How Commercial Workspaces Can Operate To Help Reopen our Economy

Rupert Dean, CEO of East London flexible workspace, x+why, shares his thoughts on how commercial workspaces can positively operate in a COVID-19 world.

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As the darkest of clouds loom around the economy and as the Government continues to think about its exit strategy from the current lockdown provisions it is clear that the continuation of the lockdown policy is hurting businesses, choking GDP, having a gargantuan impact on national debt and will potentially impact workers net salaries for years to come.

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I don’t think we can simply wait for a vaccine. We are going to have to manage how we operate in a Covid 19 World.

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The Government strategy appears to centre on community testing, tracking and tracing. This means mass community testing, tracking those who have tested positive and tracing who those positive cases have been in contact with.

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The intention is to use this to suppress the R number below 1 by mitigating transmission as quickly as possible. This, in turn, would slowly suppress the virus into eventual submission (or mitigate its transmission in the community whilst we wait for a vaccine to come online) and allow everyone to lead as close as possible to a normal life.

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All of this has not happened during lockdown and, whilst transmission in the community drops, the testing strategy has been found slightly wanting in Care Homes and Hospitals where mass testing has not occurred and the virus has spread with freedom through these institutions full of the most vulnerable.

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It seems, as things stand, that it would be very difficult to operate mass test, track and trace whilst allowing people back to work and kick starting the economy. If we can’t operate mass testing in clearly identifiable institutions like hospitals and care homes then it seems fair to assume that the testing capacity to go wider than that is not possible and nor, it appears, is the technology to track and trace.

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Maybe the only way is therefore to maintain lockdown until the Government has sorted out it’s ability to operate its strategy. People locked down at home are easier to control and the idea of letting people into workspaces/offices and unlocking the economy seems a long way off…..

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Test The Workspace to Unlock The Economy

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However, the Government would be wiser to quickly consider how they work with private operators of care homes, hospitals and, in this case, the workspace to help them roll out their strategy much faster and get the economy going again.

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Workspaces/offices are centres of economic productivity but they are also destination hubs where the same people congregate every working day. They are controlled environments where office operators can control movements and certain actions of those office workers.

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Workspaces are actually perfect environments to operate a test, track and isolate policy.

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If performed correctly, the following strategy should be considered:

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1.     Test

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Every member/tenant/staff should be tested as regularly as possible with a PCR test to determine if they currently have the disease and therefore capable of transmitting it.

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One of the things we do know is that there are a significant number of asymptomatic carriers of this disease who wouldn’t therefore show a high temperature and are so difficult to find (and therefore track) without this sort of mass testing.

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An antibody test would eventually be useful to determine those who have had it (on assumption it provides full mitigation to any future transmission) and therefore have to do less PCR testing all round. However, other than determining who doesn’t need regular PCR testing, antibody tests are not that useful after that.

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To mass test like this will likely require a massive improvement in testing capacity and efficiency but it would still help to run monitoring even if once every two months or more.

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In the meantime, workspaces could operate more of an outbreak based testing system which requires operators to react to any outbreak by making sure those who test positive with any symptoms go into quarantine for the usual time and, if they have been in the building during any possible period where they could have transmitted to others, then the workspace operator needs to then track and isolate as follows.

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2.     Track and Isolate

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If operators can prove that they can control the movement of workers in their buildings then they should easily be able to track where they have been.

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If building operators have correct protocols in place to determine where people can move and what they can use then you know the positive cases identified could be tracked to certain areas and therefore all those who have been in the same areas or used the same amenities should be isolated and tested immediately.

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The important part is that this does not require a heavy level of technology to track. It requires communication on the part of the building operator and all the tenants. That’s it.

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In addition, this means you would completely limit exposure of other tenants in the building, you wouldn’t have to shut down the entire building and you could test all those possibly impacted to make sure they don’t have to unnecessarily quarantine for 2 weeks if they have not been infected.

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Why Does this matter?

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We must get people back to work but we must make sure workers feel like they are safe and going to environments they feel safe.

We also need a strategy for how we can capture as many people within mass testing environments as possible.

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The Government is going to need the support of multiple (way more than the proposed 18,000 Government testers) private operators and businesses to implement mass community testing in controlled environments.

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The above represents the best way to solve the economic and social issues as well as the transmission.

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We can create as close as possible to Corona-free workspaces.

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Other Mitigations

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Of course there are a fair few other mitigation measures which we would encourage all employees and employers to adhere to including staggered starts to avoid transport rush hour and avoiding heavily concentrated public transport in favour of bicycles etc.

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It also requires building operators to make a number of changes to how they design and manage workspaces including:

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-          Ensuring people only come in and out of certain areas at certain times;

-          Creating messaging and signage to make sure people maintain physical distancing;

-          Managing the flow of people in communal areas so that everyone goes in the same direction and not against each other;

-          Reduce (or reduce use of) communal ‘hot spots’ – areas where people congregate particularly in areas of ‘hygiene transference’ e.g. kitchens;

-          Increased cleaning measures throughout the buildings;

-          Systems and protocols for washing hands particularly in communal areas (reception, meeting rooms, event spaces etc)

-          Remove/replace/adjust systems for unlocking or opening doors by pressing ‘communal buttons’ where possible e.g. use cards, retina scanning, fobs, adapted ‘keys’ etc

-          Increase Bike Storage to discourage use of tubes or buses or other communal transport.

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Finally

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Finally, it also requires the Government to maintain certain other policies to mitigate the exposure of tenants to the virus outside the workspace as much as possible.

I certainly know that building operators in the coworking/flexible workspaces are better set up to perform the above and the vast majority of those I talk to are ready and have, in most circumstances, already started implementing the above measures.

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The above represents the fastest and safest way to implement Government strategy, create safer environments, reduce transmission, boost the economy and get some sense of normal back into everyday life whilst we wait for a vaccine….

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