With the pandemic wreaking havoc across the globe and workspaces being redefined with lesser occupancy rates, with work from home options, offices have seen a decline in its occupied space utilization, with a new trend emerging, to a need of the hour in addressing a hygienic workspace requirement.
Offices, organizations are embracing a need-based cleaning methodology to address the specific need to the evolving work culture that is ever-changing with the impact of the pandemic.
New work culture
It is rather unbelievable, in realizing the impact, with the pandemic disrupting a business as usual scenario from the month of march, still affecting the work life balance to the year-end closing and expected to continue to the next quarter of 2021.
Work habits have gone through a sea of change, such as work from home (wfh), with optional working hours, extended working hours, varied working hours, workstation (travel, stay and work) and so on. Most organizations are accommodating newer, innovative working habits with the key goal or objective to get their employees to be as productive as possible in the given situation. The industry is embracing a new evolving work culture and hence the need to treat, attend, clean and sanitize the existing office work space, seeing fewer occupants based on the return to work (rtw) permission and approvals from the hr or the department vertical to populate office spaces emerging in the horizon.
Cleaning methodology
Workspaces have evolved with the new work – cleaning methodology with fewer workspace users and hence the need to be addressed in upkeeping these used workspaces, daily in a hygienic manner. The earlier usual trend of a janitor managing a workspace of approximately 4000 to 5000 sf per person, has drastically changed over the past few months, with fewer work force janitors attending to a specific need-based cleaning requirement.
Facility management organizations are witnessing a shift in workplace operating methodology, involving fewer staff numbers, down to almost 60 % of the earlier workforce. Better trained staff, equipped to address the very cleaning need. Skilled janitors are being much in demand, equipped with PPE (personal protective equipment’s), and armed with cleaning agents, detergents, disinfectants, sprays to swipe clean, disinfect the used office space. the new operation in general, involves the active participation of the HR or the dept. vertical, specifying, which office spaces / desks are permitted to be used for the given day, in addition to the commonly used areas such as social lounge, cafeteria spaces, etc. and these are the only areas that are given a thorough top-down cleaning requirement basis usage patterns.
Companies are willing to go the extra mile – to assure staff that the “spaces” being utilized are periodically cleaned, disinfected, sanitized by way of a placard communication or notification being sent out digitally.
Workplace ULV misting:
In addition to the daily work place cleaning being addressed, ulv misting are periodically carried out, ranging from weekly once, fortnightly or monthly once to sanitize their work space by using ultra-low volume – microdroplets misting, this gives the additional mind comforted guarantee that the workspaces are thoroughly attended and sanitized.
Depending on the product and methodology being used, electronic equipment’s, gadgets are covered and protected. These activities are being carried out, to provide employees with a safer return to work office engagement, with humans being more of a social entity, prefer to work in groups, smaller or larger, depending on the work need, and rarely enjoy working in isolation except for specific individual work related objectives.
Environmental impact:
With the new cleaning methodology in demand and becoming popular, in addition to workplace sanitization needs, might relatively see an environmental impact, which is as of yet not discussed or studied much in detail as to its environmental impact.
The impact to the environment is everybody’s guess with more or more hand sanitizers, sanitization wipes, disinfectants, cleaning agents flooding the market and our houses. In general, cleaning frequencies have increased double or triple fold in certain offices and domestic residence, while many offices are yet to open their workspaces, the trend is set to increase in the utilization of these products. Relatively a few workspaces are still extending a work from home culture till a prominent cure or herd immunity is developed. It is more of a wait and watch situation as to how these remnants would affect our only ecological planet that we live in.
Technology:
Addressing the very need of the hour – technology has come leap & bounds forwards in a very short span, trying to address the new work culture or the new normal.
Space utilization software, apps are becoming the need of the hour, with organizations trying to maximise rental / leased space offices to its full potential by engaging technological advanced algorithms to assign workspaces, work shifts, approvals per department, ensuring social distancing requirements are followed.
Advanced software, to pre-book work spaces, visibility into work partners present for the day, team work zones allocated for the day, social distancing RFID tags, with contract tracing technology, video cctv alert and notification software, usage trends, frequent used spaces, sanitised ready to use, analytics etc. have mushroomed trying to out-beat each other in competition over a technology edge with more and more advanced features to provide a safer return to work environment, manual on-call procedures to a need based cleaning requirement are also utilized in a not so advanced office software set-up.
With the ever-changing workspace swirling into a new work methodology, habit & culture, we as consciously evolved species are confident that we will eventually overcome all challenges and bring out the best to protect human continuity with its ecological frame work to strive and progress to see a better future.
