This guidance does not apply to businesses and premises that must remain closed, as set out in the COVID-19 Safe Exit Framework: Level 3 Policy. These include services that involve close personal contact.

In the case of outdoor working, retail, and leisure business activities, other guidance applies the sectors and industry-specific guidance for: outdoor working, retail, hospitality, leisure business. Read more here.

From the date this guidance goes live, the Financial and Legal Services Schemes will no longer apply and those businesses will also be able to resume business activity in accordance with this guidance.

The opening of indoor business at Level 3

You must consider whether or not it is essential to the business functioning for employees to return to the workplace. If it is not essential and/or home-working can continue, employees should not be asked to return to the workplace during Level 3.

For some businesses, it is not possible to enable all employees to work from home. From the 21^st May, indoor business such as offices, warehouses, manufacturing and workshops may return to their premises to resume some workplace-based activity, where this is considered essential to maintain the business function and where this work cannot be otherwise be undertaken from home.

Every business or organisation opening during the COVID-19 pandemic should plan in advance how they are going to reduce the risk of spreading the virus during the course of operating. A risk assessment must be undertaken and appropriate measures put in place before opening to reduce and manage the risk of coronavirus transmission. Crucially, this means that the number of people working within the building must be able to comfortably maintain physical distancing at all times and there must be adequate welfare and hygiene provisions made available. In many cases, this will mean that the number of employees able to return to the workplace will remain considerably limited.

A record of the risk assessment and plan should be available for inspection by the relevant authorities, including the Health and Safety Inspectorate, upon request.

When you open, you may wish to display a ‘we are workplace ready’ poster to demonstrate that you have you have followed the indoor workplace guidelines.

Coronavirus Posters for Print

Guidance for office-based working

Risk assessments must be undertaken in a way that is bespoke to your office environment and the way that your business operates.

In the cases where an office is within a building occupied by others, an additional risk assessment that covers the communal areas shared with people outside of your organisation will need to be developed. The plan for communal areas should have regard to this Public Health guidance and be developed in collaboration with the other occupants of the building and those with authorisation for the management of the areas (such as facilities management and landlords), depending on the specific ownership and management structure of the premises.

In addition to the general guidance for business, measures to consider to support effective hygiene and social distancing in an office environment might include:

Limit and control the number of staff in the building at any one time, which may include staggering arrival, departure and break times or shift patterns. At Level 3, you should continue to support and encourage employees to work from home where this is possible. Staff should only return to the workplace in the cases where it is considered essential to the business functioning.
Using markings, introducing one-way flows (where possible) and introducing policies for movement etiquette at entry and exit points and throughout the building.
Ensuring access to adequate handwashing facilities (i.e. liquid soap, water and disposable hand towels) and hand sanitiser (with 60-70% alcohol content) prominently available throughout the building.
Restricting access to areas such as small meeting rooms, and limiting the number of people in confined spaces such as kitchens, toilets, lifts and changing rooms (such as a one in, one out policy)

Review and adapt workstations and other work areas to ensure all reasonably practicable steps have been undertaken to ensure a minimum space of 2 metres can be maintained. This may involve identifying desks and seating areas that should not be occupied and restricting access to them. It may also be appropriate to use tape floor markings to ensure spacing can be clearly maintained.
Workstations should be assigned to an individual for the duration of their working shift. If workstations need to be shared with those working a different shift pattern, each workstation should be kept to a minimum number of people and cleaned between users.
Identify and implement ways you can support staff travelling to work using their own means (walk, cycle or car) to reduce the need to travel by public transport.
Ensure that cleaning contracts and enhanced procedures have been put in place in preparation for the return to office working. This may include ensuring that suitable cleaning products are available for office staff to use outside of the regular cleaning times (such as to disinfect workstations and printers in between uses)

Further ideas and advice on preparing an office environment can be found here.

