Offices reopening-- for those in states opening up

[cvjw]

We are in Georgia, so our state is opening back up. Both husband and older son work for large companies. Both have been working from home - this is week #8. Both have been told to continue working from home thru the end of May, and then the companies will re-evaluate.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

So, first, our plan begins by ignoring what states decide and following the advice of medical professionals. We will implement the following protocols when safe to do so:

1) We will not go "back to normal" - maybe ever. We are considering permanent work from home (WFH) implementation for some staff, and part time WFH for most of the rest.
2) For those who will not work permanently at home we are considering staggered cohort units rather than everyone at once.

For instance, some folks might work M, W & F. Others might work T, & T. People who work near one another would be a part of a "cohort" and they would only work in the office when their cohort works in the office - no mixing of cohorts. This will reduce the risk of transmission, reduce the number of people potentially exposed if someone does get this, and allow for easier contact tracing should someone gets this.

We are still thinking through a few more ways to get back to our offices, but we are placing the health of our employees ahead of profits right now.

 

[amylevan]

You have cubicles? Lucky you. My office went to an "open office" floor plan almost 2 years ago. BIG MISTAKE! We are considered essential, but the second the order from the County came down they hustled us out of the office. There is nothing about "Open Office" that could be considered social distancing. It's also miserable and distracting 100% of the time. I digress...

Our office talked about going open floor plan a few years ago. Luckily they actually asked the employees first and we shot it down. My introverted self needs those cube walls for sanity.

As for the question, we are mostly WFH, but as we are an essential business the office has been open for anyone who needs to go in. They are developing a plan to transition back but details haven’t been announced yet and since we are in NJ, I don’t see it happening for a while yet.

 

[Music City Mama]

Since mid-March, we were told to work from home, but since we're an essential business, we were allowed to come in if we felt we needed to. I was going in once per week for about 3 hours.

Yesterday began our return. You're on one of two "teams" -- one team comes in M, W, F and the other team T and Th. It alternates each week.

There is only one entrance into the building now and temps are taken during 7:30 a.m - 9:30 a.m. (when most people would be arriving). Only two people allowed per elevator. Signs everywhere about handwashing, no leaving dirty dishes in the sink, etc. High touch surfaces are supposedly getting cleaned more often throughout the day -- there are big bottles of hand sanitizer at the copy machines (there were before too, though).

I definitely noticed more people on the roads and while our parking lot only appeared to be 50% full as it should be, I passed other office parking lots that seemed much more than that.

 

[Snowysmom]

I go into the office one day a week for 4 hours. I have to go in to do get checks that have been mailed in, scan the deposits, and other things I can't do from home. There are only 5 of us there that day and we are at least 8 feet apart. They have been talking about what to do when the office does officially reopen and I believe it is work from home if you are able to easily and the people who need to be in the office sometimes will come in more often. We already have bottles of sanitizer everywhere and signs too. They are also very adamant that if you are sick, you stay home. My company has been decimated by layoffs and furloughs so to be honest, there aren't all that many left to go into the office. Social distancing will not be an issue.

 

[Darcy03231]

We're expected to continue working mostly from home, if possible. I'm in an essential business, but they pretty much had everyone start working from home about 6 weeks ago, leaving just a skeleton staff in the office. I have one in-office day a week because there are parts of my job that I can't do from home. I'm staggered with others who are also doing one in-office day a week. We got an email last week about re-opening, but it will be slow. Looks like the current schedule will continue through the end of the month - 4 remote days and 1 in-office day. I don't think we'll ever go back to all of us in the office 5 days a week. My guess is that we'll be on a 3/2 or 2/3 schedule, and we'll be staggered.

 

[easyas123]

We started alternating our schedules so that we had less people in our main office - basically we all went from 5 to 3 days per week, although some of us found ourselves needing to pop in on our days off. This is our last week doing so, beginning next week we will all be returning to a traditional 5 day week/schedule as we had before...I may be in the minority but I can't wait to get back to the normalcy of it. The guys working on our jobsites continued with a normal schedule though, so no disruptions there at least.

