Here is How to Safely Reopen Commercial Facilities

Across the country, stores and businesses are slowly starting to reopen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. As they do, the number of cases of infected people is still growing. For facility managers, this raises a lot of questions. How can we keep our buildings as safe as possible when we get back to work?

While the goal of every facility manager is to keep their buildings safe, clean and open for business, that’s easier said than done during a global health crisis. How can you prepare your facilities to reopen them safely?

A Plan to Promote Safe Behavior for Employees and Guests

Each facility and every business is different, which is why you should examine your daily practices to create a reopening plan to meet CDC guidelines and recommendations to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Think about shared spaces and objects like photocopiers, the supplies at a coffee station, and registers or workstations. You may want to remove the coffee creamer or space the registers further apart to promote physical distancing and limit shared touchpoints.

What other things should you consider as you write your safety plan? 

Here are other CDC-approved workplace safe behavior practices to implement within your facility:

• Plan to stagger work schedules so that staff members can work on opposing days to allow for more distancing. Employees who can should work from home.
• Prop open internal doors that can stay open. This limits the need to touch door handles that can spread the virus.
• Open windows as much as possible to increase ventilation.
• Frequently clean and sanitize high-touch surfaces like phones, desks, keyboards, staplers and touch screens—even if these items aren’t typically shared.
• Limit social contact opportunities like shared lunches or in-person employee meetings. 
• Work with your team to create a non-punitive sick leave policy so that employees can stay home if they are feeling under the weather. 
• Implement liberal work-from-home policies so that sick, high-risk or immunocompromised staff members can stay home.

Additional Considerations for Retail Stores

It’s a challenge to plan how to invite the public back into your retail spaces in a safe way, but your customers are what keep your business going!

Some stores are making their aisles one-way to promote distancing or marking out six feet for those waiting in line or in congested areas. This is a great way to remind your customers to keep their distance.  

Some other suggestions to build into your retail store reopening strategies?

• Post signs at the entrance asking those who are sick or who have been exposed to the virus to respectfully stay home.
• Post signs at the entrance and throughout your store to remind guests of the need to physically distance.
• Implement curbside pickup, contactless delivery and contactless payment procedures as much as possible, and make sure your customers know about all of these options.
• Extend the space between cashiers and customers.
• Remind guests at the entrance not to use reusable bags during the pandemic.

Decide What Your Mask Policy Will Be

The CDC recommends that everyone wear a cloth face covering over their nose and mouth when they are in public. COVID-19 can spread through the air before an infected person ever feels sick, and masks help protect the people around you from becoming infected.

Many retail stores have requested their customers to wear face masks while they are shopping. Of course, this decision is totally up to your facility or office space. You should know in advance what your policy on face masks will be and make that information known to your customers. Will you require employees to wear masks? What about your customers?

How Long Does the Virus Last on Surfaces?

As you re-invite the public into your facility, it’s good to know how frequently things should be sanitized. While the answer is “as frequently as possible,” it’s hard to get to every surface of the building. 

Here’s how long it’s believed viable parts of the virus can survive on different kinds of surfaces:

• Glass: five days
• Wood: four days
• Plastic: three days
• Stainless steel: three days
• Cardboard: 24 hours
• Fabric: 24 hours
• Copper surfaces: four hours

As time passes, fewer and fewer instances of live virus can be found on these surfaces, but these surfaces still should be regularly disinfected with a cleaner approved by the EPA to mitigate the risk of spreading infection. You should consider increasing or ramping up your janitorial services to keep up with the germs.