Creating a safe Coronavirus workplace

In a first tentative step out of the lockdown the prime minister has said that those who could not work from home should be “actively encouraged to go to work” from yesterday, in England. Safety of our people and serving our customers effectively is Metro’s primary concerns at this time and we need to have confidence that that they will not be at risk.

While stopping office-based work was necessarily fast and immediate, restarting will be slower and more considered, to ensure we get it right, for our people and our customers.

Planning and implementing the robust policies and processes, which will protect our personnel and maintain service levels will not be an overnight process, but putting health first is the only sustainable route to a successful recovery.

We will continue to maximise home-working, which has been remarkably effective, and redesign the workspace to support social-distancing of returning staff.

When official advice supports it and customers require a greater presence in the office, we will ensure that we are fully able to do so in a controlled and safe manner.

As key workers Metro has continued working throughout the lockdown and the office has remained open albeit with a small number of staff working in critical functions, including original documentation requirements which cannot be carried out online from home.

Considerable investment will be made to ensure our staff have a safe place to work as and when they return to the office and that both they and our customers have full confidence in Metro.

Thorough cleansing/sanitisation of the building including workstations takes place continuously and we had already installed additional hand sanitiser units and anti-bacterial wipes and we will both continue and increase this upon the return of additional staff to the office.

We are mindful that social distancing will be required for some time and are actively considering a range of factors in our planning including:

• Reviewing office layout to ensure that a two-metre distance can be maintained
• Adjust spacing between staff
• “One way” people flows
• Signage for two metre distance and directional arrows
• Alter office layout as appropriate
• Nominated isolation area should a colleague fall unwell