Quarantined: Day 100 - Transitioning Back to the Office
Safer-at-home: Day 100…has it really been one hundred days since we began to shelter-in-place? It is hard to ignore our current situation and how this pandemic is causing many within the design industry to become more versatile and dependent on flexibility and adaptive use. The way the world has adapted within the past three months has been extraordinary, but it has come at some costs. This pandemic has allowed us to slow down, rekindle relationships, focus on daily tasks, and given us the ability to develop new hobbies; but it has also caused anxiety and given us uncertainty about how and who is at risk of this disease. We have had to stop and focus on what really matters, our health. Even though we cannot exactly see what the future holds, we can examine how to reestablish ourselves with new trends, tactics, and concepts to get our offices back to one hundred percent.
SMS Architects has been hard at work (remotely) following state and county guidelines, watching conferences, and medical advice to allow its staff to return to the workplace. Yes, it has been challenging having everyone on the same page even if we are all miles away and can only communicate virtually; yet we have been able to do it as well as the rest of the world. Queue in the quiet sobbing of people stuck at home with two plus people and children, or the ones that have become one with their home and never want to leave again. Our office recently rolled out the top guidelines to return to the office, we hope your firm will use some of our tactics to get ahead of this pandemic and begin your transition from shelter-in-place to the workplace.
Guidelines for a Safer Work Environment:
Temperature checks when arriving at the office.
Protective gear (face coverings) needs to be worn while in the building.
Touch-less hand sanitizer pumps and Lysol wipes are distributed throughout the office to decontaminate office desks and high-traffic areas.
Covid keys will be administered to every employee to open doors to lessen exposure in the public in lieu of gloves.
Seat assignments have been updated to maintain every employee is six feet apart or more.
Office work schedules have been updated to allow every single staff member to be in the office two days a week within opposing days of their neighbor to stop the spread of germs. Every other day our staff will be working remotely.
We know every office is different, and techniques will continue to be updated and adapted to what the office needs. In the meantime, it is nice to go from sweatpants and messy hair to casual business attire during the week…no more long days without a shower or endless hours scrolling through social media and snacking constantly. Back to the matter at hand, we know many big companies are beginning to transition to open office workspaces and compartment seating, touchless technology, removing public restroom doors, and increasing self-cleaning materials. Which in doing so, we are becoming more versatile within our workplace and making strategic impacts within our designs in the rest of the world.
We hope this Covid-19 season will bring forth sustainability, awareness, and revitalization to revolutionize the design industry; allowing us as architects to continue to enforce the oath we all had to make in the beginning, “I am an Architect, an honor that carries solemn duties. I pledge myself to the service of humanity and nature…to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public…” Now what?