COVID Sensible Coworking
A few weeks into our return to coworking life at Cape Town Office, in a COVID sensible way, I wanted to share some of what we’ve done with you. In many ways, it feels like the early days of setting up CTO 9 years ago. What I mean by that is since there weren’t any coworking spaces in Cape Town at the time, we had to figure things out for ourselves. Be it the creation of the physical space to figuring out membership options.
Try Learn Adapt Repeat
Europe has reopened. People are going back to their offices and resuming normality whilst being careful amid the reality of COVID. Sharing best practise directly from the EU coworking community has been so helpful. With tons of great resources at our fingertips, we can adapt as needed in a South African context. With COVID, we’ve also had the benefit of European data and practice to help guide us and we’ve tried to implement as much as we can.
Office Life
Daily temperature checks and hand sanitizer units. Wearing your facemask when away from your desk. Once you’re at your desk for the day, you can relax and remove your mask. All of our desks have sufficient divisions to the front and sides, protecting you from someone sitting opposite.
Other changes were introduced.
- Flexi members can no longer hot desk, meaning they need to pick one spot and stick to it
- Our kitchen is not open for the preparation of meals under Level 3
- Coworkers will also not be seated next to one another, we’ll simply skip every other desk ensuring maximum distance between people
- No guests or visitors are allowed under Level 3
Follow the Signs
We’ve made lots of new posters emphasizing the importance of washing hands, wearing your face mask, and remembering not to touch your face!
Break the Glass
This is possibly the scariest part of reopening our space. Similar to those signs you see “In the event of an emergency, break the glass”. Should you have tested positive yourself or been in direct contact with someone who has just tested positive for Covid-19, please follow the procedure below.
- Notify the office immediately
- Self-quarantine for 14 days
- Under no circumstance are you to come into the office for the duration of the self-isolation period
- Remain at home and self-isolate for 14 days.
Contact Tracing
An extremely important component of stopping the spread of COVID is contact tracing. Our access control system at Cape Town Office helps us enormously here. Every time a member makes use of the office, their arrival time is logged and recorded.
We implemented a daily report via our access control system, so we can quickly and efficiently establish who might have been in contact with a coworker who has just tested positive, on any given day.
If you require admission to the hospital, you need to remain in isolation for 14 days after clinical stability is reached. It is imperative that we all take extreme care and operate with caution during this period where Covid-19 is spreading prolifically.
As with everything else, we continuously encourage members to engage with us on what we can introduce to our space to make it even safer. Understanding that this is not a sprint, but a marathon.
Most importantly, we continue to take care of ourselves, each other and our community.