How to manage social distancing in the workplace

With many businesses considering remodelling the workplace for a gradual return to work in the future, we thought we’d highlight a few ways to manage social distancing in the workplace.

Demonstrate the social distance requirement

We all have different interpretations of distances, if you ask 3 people to demonstrate 2 metres without a tape measure, chances are you’ll get 3 different answers.  Be sure that your workplace clearly demonstrates the distance required.

There are a couple of low cost and temporary ways to help you do this.

Floor marking tape is an inexpensive and quick way to ensure your business is compliant.  It’s a great way to provide visual cues for staff to enable them to go about their tasks safely. Very long lasting and much easier and cleaner to apply than paints, it can also be removed easily when no longer required.

Corrugate marker boards and separation screens can be positioned appropriately at packing and production lines to ensure safe distancing is adhered to.  These options are rigid and stable but can be fully recycled when they are no longer required.

Review your packing area and minimise sharing of packing systems.

Obviously the ideal solution is to separate out pack benches creating distance between each.

If you are using shared packaging dispensers, for example, airbags or filler paper, consider how you can minimise the congregation of staff around them. Moveable storage bins on wheels can be positioned by each infill dispenser eliminating the need for a gathering, allowing one person at a time to collect their bin to take to their pack station. Perhaps a hopper system could be put in place where the packaging is distributed directly to benches or between work stations.

Maybe you could do a temporary switch to products that can be dispensed by packers at their workstation or a low-cost manual void fill dispenser like a FillPak M system.

Another option is that the packer manually applies material without a dispenser – Geami paper can be torn off a roll and stretched by hand for application.

If you need help or advice on how to set social distancing cues within the workplace, the Macfarlane Packaging team are on-hand to offer help and advice. Contact us today to find out more.