Planning a COVID-Safe Office Environment

Hand sanitiser

Hand sanitising stations positioned at all entries, high traffic and food preparation areas

Screens and Partitions

Whilst non-essential visitors to your office should be limited, for many businesses visitors/clients are an unavoidable part of daily business operations. Acrylic screens at reception counters provide a transparent, easy-to-clean physical barrier between your staff and visitors for the protection of both parties.

For office-based workers, privacy screens between workstations and return screens to separate individual workspaces in runs of workstations are recommended.

Physical Distancing

You should consider and make adjustments to the layout of your workplace and your workflows enable workers to keep at least 1.5 metres apart to continue performing their duties. If you are setting up a new office, we recommend desks with a table top length of 1500mm or 1800mm to ensure physical distancing between staff. If the current desk size and/or layout of your existing office does not allow for 1.5 metres between employees, you could consider adding a return desk to widen each workstation, or placing planters between workstations to create adequate distancing between workspaces.

Personal Storage Solutions

Minimising movements and eliminating common touch points as much as practicable around the office is key to preventing transmission of COVID-19.

Safe Work Australia recommends the following control measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace:

• all employees have access to their own meal areas or break facilities
• each worker has their own equipment/tools to carry out their daily tasks

Available as both mobile or fixed units, lockable pedestal drawers offer an ideal under-desk solution for the secure storage of both personal and work-related items. Most of our 3 Drawer Pedestal Drawers consist of 2 personal drawers (for stationery, cutlery and a personal snack stash!) and 1 filing drawer.

With office items that must be accessible to all staff, it is advisable to consider using open storage solutions such as bookcases and pigeon holders to minimise common touch points such as handles and sliding doors.

Optimising Ergonomic Workstations

Less movement within the office means creating an ergonomically sound workspace for each individual is now more important than ever. Just as important as the proper desk height is the ability to adjust it throughout the day. Altering your posture throughout the day not only fights fatigue, but helps to prevent repetitive motion related injuries. This is why sit to stand desks and adjustable height desks have become so popular as part of an ergonomic workstation. At Elite Office Furniture we also specialise in Ergonomic Chairs. We have a huge range of Ergonomic Office Chairs in stock ready to be shipped - if you need help choosing the right Ergonomic Chair click here, or call us on 0411 366 666 for personalised advice from one of our specialists.