5 Ways to Adapt Your Office to COVID-19 Requirements
Working from home will continue and even become more widely adopted in the post-Covid-19 world. However, office life – in some form – will continue also. The challenge lies in how to adapt workspaces to the new requirements. Here are five ways companies and designers can rethink office spaces:
- Modular Workstations
- Closed Plans
- More Signs
- Rebuild
- Fresh Air
Office Workstations
One way of adapting offices to the new Covid-19 world is to re-engineer the open office concept to adhere to the six-feet distance rules which scientists have recommended and governments have mandated. Companies can take this a step further by utilizing modular workstations or paneling systems with single occupancy usage, downsized for a compact and streamlined design.
Closed plan
While this may reduce the seamlessness of being focused on single person tasks to group collaboration, a more closed office plan might be a great solution.
More Signs
Simple and inexpensive signage could be an effective way of ensuring that staff practices social distancing. Added, six-feet designation circles around work areas in an open plan, standing points appropriately spaced; or encouraging employees to walk clockwise, creating one-way flow to minimize transmission, as has been adopted by many hospitals during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Rebuilding
Modern design has been waging a war on removing barriers between teams but going forward, interior design specialists believe we’ll see wider corridors and doorways, more partitions between departments and a lot more staircases.
Fresh Air
With good ventilation being key to preventing the spread of COVID-19, opening windows could be a simple solution – if windows can be opened, that is, since many offices are now sealed, air-controlled units.