Making Moves

Our Post-Covid Back to Work Strategy

Whilst details around Covid-19 are still up in the air, it’s natural to start thinking about getting back to

By Making Moves London

Back to Work Office

Whilst details around Covid-19 are still up in the air, it’s natural to start thinking about getting back to work. Every employer has a duty of care to its employees to ensure their work space is clean, hygienic and free of diseases. Here’s our strategy on how we’re getting our staff back to the office safely.

Making Moves are a tight-knit team, and our lack of social interaction has impacted our staff heavily. Having surveyed some of our employees, it’s clear to see that they want to return to work as soon as possible. We have therefore accelerated our strategy to allow them to get back to the office as quickly as we can. Naturally, our main concern is staff welfare and their risk of exposure to the virus, so we are actively trying to limit the risk of Covid-19 entering our office.

The strategy we have implemented will ensure that we always have some people available to work. The risk of the entire team becoming infected is almost impossible, which means we will always have business continuity.

Our plan is created to provide confidence to our staff that it’s ok to come back to work, whilst also allowing them to perform their roles day to day with little interruption. To put things into perspective, we are a 20 person business, located in Central London. Our staff are based around the South East of the UK and would normally commute to work via public transport.

Our new strategy has been broken down into 4 key areas:

1. Journey to work

The journey to and from the office has been our trickiest hurdle to overcome. We have therefore implemented the following to ensure a safe commute for everyone.

•  Staff will be required to commute outside of key commuter hours
•  Where possible, staff have been asked to cycle, walk or run to work
•  Staff who commute from further afield and have access to a car have been asked to car share with other team members
•  If the tube is being used by staff, they should wear a mask and of course wash their hand on arrival to the office

2. Time in the office

• Our office will now be open from 10am – 3pm to encourage staff to commute outside of peak times
• We have dedicated a meeting room to client pitches which will be carried out via zoom for the foreseeable future
• All other visits to our office from suppliers and clients will be limited
• The office will also be closed every Wednesday to allow for a weekly deep clean
• Social distancing will be observed at all times within the office
• Masks will be worn by all staff in the office

3. Bubbles

We have divided our team into two groups, or bubbles. The teams have been selected based on the staff who need to be together to collaborate.

• The operations teams have been split equally across the two bubbles
• A phased return to work will begin with a skeleton team, growing to 10 people per bubble over the next few months
• This means we can maintain social distancing and be more in control of individuals movements throughout the day
• Sadly team A will never meet team B whilst the pandemic continues. This has to happen to make the process work, and to stop any spread of the virus between the teams
• Our social side of the business will continue, but it will be held over video call until we are comfortable enough to merge the two teams together
• Team A will work from the office on Mondays and Tuesdays
• Wednesday is a clean down day where the whole business will work from home
• Team B will work from the office on Thursdays and Fridays
• All employees who are considered high risk are being asked to work from home until further notice

4. Working from home

• We have implemented Wednesday as a work from home day for the whole company, this will allow the office to be cleaned in-between the bubbles crossing over
• Where possible all staff will be expected to attend team meetings at home, via zoom at 8.30am, and then come into the office straight after
• Any internal meetings late in the afternoon will also be taken at home

We home this real life example will provide you with a guide on how to return your team to the office safely.

Get in touch for information on how to effectively redesign your office to accommodate social distancing.