Is the Office Dead?

With many countries in lockdown during the COVID19 pandemic forcing offices to close and staff to work remotely, you can’t help but wonder what the future of offices will look like? Company culture is changing, so is the office dead?

Remote working

Large companies like Twitter, Unilever and Google have all announced plans to work remotely for the foreseeable future (or forever in some cases) but how does remote working really work?

For a lot of people working from home sounded great until they had to do it for months and months on end. And what happens when you don’t have adequate space for a home office or don’t have the proper DSE requirements to work comfortably and safely?

The home isn’t designed to be an office and it can be hard to separate work from home life and find a healthy balance. How often have you found yourself opening up your laptop to ‘quickly’ do something, then hours later you’re still working and wondering where the time has gone? It can also be much harder to manage your time effectively; distractions are everywhere! Have you been tempted to watch TV, scroll through social media on your phone or go and make snacks when you should be working? Productivity and motivation can be significantly impacted as well as missing out on essential social interaction.

That being said there are some great advantages to home working, utilising technology such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack have made working from home, communication with colleagues and staying organised a lot easier. Plus who misses the commute to and from the office, right? Whilst productivity can decrease at home, it has also been proven to increase. Not only that, there are fewer sick days are taken, employee attrition can improve and remote working can save companies substantial money with a smaller property footprint.

What does the future of offices look like?

There’s a great opportunity to keep the best parts of office culture while getting rid of bad habits, inefficiencies and office politics. While many businesses can work completely remotely, it’s not always in the best interest of employees to do this long term, so to some degree offices will still be an important part of daily life, taking a hybrid approach to office and home working for a proportion of the working week.

Offices will be less densely packed with stricter safety measures in place such as floor signage and markings for one way systems and social distancing. Floor plans will be reimagined with screens to divide workstations, improved air circulation, staggered lunch breaks, hand sanitising stations and no more hotdesking. Technology will likely play an even bigger part in offices with keyless entrances or biometric face scanning and automatic doors. Cleaning, hygiene and sanitisation will also play a much more important role in the office than ever before. 

Hygiene and cleanliness

Employees will play a vital role in keeping the workplace clean throughout the day with hand sanitising and handwashing stations dotted around the office and antibacterial sprays to keep surfaces clean after use. Professional cleaning companies like Sparkle Cleaning will help reduce the risk of COVID-19 within the workplace by using medical-grade viricidal cleaning products to effectively sanitise touch points and high usage areas.

Cleaning can be performed out of hours to suit the needs of the business and to reduce unnecessary contact with people from outside your organisation. Where office cleaning isn’t possible outside of working hours, full PPE is provided to ensure the safe delivery of cleaning services and best practice followed by Sparkle Cleaning team members. 

It’s essential that cleaning staff are trained to a high standard and follow checklists to ensure nothing is missed. It’s also important to have a trusted cleaning partner so that if you do have an outbreak within your workplace it can be dealt with quickly and efficiently by a professional and certified service provider. 

If you’d like to find out more about how Sparkle Cleaning can help assist your return to the workplace and create a clean and safe environment for your staff, get in touch today.