These are unprecedented and uncertain times. Other than keeping a workplace stocked with the sanitizing essentials, it can be difficult to know how to protect employees. As we hope to ease back into normalcy, office spaces can be the most dangerous and infectious places for working Americans. To protect your employees and tenants, we recommend making some changes to your workspace. Invest in a personalclean air initiativeIt’s probably time to get HVAC ducts cleaned. While hospitals and medical care centers are using a costly method of rapidly heating and cooling air to keep the virus from circulating, there is a simpler (and greener) approach: invest in a HEPA air filter. Depending on how large a workspace is, that could mean a single air purifier tower or a larger, permanent installation. While these can get expensive, it’s a long-term investment to keep employees healthy as they also help remove allergens and mold from the air. It can be tricky to know where to place air purifiers in a space; connect with your design team to get recommendations on the best installations based on workspace occupancy. Keep your hands to yourself and look for touchless solutionsLook for ways to minimize the amount of contact your employees have with each other and shared objects. While they are probably not sharing keyboards and chairs, the whole office is using the same doorknobs and light switches. Whenever possible, automate the doors, lights, and fixtures that people tend to touch.That could mean installing more automatic or doubling-acting doors, looking into solar-powered faucets, hand dryers, and auto-flush toilets, and installing occupancy sensors for your lights. Identify the handles that get the most traffic and think about ways to replace them with “hands-off” technology. READ MORE