The latest whitepaper by Dr John Sullivan, a recruitment and HR guru, predicts what the future of the workplace could look like.

The experts predictions echos some of the UK governments guidelines on allowing some businesses to reopen as the lockdown eases.

The draft government guidelines for easing the lockdown include staggering work shifts, maximising home working, physical screens, and changing workspace layouts and seating plans to promote social distancing.

The paper also warns financing these measure will be hard for those businesses that have already been struggling through this pandemic.

In his whitepaper published last week, entitled ‘The upcoming social distanced workplace will shock you’, US-based Dr John warns: ‘The required social space on the business side of many companies will mean that in many cases, fewer customers can be served. In other organisations, the general global business downturn will also mean radically reduced revenues.’

This means that a lot of business budgets will be severely reduced and finding the resources to fund the COVID-19 related changes would be a stressful time for many businesses.

Some of Dr John envisions are:

• Social spacing will severely limit the capacity of break rooms, eating areas and meeting rooms, along with forcing a reduction in lift capacity.
• Continuous sanitation will be essential. Every area where congregation occurs will be sanitised twice a day and deeply cleaned once at the end of every day. Hand sanitisers will be placed at every major doorway.
• Automatic activation will replace touching. To reduce the spread of the virus, handles for doors and buttons for lifts, vending machines and other equipment will shift to voice or heat sensor activation.
• Frequently touched surfaces will be cleaned by the user before and after each use.