support staff, who can access more resources at
the office to diagnose equipment problems.
More than 90% of Dell’s 165,000 full-time global
staff are working remotely during the pandemic,
compared with 30% before it started. Once
lockdown sends, she estimates that number will
be above 50%.
The outbreak is also going to force companies to
take hygiene much more seriously.
“The amount of people cleaning and sanitizing
an office is going to shoot through the roof,”
said Brian Kropp, Gartner’s chief of human
resources research.
Extra attention will go to places like conference
rooms, which will have to be cleaned between
uses, bringing added disruption, he said.
Or companies could do away with in-person
meetings altogether.
“What’s the point of sanitizing everybody’s
desk if you’re getting them all in the same
room,” said Hive’s Furneaux, who said he’s
thinking carefully about how to hold events
such as “all-hands meetings” for his 70 staff.
“We might get the weird scenario of in-office
conference calls.”
High tech solutions will play a role, such as
sensors to remind people to maintain social
distancing, said Joanna Daly, vice president for
corporate health and safety at IBM.
Existing industrial sensor technology could
easily be adapted to offices, said Daly.
One possible example: “We’d want our phones
to buzz if we got closer than 2 meters while we
were having a conversation,” she said.