Phased return to the office: enabling employers to safely return staff to offices through further development of an existing easy-to-use (demand-driven) technology platform

新冠肺炎已经对我们生活的方方面面产生了巨大的影响。对于许多人来说，快速的封锁标志着他们第一次持续在家工作，被迫在家里匆忙建立设施，通常资源有限，并与家庭成员争夺空间。因此，工人们报告了从新的身体疼痛(从不合适的工作条件)到与孤独相关的心理健康问题等各种问题。长时间在家工作可能会对工作与生活的平衡产生负面影响，特别是对白天要照顾孩子、经常工作到深夜的工作父母来说。这可能会对人们的生活和福祉产生负面影响。最终，员工将需要返回办公室，但大规模管理分阶段恢复工作对大公司来说是一个巨大的复杂挑战，这些公司目前无法轻松管理大楼内的员工数量或将员工分配到特定区域，因为他们将需要这样做以遵守社会距离协议。我们的分阶段恢复工作解决方案将在现有的英国范围的平台中开发新功能，使雇主能够管理谁可以访问办公室(以及访问多长时间)，查看员工在哪里工作，测量入住率，并跟踪员工的健康数据。因此，该项目将使公司能够轻松管理大楼的占用情况，同时让员工放心，他们不会进入过度拥挤的工作空间。如果员工确实感染了新冠肺炎，分区系统与桌面预订相结合意味着，将很容易跟踪并通知与该员工有接触的同事。与其关闭整栋大楼，并要求所有工作人员再次在家工作(就像我们在封锁之前发生疫情的办公室所看到的那样)，他们可以进入的区域和其他区域可以进行深度清洁，只有那些与他们有接触的工作人员才需要隔离。此外，这种分区系统意味着，整个劳动力或团队同时患病的可能性要小得多：即使感染在一个区域传播，传播也仅限于该区域。然而，该软件的成功对员工健康的影响也要大得多。使工作人员能够以安全的方式返回办公室，有可能极大地改善心理健康和福祉。员工不仅可以放心地采取了所有预防措施，而且他们可以安全地进入工作场所，因为他们知道大楼不会过度拥挤，而且他们将有一张办公桌可以工作。最终，分阶段恢复工作的解决方案将帮助公司和员工恢复某种形式的正常状态，而不会损害员工的心理或身体健康。

COVID-19 has had a huge impact on every aspect of our lives. For many, the rapid lockdown marked the first time that they worked from home consistently, having being forced to set up at home in a hurry, often with limited resources and competing for space with household members.As a result, workers have reported issues with everything from new physical pains (from unsuitable working conditions) to mental health issues associated with loneliness. Working from home over such long periods can have a negative impact on work-life balance, particularly among working parents who have to look after children during the day, often working late into the evening. This can negatively impact people's lives and wellbeing.Ultimately, workers will need to return to offices but managing a phased return to work at scale poses a hugely complex challenge for large companies who currently have no way of easily managing the number of staff in their buildings or allocating staff to specific areas, as they will need to in order to comply with social distancing protocols.Our Phased Return to Work solution will develop new functionality within an existing UK-wide platform to enable employers to manage who can access offices (and for how long), see where staff are working, measure occupancy, and track staff wellbeing data. The project will therefore enable companies to easily manage building occupancy, while employees are reassured that they will not be entering an overcrowded workspace.If a member of staff does become infected with COVID-19, the system of zoning areas in combination with desk bookings means that it will be easy to track and inform colleagues who came into contact with that member of staff. Instead of having to shut down the entire building and ask all staff to work from home again (as we saw in offices where there were outbreaks before the lockdown), the zones and other areas they had access to can be deep-cleaned and only those staff who came into contact with them will have to isolate. In addition, this system of zoning means that entire workforces or teams are far less likely to all become ill at the same time: even if an infection spreads through one zone, the spread is limited to that area.However, the success of this software also has a much larger impact on employees' health. Enabling staff to return to the office in a safe way has potential to dramatically improve mental health and wellbeing. Not only do staff have the reassurance that all precautions are being taken, they can come into work safe in the knowledge that the building will not be overcrowded and that they will have a desk to work at.Ultimately, the Phased Return to Work solution will help companies and employees return to some form of normality without compromising on employee mental or physical health.