Comeback Strategy
Are you prepared for the end of the lockdown?
We are!
This is our 8th week working from home. In my first article “How we work as a team while being isolated”, you can read more about how we have managed to bring our office culture to our homes. And how we settled into our new routines quite well, we love working together as a team and a big part of this is having everyone together in the office. So while we are making sure to follow all rules and protocols that have been put in place, we are now preparing to return to the office.
We have put the following strategy in place for us to be able to go back to the office once the lockdown is removed or relaxed.
Each team member is given the on-going opportunity to decide if they would like to continue working from home fully, or if they would like to spend 2 days working from the office. The bellow strategy is not mandatory however after discussing fully with each person it was very clear that all wanted a planned safe return to work.
The strategy starts by having two teams, Team A: Sales & Marketing recruitment and Secretarial & Support recruitment, Team B: Temporaries & Fixed term interim recruitment. These teams will not be mixed and will always remain the same team of recruitment consultants. This limits possible infection.
Every week, each team will work 2 days in the office and 3 days from home.
This allows us to be able to work together again, but also keeps everyone safe & healthy.
This is just the beginning, and depending on how the gradual relaxing of the rules and current situation slowly improves, we will begin to increase our days working from the office, or we will return to home office if needed.
We have removed half of the desks in our Munich office so that there is clear distance of 2 metres per person in the office.
Why did I do this? I am of the opinion that an empty desk does not help team morale as it highlights the fact that some of the team is missing. When relaxation of the rules and once things get better & more normalized, we will return to the office in larger numbers by simply putting the desking back in place!
I spent two full working day doing this (desk removal, rearranging desks, removing all desktop computers, rerouting the phone cables, etc. etc.) … but it was worth it!
The office looks great! With a lot of space between each of the desks, which allows us to be able to maintain the required distance between people and keeps the team safe & healthy. Finishing touches were, a plentiful supply of face-mask, antibacterial hand gel & wipes, gloves and sanitizes for everyone.
Each member of the teams will work from their company supplied laptops, they are fully aware that they are responsible of wearing masks when moving from their desks to the common areas in the office, such as shared kitchen & coffee break out area and of course when leaving the offices for any reason such as lunch breaks, bakeries, shops, public transports etc. were masks are compulsory.
So we are a very ready team, socially responsible & happy to be coming back!!!
Are you?
Our planned come back date is Monday 11th May, 2020.