How to Maintain Workplace Safety During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

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Ever since the pandemic, workplace safety and remote work have become the new normal. But there are still some jobs that must be done on-premises. Established systems & sensitive materials need employees to work around in shifts. But the demand is far from reality now. Being one of the best interior design firms in Dubai, Motif Interiors are here to share some useful tips that can help everyone stay healthy in the office while sharing common workspaces.

Are you planning to bring back your workforce to the office? We are here to guide you. Our latest article How to Maintain Workplace Safety During the COVID-19 Pandemic? covers the fundamentals of creating a healthy and sterile work atmosphere. Read On!

Frequent sanitization of office spaces is essential now. Alongside, organizations also need better communication and signage strategies, to ensure employee wellbeing and healthy office culture. Tips shared ahead will ensure you gain both knowledge & peace of mind while addressing this critical public health issue.

Tips & Guidelines to Follow for Healthy Workplace

1. Cleaning guidance
2. Air quality and ventilation systems
3. Social distancing standards

Cleaning Guidance

Adopting the best cleaning and sanitization routines can greatly eliminate the risk of COVID-19 spread. Taking extra care to keep the surfaces, objects, door handles etc. clean is a must now. Employers also must follow the strict guidelines to ensure the safety of their workers & workplace environment.

Get useful tips & complete guidance on how to clean & disinfect your workspaces. We suggest you read, understand and follow the key points to ensure complete safety.

• Make your cleaning staff use disposable gloves, clothes & masks while cleaning. Ask them to carefully remove and trash them immediately after the cleaning process.
• Regularly sanitize the high-touch surfaces of common areas like the desks & chairs, doorknobs, switches, phones and keypads, remotes, toilets, washbasins, elevator doors and buttons, etc.).
• Keep clean the systems & peripherals, digital signages and kiosks.

Air quality and ventilation systems

It’s important to understand the level of your workspace indoor air quality and take immediate steps to eliminate the virus spread in the office space. Research states that breathing fresh air leads to better decision-making, performance, planning, strategizing and action.

Using cleaning agents regularly can also lead to air pollution. Poor air quality intensifies the virus spread. As employees are getting back to offices, maintaining healthy indoor environments is essential now. Organizations need to focus more on air-conditioning systems to filter, dilute and remove pathogens. While improving your work facilities filtration systems, ensure you follow the minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) standards. MERV addresses in numbers from 1 and 16 that signifies your air efficiency. The higher the MERV, the more effective the air filter is at eliminating particles.

Our Qualified MEP and HVAC, at Motif can help you to improve your air quality system, with detailed analysis and testing.

Understanding the issues, we recommend the subsequent air quality intrusions:

• Mark the indoor air quality issues, both suspected and real in current buildings.
• Organize air quality estimates, design, testing and seek architectural guidance to enhance ventilation effectiveness of existing HVAC systems, continue long-term air-quality monitoring, and perform air-quality awareness.
• Improve messaging, and guidance for building occupants’ dashboards, & apps to overcome concerns regarding potential pathogen transmission.

Social distancing standards

Though remote working has become the new normal, organizations might still need to execute certain operations from office. And for that, social distancing is mandatory. Adopting the habit early will give you enough time to check what plan works best for your teams & also enable you to frame new strategies convenient for your employees.

Tips to follow during social distancing: 

1. Limited Workforce: Allow only those employees whose service is extremely mandatory on-floor. With flexible working hours and wavered shifts, cleaning could be a problem. So, using A/B shifts to carry the cleaning process across limited workstations will be good.
2. Map your new workplace strategies:Use a flyer or a desk tool to enlighten your employees on social distancing at the workplace. Allow your employees to pick their own desks. Define your employees & available floor space capacity & plan their shifts accordingly.
3. Redesign your office spaces:Place partitions between desks and social hangout spaces. Install directional signage like floor markers, wherever necessary. Recreate Your Office Spaces with the Best Interior Design Firms in Dubai
4. Maintain virtual meetings in the office: Redesign your conference rooms into personal cabins or storage areas for better utility & space.
5. Use Acrylic Barriers: Using acrylic barriers wherever necessary ensures social distance is maintained and helps protect clients, staff and employees from virus spread. They are easy to assemble & work as a cough & sneeze guard between people. They can also be used as signboards to show that the business or department or desk is open for operations.

Our HSE team at Motif, has assisted a number of international clients like Petrasco, Colliers International and Arkema DMCC to implement acrylic barriers at their workplaces, to help their staff to return safely to their offices.

Wrapping Up

Planning to reopen your office spaces after a long work from home model. Then, this is the best time to plan, strategize and initiate the hygiene process at your office. Apart from making available the disinfectant wipes & sanitizers, creating new partitioned spaces & maintaining flexible seating is also mandatory.

If you are looking for the best interior design firms in Dubai to redesign your workspaces post COVID-19, then Motif Interiors is the right choice for you.

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