When you finally head back to the office, it won’t be as you remember it.
Physical distancing, from the garage to the elevator to the break room, promises to help make the pending mass return to the workplace both reassuring and maddening as people learn to work together again while remaining six feet apart.
Signs of separation will abound: decals on elevator floors showing you where to stand, arrows to route foot traffic in one direction, chairs removed from conference rooms and other popular gathering places.
Expect fabric couches and other upholstered furniture to be wrapped in plastic — just like at Grandma’s house — for easier disinfection. Shared work tools such as conference phones and whiteboard pens may disappear. That remote control for the lunchroom TV? Don’t bother hunting for it.
Many landlords are planning for the comeback that they hope will be gradual. If everyone surged in as though it was a day before COVID-19, the planned systems to keep people safely apart might be overwhelmed.
Not that most workers are in a hurry to return to the offices that not long ago seemed as familiar as home. We are going to see that people are going to set a pretty high bar around their own personal criteria for going back to work. Every aspect of office life will be scrutinized: getting there safely on public transportation, making it through the lobby, navigating once-mundane routines such as going to the restroom.
People need to expect that the office will be a very different place for the foreseeable future. We all have habits for how we work in an office and those habits are going to have to change until there is a vaccine or permanent remedy.
Adapting to new habits will be jarring. Workers will shift as they did after the Sept. 11 attack in USA when heightened security procedures that slowed entry went from annoying to normal.
Getting to that point, however, will be a formidable challenge for landlords. The goal is to reduce the likelihood that occupants will contract the virus while signaling to nervous tenants that it’s OK to come back inside.
It’s all about, how do get the tenants in the buildings to feel safe.
Small measures may start with return-to-work gift bags containing hand sanitizer, gloves and masks to be handed out as tenants arrive. Lanes for foot traffic will be marked and doors to the lobby will be kept open so no one needs to worry about germ-covered handles. Security guards will make sure people come and go from the garage in a single direction.
Elevators can be dispatched to assigned floors electronically, so no one has to touch a button. Only a few at a time will be allowed to use them.
There will also be screening arrivals for fever by use of thermometers or more sophisticated thermal imaging devices. The issue will arise is when if the security guards bar someone on the way to an important meeting on a false-positive reading. So, there is a huge concern on the ramifications of thermal checking.
Among less visible measures, the landlord of every building will need try to boost indoor air quality with high-efficiency filters and perhaps ultraviolet light disinfection of mechanical systems that pump air through the building.
In most commercial buildings, the landlord is also responsible for cleaning the offices rented by tenants. The significance of that nearly invisible service will increase because tenants want to know steps are being taken to thwart the spread of the novel coronavirus. For at least the next year, janitorial is going to play a large role in all of the commercial buildings. Before the pandemic, janitorial services were viewed by many companies as overhead costs that should be kept to a minimum but that will now change. People didn’t want to spend a lot of money on cleaning because if it looked clean it was OK. But now it is going to be, it’s not what you can see; it’s what you can’t see!!!
My prediction is many offices will now be regularly disinfected electrostatically using a charged solution that clings to surfaces and kills germs in hard-to-reach places. Such thoroughness can drive up the cost of cleaning as much as 50%.
Keeping surfaces clean may require new edicts from managers about limiting personal objects on desks or at least requiring them to be stowed away at night. Objects with porous surfaces, such as plush toys, are hard to keep clean. Many managers will now have to follow a clean desk policy which calls for disposable paper place mats for each desk that would be changed daily as employees sanitize their personal space.
You may need to bring your own because coffee pots should be removed and that open food items such as a box of doughnuts should be forbidden. Only prepackaged items would be allowed.
People-oriented perks and pleasures that were added to office complexes in recent years are going to be gone for the time being.
Commercial building landlords will try to attract tenants by offering extras such as gyms, training rooms and game lounges.
Safety will be the enticing amenity, in part because people need human connection and desire to be among their work colleagues. Recent surveys show that all want to return to work perhaps starting in phases as designated teams work Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while others work Tuesday and Thursday.
Company leaders may need to take a gentle approach with employees and tell them that they may continue to work at home for the foreseeable future.
Distancing measures will be in place and everyone will be encouraged to wear a face mask through mid-July. Coffee makers and tea stations will be unavailable and no more than three people at a time can visit the restroom. Daily cleaning will be a constant health measure.
Some of the changes in office use such as reduced desk density will probably continue after the threat of the virus has passed and companies may permanently adjust staffing patterns as working from home gets further ingrained in their culture.
The way people work is going to change radically.