If and when you are preparing to return to the office, it is important that you do so in a way that meets your health & safety obligations and the government’s guidance on working safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There’s a lot of information out there
Without wanting to duplicate official guidance, we thought it might be helpful to give you a checklist of tasks and resources you will need to get on top of, before your return to the office.
Feel free to share this in the usual places.
Checklist
- Read the official guidance for people who work in or run offices, contact centres and similar indoor environments – Decide which parts of the guidance is relevant to your firm and implement
- Firms in Wales should read the Welsh Government guidance for employers and businesses
- Read the acas guidance on returning to the workplace
- Consider this Occupational Health checklist for relevance to your business
- Conduct a returning to work risk assessment – see for example the CIPD template
- Consider the employment law implications of asking people to return to work – for example, dealing with redundancy, and those who have been furloughed or may be nervous to return. Some useful issues to consider are raised in this Wired article
- Decide whether a returning to work policy is required – a simple starting point is here
- Ensure your existing office suppliers can satisfy any additional safety and sanitising equipment required by your risk assessment – the supply chain may become stretched
- Make plans for alternative arrangements to business travel on public transport – this might include researching and signing up to more robust and secure video conferencing facilities, or a pool of fleet vehicles.
- Evaluate your IT requirements – with more people likely to work from home do you have the available laptops, hosted desktops, and other security measures in place? Eight top security tips for home working here
- Liaise with landlords about their requirements for using the building, and their plans for any communal spaces
- Ensure that the business continuity plan is updated to plan for a second lockdown – what lessons were learned? What do you need to do to lessen the impact? Is there sufficient cover for key people in the business? Free template to get started here