 

[nene0182]

Our company has stated they are not taking their cues from the states and will do what they feel is safe for us. As of right now, there is no estimated return to work date for those of us in the office. I work for a company of over 10,000 employees but my actual office only has 9 employees and we’ve all been able to convert easily to working from home. We’ve estimated that we probably won’t be back into the office until after June 1st. Honestly I’m fine with this working from home thing even though I thought I’d hate it.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Downtown Chicago. Our office has been shut down since March 17. We've all been working from home, and pretty effectively.

We're a healthcare accreditation organization and rely on site visits. Unfortunately, most of our site visitors are in a concerning age group, so we're slowly moving to remote site visits.

There's a subcommittee working to determine what conditions need to be right for the office to open up, and also how to have in-person meetings again (that's the bulk of our meetings). Regular availability to testing for everyone is a big one. Most everyone commutes -- bus and train, so I think it will be quite a while. Our CEO just said last week they're not even considering it until after June 30.

 

[mousefan73]

We are slowing opening up this month. Our company needs to first set things up for a return to the office. We have a unique office set-up. All open spaces ( no cubicules). and everyone shares desks. One never sits at the same spot.. for every 100 employees we have 40 work spaces. We have a system before Covid. where you wiped your area down anyways... each area has a keyboard and mouse and monitor Laptops are docked. We also have small "fish Bowl" meeting rooms. 4 seats... very tight... so they might create one out of two to give personal space.
we are guessing end of May we know. People who have only super necessary thing are allowed in right now.. our board members, PR stuff. as my company is in the new tons and also we had our annual shareholder meeting today.. held virtually from HQ.. normally its in a stadion.

we pre covid had a mix of virtual/office days. or duty trips

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

Our offices, depending on location, are potentially looking at some people going back June 1st. However, it is not going to be everyone, and it will be with following some strict rules. We are in a high rise with elevators, a cafeteria etc. We will only go back if we feel we can do it safely. We are really trying to get people to understand that it is not going to be like it was.

I am not sure that I will ever return to the office like I was there before. I have a broader role and do not report with anyone at my physical location. It is nice to make some connections, but not to the extent of having to be there as much as I was pre-virus.

It will be interesting to see how everything plays out.

This was me before I quit my job due to company buyout drama. We went through a period of turnover on my team and people ended up being hired remote/out of our other offices. I eventually just stopped going in to the office. I did it very unofficially I basically decided to work remote and then it just became a thing. That may or may not work for you, but you can probably arrange to stay wfh after all this is over if you prefer it!

 

[morgan98]

This was me before I quit my job due to company buyout drama. We went through a period of turnover on my team and people ended up being hired remote/out of our other offices. I eventually just stopped going in to the office. I did it very unofficially I basically decided to work remote and then it just became a thing. That may or may not work for you, but you can probably arrange to stay wfh after all this is over if you prefer it!

No doubt - I am in a leadership role and sit in one of many offices that I have some level of responsibility for. I do have a couple of team members that sit in this same office, but they do not need to be micromanaged AT ALL. To be honest, I put the most pressure on myself to be there in person. This has changed my work life from that perspective for the better, I hope.

 

[tvguy]

We have 120 employees. 105 began working remotely beginning 7 weeks ago. 15 were still working in the building Two weeks ago they added 5 more people in the building because the folks working in the building were getting burned out. There are some jobs that require equipment that can't be controlled remotely.
We had a local staff meeting on Zoom today, and local management said they don't expect us back in the building for another month. Corporate had set a "return to work in the building date of no sooner than May 15. That was extended this afternoon to May 29.
Really no need to be back in the building, most things are getting done remotely. So much so that corporate has given our location money to try and find ways in the next month to find technology so that will allow the equipment that currently can't be operated remotely, can be modified to allow remote operation. The goal, finding a way to operate with nobody in the building.
This all may have some long term impact. Why have a 60,000 square foot building to house 120 employees, when you can operate with most everyone at home?

 

[kdonnel]

We are still thinking through a few more ways to get back to our offices, but we are placing the health of our employees ahead of profits right now.

I wonder how long Wall Street and shareholders accept putting anything ahead of profit?

