Offices still have a vital role to play

Douglas Garden, project and building consultancy partner at Ryden in Aberdeen, tells The P&J returning to the workplace can be a positive experience

For those of us who ordinarily occupy what is now considered a “nonessential” office, the latest government guidance to pause our return until September 14 was an anti-climax and felt by many to perhaps be overly cautious.

R e c e n t e v e n t s surrounding the cluster of positive Covid-19 cases in Aberdeen is, however, a timely reminder that we must keep our guard up.

On the bright side, the additional time provides an opportunity to make sure all the plans prepared for a safe and sustainable return to the office can be checked, refined and communicated to staff in advance, which should make for a smoother transition back.

For most office dwellers the move to home working was relatively simple to implement and those firms which had invested heavily in their IT infrastructure, platforms and processes reaped the reward.

Perhaps less straightforward are the processes and procedures for returning to the workplace while the virus remains in our midst.

Every workplace and the staff working in them will have a unique set of challenges to overcome.

The guidance provided by the government is useful, but the onus is on the employer to navigate the directions and develop their own specific procedures. There is no one-size-fits-all document on how to do this and many opposing views.

In my opinion, the procedures should involve the preparation of a specific risk assessment to fully understand the practical issues around implementing social distancing and how this may affect office capacity, size and arrangement of teams, work patterns and the like.

Identification of risks and control measures to mitigate them are the best way to make sure all reasonable precautions have been taken.

There are many considerations to achieve a safe and well-managed return to the workplace and these can simply be grouped into two main themes – building management and people.

In some cases nonessential offices have been lying idle for months and will require checks to ensure they are operating safely and effectively before staff reoccupy.

This extended period of home working has been a great opportunity to complete essential maintenance which may otherwise have been done outwith normal hours.

Occupiers and landlords should, therefore, consider taking advantage of this period to save unnecessary overtime costs.

The protocols required for people management can be further divided into the workstation setting to understand the risks around social distancing. Arguably the higher-risk areas are circulation routes, communal facilities and anywhere with a touch point.

With careful planning, many simple adjustments can be made without incurring high cost at a time when management of cash flow will be a priority.

Much has been written about this pandemic heralding the “death of the office”. By contrast, I subscribe to the view this experience has shown us the value of the office.

Many of us can work from home but it’s not for everyone and the collaboration which breeds in the office is undoubtedly suppressed when the key ingredients are isolated.

We will eventually see a positive output from this period, changing how we use the office, managing our working day and applying our resources.

We should strive towards a new way of working which is more agile, resourceful and productive. The office will play a pivotal role in delivering this.

VISION: Douglas Garden said we should strive towards a new way of working