to return to work, an experience that extends in their minds from the minute they leave home including public transit, parking garages, elevator safety.
Avery said companies will be more successful if they take a change management approach that helps their employees feel safe. Don’t assume all workers are starting from the same knowledge of COVID-19, he said.
Align their knowledge of how the virus is being addressed in the workplace and the entire building.
Give workers mechanisms to communicate their concerns and show them how the space will function when they come back to work by sharing entry protocols so they’re not taken off guard when somebody takes their temperature or gives them a mask.
Prepare visitors for any protocols your office may be using such as temperature checks or masks.