 

[kdonnel]

This all may have some long term impact. Why have a 60,000 square foot building to house 120 employees, when you can operate with most everyone at home?

I sure would not be investing in commercial real estate now. I think a lot of companies will end up deciding they need a much smaller in office presence and downsize office space. The cost savings are immense for companies, devastating for commercial office buildings.

 

[MillauFr]

I wonder how long Wall Street and shareholders accept putting anything ahead of profit?

There isn't anything else important other than profits.

 

[tvguy]

I sure would not be investing in commercial real estate now. I think a lot of companies will end up deciding they need a much smaller in office presence and downsize office space. The cost savings are immense for companies, devastating for commercial office buildings.

Hard to tell. Our location is surrounded by construction of expensive small "homes". Glorified condos selling from $325,000 to $650,000 and until the pandemic they were selling faster than they could build them. Our property was in the original master plan to be demolished and these homes being built on it. But that was 2008, and when the recession hit, the project stalled until 3 years ago. So we'll see what happened with the residential market. Our company has owned our building free and clear for 52 years, so they have almost nothing invested in it really, so selling it could trigger a cash windfall. Finding a new location would be tough for a TV station since we need small towers on site. Ran into this at a previous station I worked at. Everyone wanted us to move to their area, oh but, we can't have a tower. They had a hard time understanding that having a tower was not negotiable, it was a requirement of the move. Here is the link to the housing project, our tower is in the shot. What you don't see between the tower and houses is the beer distribution center that operates 24 hours a day. Some of those homes are 10 feet from where they stack empty beer kegs, and from where empty beer kegs frequently get dropped off forklifts at 3 am. No way would I live there, let alone pay the price they are asking. https://millatbroadway.com/community-info/

 

[design_mom]

I worked from home exclusively prior to the pandemic. My husband worked in an office though. In December, he moved out of a space that had cubicles into a more "collaborative space." Everyone has a small personal space, but there aren't walls/dividers (he would be within 6' of others with minimal dividers unless they install some). Most of the space is "team rooms" and collaborative meeting spaces. The space is designed for people to be working together in groups, not sitting at their desks most of the day.

General offices were allowed to open Monday provided they follow proper social distancing procedure. His office did not reopen then. They are tentatively working toward a plan of bringing 1/3 of the people back in early June. However, my husband is not sure what good that would do. The boss is talking about the reopening and "the magic and collaboration that happens when we're all in the same place," but even if 1/3 of them are in the office, 2/3 won't be. And the ones who are in the office won't be able to gather. So they're going to have to do all of their meetings and collaborative work through Zoom (which is what they're doing now from home.) It also sounds like they'll be required to wear masks at the office, so he would be doing the same meetings over Zoom that he *could* do from home (because 2/3 of the people won't be there and the ones in the office can't congregate)... AND he'd have to wear a mask while doing it. Seems stupid.

 

[fla4fun]

Our office is probably about a month away from reopening. We are already in a temporary office because our permanent office was in the middle of a remodel. Now we have been told that the temporary office space will be reduced and our department of seven will have one office room with two desks (which are already at least six feet apart, fortunately). So that means just me (and the other person who does the same job on my days off) will be working full time in the temp office and the others will rotate through and use the second desk when needed, with WFH the rest of the time. Half of my job duties cannot be performed unless I am physically present, so with the office closed those duties have been suspended. We won’t be in our permanent office space until early 2021.

Management has been having planning meetings for the past few weeks, but I kind of expect to get an email some evening with orders to report the next day. Since we are associated with the travel industry, I don’t think there will be a big need for us to be in the physical office until we hit Phase Two. But I will be glad to go back.

 

[wvjules]

We had a call today with our CEO. We are not opening our offices any time soon even in states where they are reopening. We are to continue to WFH for the foreseeable future. We are "essential" but most work can be done remotely so I think their measured approach to returning is a good one.

I, like most in my company, work at the client site. My client site is also currently closed. I'm not sure of when it is reopening. Last I heard is that they will reevaluate at EOM.

We are living at our lake house right now so I'm in no hurry to rush back. I was in the beginning but the longer this goes on the less I want to go back.