It has now been confirmed that theaters and sports stadiums will be allowed to open without social distancing within weeks under plans being accelerated by the government, with instruction to move at and "extreme pace" to encourage us all back into venues and drive the economy forward. 

The ending of 'eat out to help out' has seen many restaurants continue with in-house offers to continue the momentum of increasing their footfall, and we are aware that ministers have been instructed to look at a similar scheme along the lines of "seat out to help out" to encourage a similar return. These commercial schemes combined with "Operation Moonshot", which aims to test and trace 4 million people a day within minutes using saliva test, shows us that the governments roadmap for back to work is well advanced and will require the management plans of businesses to be equally prepared.

Over the last few months it has been left to FM mangers of buildings and their H&S teams to create such plans, working closely with cleaning companies such as ours who ultimately have to deliver the most important aspect of enhanced cleaning regimes. The market has been flooded with new innovation from ultraviolet robots, over night ozone delivery systems, spraying by fogging or electrostatic systems and now chemicals that profess to clean for up to a month after application, a claim which is proving more controversial within the wider industry.

From the very start of our work with Coronavirus, managing initial COVID-19 contaminations and designing and implementing return to work procedures, it has always been our standpoint that we must focus on not only employee, visitor and contractor safeguarding within the work place and social environments, but also increasing the perception that it is safe for people to return to them.

While innovation within any industry is key for its advancement, I believe that it has become a distraction from common sense and the need for basic the increases in workplace hygiene. While not directly helping us a a business as it is a service we do not supply, the  increase in cleaning hours is a basic and fundamental foundation of any COVID-19 management plan, and one that delivers the most cost effective and visible service that will go the furthest to reduce the fears of the returning workforce. Overnight deep clean or ones that take place after new weekly shift patterns, social distancing must be ancillary. For to long cleaning hours within contracts have been driven down by over-zealous purchasing departments regarding them as easy pickings for reductions in workplace overheads, to a point where existing and well performing contractors are forced into online dutch auctions just to keep the contract they were performing well at. Sales teams were pushed by promises of high bonuses resulting in deliberate underpricing of contracts, leaving the operational teams to pick up the pieces trying to deliver at the coalface, long after the salesman has collected the bonus and move onto another company, usually via a recruitment agency fueling the transient nature of the industry especially within the Capital.

It is time now for a considered approach back to common sense cleaning within structured contracts, delivered by accredited companies, delivering a safe environment for us all to return safely to work, thus eliminating some real, and some not so real pandemic driven fears. Companies will not survive on home-working, as much as employee's and their familles will soon discover the long term disadvantages far out way the short term ones. This comes from an all together reversed perspective, from someone who worked at home for 4 years and now enjoys working from a fully functional office, and should not to be seen as old fashioned, outdated opinion but one based on experience.