MILAN/LONDON - Can creative sparks fly through plexiglass? Is the water cooler chat a thing of the past?
The changes included temperature tests, face masks and more space between desks that allowed the group to resume at least some office work. But strategies deployed by companies including WPP, Rentokil Initial and PageGroup show how a typical 9-5 day at a hot desk in a packed building will not be resuming when governments globally give the green light for offices to reopen.For the world's biggest advertising company WPP, staff will return gradually and on a voluntary basis, Chief Executive Mark Read told Reuters.
PageGroup, the UK-listed recruitment company, has set aside one entrance at offices in China where staff line up each day for a temperature check and to collect a mask, Rupert Forster, managing director of the China business, said. In some cases, they're proposing installing plexiglass or some other form of sneeze or cough guards to give additional insurance - a pandemic twist on the old cubicle model.