COVID-19: A Global Pandemic. Millions of people and businesses are impacted. Retail, hospitality, and education are temporarily suspended. Work is disrupted. Some people are working from home, while others are not so lucky and have been laid off. It's all been quite gloomy.

Nonetheless, we must all stay positive and identify opportunities to improve as individuals and as organizations. While we are adjusting our lifestyles to the new normal of social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing, the workplace will also need to evolve.

Workplace Design

Everything begins with design, including preventive measures against possible viral outbreaks. We must now be extra mindful when it comes to designing the workplace. Up until now, most wellbeing design concepts have been focusing on relieving employees' stress.

Moving forward, however, the workplace must promote and assure overall employee wellbeing while also minimizing all different kinds of health risks. Workplace design will need to continue to think outside the box. But first, there are several basic workplace elements that require more attention. As trivial as they may seem, these elements have the power to do wonders for the team both physically and mentally when they are designed properly. It is time to evaluate and be more innovative with our workplace.

Air

Many of us are aware of outdoor air quality, but not as much of indoor air quality (IAQ). IAQ is extremely important in a workplace. We are not simply talking about the office getting too hot or stuffy. We are talking about indoor pollution. The air in the workplace should be well-ventilated, circulated, and kept at an ideal humidity level at all times. It needs to be monitored, potentially with air quality sensors and software, and maintained at a healthy standard, with air filters that should be replaced regularly and air filtration systems in the long run. Any fresh air would be great, and any outdoor space would be a massive plus!

Sunlight

There is a reason why most people love well-lit spaces. Natural sunlight not only helps with mental wellbeing, it also helps to kill bacteria. Windows and sunroofs are fantastic ways to let sunshine into the indoors. When windows are not available, it may take some creativity and maybe some mirrors. Bring in the sun!

Biophilic Design

The idea of bringing nature into the workplace has many benefits. Many organizations have explored this type of design for soundproofing, reducing mental stress, and adding aesthetic points. The more undermined advantage of plants is that they absorb toxins and produce oxygen, improving the indoor air quality and allowing people of the workplace to feel better and be more productive. Plants literally get our brain juices flowing.

Surface Materials

In addition to surface materials being sustainable and eco-friendly, we must also now look at their cleanability. From recent coronavirus studies and research, we are reminded that germs and bacteria live on certain materials for longer periods of time. It is not enough to reduce the use of those bacteria-friendly materials anymore. We must make sure that all materials can be cleaned and disinfected easily. This is especially important in high-touch, high-traffic areas and shared facilities such as bathrooms and kitchens.

Workstations

Back in the day, we had work cubicles and individual closed-offices. These became pods of workstations and long workbenches when we shifted to open-floor workplaces in the flexible work era. This kind of close-proximity setup poses a huge threat to our efforts to continue social distancing measures when we return to the workplace.

Short-term fixes? Clear barriers between each individual workspace of the workbench. Long-term fixes? Respacing the entire floor plan to extend the distance among team members and minimize the number of people at each workbench. You may question whether this increasing square footage per person will be feasible in a space-limited workplace. It is a legitimate concern. We will explore this more in the next blog posts.