Guidance for warehouse and workshop-based businesses:

A risk assessment addressing the control of Covid-19 transmission must be undertaken in the exactly the same way as you will have done for all of the other significant hazards and risks associated with your working activities.

It is especially important to make sure that any additional measures you need to introduce to manage the risks of COVID-19 are properly resourced and do not comprise the other every day risks you need to manage.

Experience shows that in many high risk workplaces, such as warehouses, motor vehicle repair shops, joineries and other workshop-based businesses, it may be necessary to provide additional resource, whether in-house or through external contractors, to help provide adequate supervision and to implement enhanced hygiene and physical distancing procedures whilst also maintaining control over your typical high risk activities.

In addition to the general guidance for business, measures to consider in order to support effective hygiene and physical distancing in a warehouse or workshop environment might include:

Considering who is essential to be on site, for example, office or admin staff may be able to work from home. Where it is possible for staff to work from home, they should continue to do so. Plan the work to minimise the number of people needed to be on the premises at anyone time to operate safely and effectively.
Staggering arrival and departure times at work to reduce crowding into and out of the workplace, particularly if you only have one entry point.
Using markings and one-way flow at entry and exit points and throughout the workplace.
Reducing movement by discouraging non-essential trips within the workplace and restricting access to areas such as small meeting rooms, and limiting the number of people in confined spaces such as kitchens, toilets and changing rooms (such as a one in, one out policy).
Reviewing workplace layouts and work processes, including position of machinery and storage of materials etc., to ensure that all reasonably practicable steps have been undertaken to ensure that people are able to work whilst maintaining a minimum of 2 metres physical distance.
Ensuring access to adequate handwashing facilities (i.e. liquid soap, water and disposable hand towels) and hand sanitiser (with minimum 60% alcohol content) prominently available throughout the workplace.
Encouraging increased handwashing, and where necessary, introduce additional handwashing facilities, for people handling equipment, goods and merchandise. Where this not readily available, provide appropriate hand sanitiser.
Wherever possible, making sure portable tools are not shared between different people. Where this cannot be avoided, carefully considering what controls and cleaning procedures are required, for example wearing of gloves which are disposed of after each use
Considering cleaning procedures required when plant, machinery or tools must be used by more than one person, for example fork lift trucks, vehicle lifts, woodworking machinery, pallet trucks etc.
Identifying areas where people may have to pass things to each other, for example, drawings, spare parts, raw materials etc and put in place all reasonably practicable measures to remove direct contact and ensure 2 metres physical distancing, such as through the use of drop off points or transfer zones.
Putting in place all reasonably practicable procedures to minimise person-to-person contact during deliveries to customers or sites
Reviewing pick-up and drop-off collection points, procedures, signage and markings
Considering methods to reduce frequency of deliveries, for example by ordering larger quantities less often.
Wherever possible, using mechanical means to load and off-load deliveries. Where maintaining physical distance will not be possible during deliveries, you should consider whether or not the activity/delivery should go ahead. If the activity is essential, try to use the same pairs of people to carry the work if 2 metres distancing can’t be maintained and consider other protective measures such as cloth masks.
Whenever possible, when delivering goods or materials, there should be only one person per delivery vehicle. At the point of delivery encourage drivers to stay in their vehicles where this does not compromise their safety and existing safe working practice, such as preventing drive-aways. You should also consider other protective measures (such as cloth masks) and ensure regular cleaning of vehicles.
Identify and implement ways you can support staff travelling to work using their own means (walk, cycle or car) to reduce the need to travel by public transport.
When you are already using PPE and/or RPE in your work activity to protect against non-COVID-19 risks you should continue to do so. It is not necessary to wear extra PPE/ RPE as a precautionary measure.

Further ideas and advice on preparing factory, plant and warehouse environments can be found here.

Guidance for indoor workplaces

The opening of indoor business at Level 3

Guidance for office-based working

Guidance for warehouse and workshop-based businesses: