Source: Gensler WPIx Work From Home Survey 2020.
As pandemic restrictions, ease and employers across the world return to the workplace, internal real estate and facilities teams are facing a growing list of variables to consider. We’ve offered guidelines for how companies can safely return to the workplace, and one guideline almost everyone seems to be rallying around is the concept of social distancing. It remains one of the most common and clearly defined strategies companies can adopt. And yet, there are still questions. Is 6 feet of distance enough? How can I analyze and re-plan my existing layout? What impacts does this social distancing really have on today’s offices?
Gensler has developed a social distancing tool called ReRun™. ReRun uses data to help companies plan for post-COVID workplace occupancy planning. The tool can quickly generate many different scenarios using an existing workplace layout, and it can identify the most optimized plan for a variety of social distancing conditions, whether an organization has hundreds or thousands of seats.
We’ve worked with clients across the globe to understand the impact of social distancing on their portfolios, allowing us to analyze and benchmark millions of square feet for all types of clients and workplaces. Through our data and benchmarking, we’ve surfaced some key themes when it comes to social distancing in the workplace.
Is 6 feet of social distance in the workplace enough?
Most employers we’ve worked with have referenced the CDC’s recommendation of 6 feet of social distancing during their return planning efforts. However, in many instances, we’ve seen that 6 feet may already technically exists between adjacent desks — especially for larger workstations and cubicles. A floor filled with 7’x7’ workstations could technically occupy every seat and still meet the CDC’s distancing guidelines; however, employees may not feel comfortable returning to a fully occupiable workspace even under these standards.
This set of ‘L shaped’ desks are already slightly larger than a 6 foot diameter circle.
We’ve found that many employers have been taking more conservative approaches than the CDC’s recommendation of 6 feet and are opting for larger distances between individual desks. Regardless of what social distance employers opt to apply in the initial return phases, the ways in which they manifest range across the different parts of their workplace.
The workspace comes in all shapes and sizes
In the floorplans that we’ve studied, we’ve found a loosely exponential relationship between physical distance and occupancy reduction. The below chart from ReRun benchmark data demonstrates the variety of occupancy impacts across the three most commonly studied social distances (6 feet, 8 feet, and 10 feet).