Social Distancing Furniture will become part of your office design for some interval time from Mid-2020 until such time as COVID-19 becomes less prevalent in our city.
The best thinking about what social distancing looks like is changing constantly and we have advised some of our clients to hold off on making these changes until we have a clearer picture of what the world looks like when New York City turns back on for offices. But here are the recommendations we believe will be with us going forward for some period of time:
Office Furniture:
Minimum separation will be 6' per employee. Some employers and landlords may make this more.
Surfaces that are easily washable such as laminate and materials
Each station will need some physical separation from others such as a screen made of metal, glass, plastic, laminate or workstation panel with PET fabric. There will likely be a height requiremmnt for this. We project 24" will be considered best practice (this is the equivalent of a 54" panel or what we used to call "Seated Privacy"). 24" is our best guess, but there is no certainty and the state agencies may wind up requiring 30" or have requirements on the materials used.
Other Areas:
Sanitation stations will be needed throughout the office with hand washing or hand sanitizer.
Reception areas will reduce soft seating in favor of poly or leatherette seating
Staff kitchen including fridges may need to be curtailed or eliminated for this period
Conference rooms will hold meetings of reduced density
New Practices
Through disinfecting cleaning scheduled regularly
Place to dispose of bio-hazard materials such as used masks and gloves
Touch-less doors and systems will start to be integrated into offices.
Face masks will likely be worn in many parts of workplaces.
Your landlord or the City of New York may reduce the approved capacity of your space during initial phases of this pandemic.
Continuation of Work from home
Work from home will continue as an option for many classes of employees
Any employee with any illness or symptoms will be asked to work from home.
Employees over a certain age or people with certain medical issues will not be returning to work for some time
We are ready to help. Do you need screens? We have some in stock and more in quick-ship programs. Reconfiguration work with your existing furniture?
Please be in touch with your rep or if this is your firs time working with us, contact us here.
Updated 5/5/2020 - We will continue to update this as we learn more. Nothing here can be considered medical advice and no one at Office Furniture NYC has medical expertise or training.