Looking forward to post COVID-19 Real Property services: Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates—June 9, 2020
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Issue
With global efforts focused on the containment COVID-19 outbreak and the prevention of further spread, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is engaged with central agencies and industry in planning business resumption activities for a staged and progressive return to workplaces for public servants and occupants of its portfolio.
Key messages
- PSPC is committed to providing its clients with healthy and productive work environments
- We continue to liaise with the employer (Treasury Board Secretariat) and Health Canada to establish guidance for departments in terms of staged return to workplaces combined with telework, as well as to determine appropriate cleaning and maintenance protocols for our buildings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Should additional measures be recommended, PSPC is ready to implement them
Background
A large proportion of the public service has transitioned to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our offices remain open and have been maintained for essential and critical workers to support the Government of Canada efforts nationally. Guided by the public health agencies within regional jurisdictions, we anticipate a progressive return to workplaces when we flatten the curve and remain within health care capacity.
Working collaboratively with central agencies and consulting with industry partners for best practices, Real Property Services is contributing guidance to departments to support them in establishing their plans for return to the workplace. Return to the workplace strategies may be based on the nature of the work and the services provided to Canadians and the current set-up of their workplaces. There are many factors to consider to ensure physical distancing, and other guidelines which may be provided by the public health authorities, can be accommodated within the workplace. Effective return to workplace strategies will likely include balancing office work with teleworking, improving network infrastructure and bandwidth, and providing employees with access to mobility tools such as laptops, mobile phones and virtual collaboration platforms to ensure continued program delivery.
As employees return to buildings in greater numbers, maintenance and life safety systems will be monitored as per health agency guidelines to ensure that government functions can be delivered in a safe environment. From a workspace perspective, additional measures anticipated:
- Suggestions for balanced ratios for teleworking and office presence through cyclical scheduling of office attendance
- Communications to clients and contractors promoting personal protective practices as established and/or recommended by health agencies
- Ongoing engagement with central agencies to ensure that PSPC measures remain current with evolving best practices
- Reviewing how we work in the context of maintaining social distancing and cleaning of office spaces
Next steps
Continue engagement with central agencies to collaborate on guidance for workplace return to work strategies.
Guidance will include balancing teleworking and office occupancy, social distancing within the office environment and in high traffic and common areas, responding to special cleaning requests, ensuring adequate performance of potable water and ventilation systems in line with up to date industry recommendations, and ensuring elevators and other alternative circulation pathways (stairwells) are well serviced.
Continue to develop procedures to ensure healthy and productive work environments for the resumption of occupancy in our buildings.
The new GCworkplace scenario
GCworkplace is about how we work, and not just about the design of the workplace. It is based on serving a mobile workforce and providing flexibility to employees.
Many departments have begun to take the steps necessary to enable remote and mobile working by issuing mobile devices, increasing network capacity and establishing flexible work policies. GCworkplace designs permit departments to decide how the space is used and to adapt easily to changing needs. Employees can choose their preferred work setting, which means they can respect social distancing and their individual preferences for distancing and are not restricted to a single work location. The open nature of GCworkplaces allows for easy and effective cleaning.
We are monitoring what industry world-wide is considering post-COVID-19 to determine if any adjustments would be necessary to the workplace design and ensuring our Government of Canada workplace fit up standards reflect current practice. For example, new requirements require that hallways and circulation spaces are sufficiently wide to enable more space for people to pass. The easily adaptable nature of the modern GCworkplace can incorporate these types of changes; however, our traditional workplaces will be more difficult to adapt.
We are closely monitoring industry best practices and the advice of the health agencies regarding shared spaces, including meeting rooms, kitchens, and common spaces to assess the need for cleaning stations at the entrances to common spaces.
GCcoworking
GCcoworking provides departments with access to inter-departmental shared space. Similar to GCworkplace, departments that are using GCcoworking spaces are well-positioned to adopt flexible return to work strategies. The GCcoworking workplaces are well positioned to support the return-to-work as an alternative work location. The 36 departments that have been onboarded, will have access to these alternate work locations, which are technology-enabled, meet security, workplace safety, and ergonomic requirements of employees. Upon re-opening of the sites, an additional 25+ departments will be onboarded to ensure we provide additional flexibility to support government operations.
In order to respect cleaning and social distancing requirements, these spaces can be easily reconfigured and workpoints can be taken offline. The flexibility of GCworkplace applies to these spaces. We are currently reviewing the potential implementation of a space reservation system to minimize “walk-ins” to better plan utilization within these shared spaces.
Each GCcoworking site has an on-site representative, called a coPro, whose role is to ensure the proper functioning of the site, ensure the health and safety of the site and its users, and to respond to various user queries. The coPro observes the operations of the site and supplements regular cleaning by wiping down workpoints between users. Additional wipes will be available for any user of the site to conduct an extra wipe down of the workpoint before their use.
As user feedback is a key element of these workplaces, users of the locations will be invited to complete a survey that includes questions related to user perception of the cleanliness, effectiveness, and the general health and safety of the site. This feedback will inform the operations of the sites going forward.
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