Everyone who has anything to do with your business from the customers you serve to the vendors you welcome, the person whose job is to make repairs to keep your building safe and everybody including the people that pass through your reception space is undeniably unique to you. Your hallway establishes the mood for the health and safety of the entire office, making this an important area to optimize for every business.

As we gradually return to work, these spaces require peculiar consideration for contiguous safety. Whilst the transition to the all-new workplace, further purchasing can improve wellness  for years to come. Are you retrofitting, renovating, or reinventing your reception space? We’ve  got the tools to help return to work safely!

IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENTS

SET UP SNEEZE GUARDS
When used with adequate spacing, physical barriers offers the best barriers and can keep Everybody is happy and healthy. Companies are providing more sneeze guards, artistically made from completely transparent acrylic, and offer no obstruction. You must ensure that your guard is just about the right height, surpassing the height of any tall-stature guest or  seated receptionist. We have full- bodyguards available for valets, security staff, or other  employees to satisfy these needs.

CONSUMABLE SUPPLIES
Establish a cleaning routine for every touchpoint no matter the surface. Providing the right casual disinfectants, personal sanitizers, and cleaning solvents are the best defense against casual contagion. For your staff, create a cleaning culture and ensure the safety of the visitor
touchpoints by implementing a routine and regular wipe down scheduled throughout the room. Included in your policy on masks, should be the implementation of masking off all outside visitors. This is understandable in relation to the current situation. To ensure that everyone coming into your office has access, purchase a supply of disposable surgical masks for those who do not have one. Although masking is only a suggestion, if they are made available, guests will use them. Most importantly, these supplies will be universally beneficial for the foreseeable future.  Invest in permanent heavy-duty dispensers, and efficient wall-mounted devices that can be maintained indefinitely.

ELIMINATE PAPERS
Because paper goods are porous and known to easily hold on to the virus. Whenever possible, eliminate all paper goods and implement other easy-to-clean options, such as:
● Laminated signs or required reading materials.
● Tablet-based sign-in systems to replace paper logbooks.
● Web-hosted materials that can be accessed on visitors’ gadgets.
● When the paper is unavoidable, provide sizable recycling areas for disposal and also use
small desktop scanners to immediately digitize all forms.

As for writing utensils, the alternative is to use single-use pens or short golf pencils for which provide an inexpensive and disposable solution. Although options with antimicrobial coating may seem appealing, they are not as efficient against Covid-19 to be beneficial.

REMOVING & SPACING SEATING
The easiest way to stop overcrowding is to make it impossible. So remove seating, add barriers between chairs, and space out seats. This eliminates the option for visitors to crowd around one another. Some tips to achieve this include, keeping single-seat chairs 1.8 meters apart, placing tables between them, using movable partitions, and adding cleanable fake plants to areas to make it difficult to overcrowd.

If there is a need for added capacity and you have the facilities, consider converting an adjacent room into an overflow reception space, only opening up this area when necessary. Make sure it remains easy to let guests know when it’s time for their meeting or appointment. Maintain the same strict surface cleanliness and spacing measures as in the main area.

EMPLOYEE ENTRYWAYS
It is possible that as your employees settle back into their workspaces, they might share an entrance with outside visitors. We recommend creating separate aisles for in-house and external entries to handle these challenges. Use crowd control systems, denote internal, clear signage, and external walkways.

WAYFINDING & DISTANCING
Create physical pathways that clearly guide the way people walk as this is a means to regulate in-and-out flow, in addition to the movement of employees well within the space. Provide one-way paths of entrance and egress, they are integral at this time and a combination of physical and visual reminders makes expectations clear and easy to follow.

For distancing, place floor decals on any flooring using an easy-to-remove adhesive that will not permanently alter your space. Station cues six feet apart for waiting for queues and adds signage to any crowd control belts to dictate suitable spacing.

REMOVE AMENITIES
‘Those little details always matter’ they say. In a welcoming reception space and who does not like a cup of coffee while they wait? However, our suggestion remains to remove these high-touch areas featuring single-use goods as they see a lot of interaction. As restrictions are listed these areas should be some of the last additions to a post-COVID workplace. Empty and store racks containing magazines made of highly-porous paper or any correlating literature for the time being, and instead make sure your WiFi signal is accessible while visitors wait. For child-friendly waiting rooms, remove and keep toys in storage indefinitely.

LONG TERM SOLUTIONS

UPGRADED MATERIALS
COVID pandemic or beyond, using porous and hard-to-clean materials can make cleaning and maintaining the waiting room more difficult. Wherever possible, avoid fabric upholstery, wood and veneer surfaces, and hard-to-maintain leather. Instead, go for hard plastic temporary seating and tables in the interim whilst seeking out exceptionally durable vinyl upholstery and laminate tabletops for the long term. Healthcare furniture is generally designed to be highly cleanable,  having durable vinyl upholstery, synthetic or metal arms, and a cleanout space at the back of the  seat to hinder debris buildup. More recently, seating solutions for hospitals and clinics have become  more and more stylish and serve as an attractive choice for waiting for areas everywhere.

SMALLER FOOTPRINTS
Decrease the space the chairs take up in order to increase the space between chairs. Narrow options, reduce bariatric selections throughout allowing for a higher waiting area capacity with no extra space is taken. Avoid more than one-person seating, like benches or sofas, and ensure chairs are kept staggered apart from one another or back-to-back to keep direct airflow at a minimum.

LIMITED AMENITIES
For sure we’ll all miss those cups of coffee or simple snacks served during eating times, but they’re just not feasible for the foreseeable future. Maintain the changes as applied at the outset and once meetings are afoot, you can offer your guests a beverage but in an employee-controlled way. In the same way, magazines may not be a great addition to spaces at the moment, however, keeping an open wireless connection or maybe a muted television can provide just enough entertainment during extended wait times.

STICK TO A SCHEDULE
While the return to work changes can be made quickly, relaxation schedules may take a much longer time. As the need decreases, you can slowly reduce your countermeasures in the same way. Granted, this won’t be an overnight overhaul and some of these changes are here to stay.

The process will eventually take time and although most of them will change as situations develop, it is best you craft a tentative schedule for reductions. At the same time, be ready to quickly pivot to original alterations.

HANG ON TO SUPPLIES
The COVID pandemic has taught us the importance of great hand hygiene and respiratory awareness. Ensure you keep a stock of hand sanitizer and disposable wipes while maintaining a touch up periodic cleaning schedule between deeper cleaning. The dispensers and holders you purchase are not just for disaster remediation, they are investments in the future wellness 
of your visitors and staff.