With concern growing around the prevalence of the latest Omicron coronavirus variant, new data has found that 57% of UK workers who attend or expect to return to the physical workplace are worried about encountering people at work who are not yet vaccinated.
The research, which was conducted by Infogrid, has found that this is having a huge impact on the expectations of workers, especially in light of colder weather and flu season.
Of those who attend or expect to return to the physical workplace, 58% are worried about getting sick from being at the office during flu season.
When assessing how the wellbeing of workers could better be managed, the research ascertained that the top three measures that workers want include regular and thorough cleaning at 47%, hand sanitiser dispensers at 38%, and improved air quality to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at 35%.
Workers also highly value actively controlling the number of people in the workplace (49%), the availability of face masks for all staff (46%), and better ‘facilities’ to reduce virus transmission, such as spaced-out desks and the use of air cleaning tools (42%).
In addition, 57% of UK employees say the ‘healthiness’ of the working environment has a moderate or high impact on their physical wellbeing, and 55% say it has a moderate or high impact on their mental wellbeing.
With 63% of employees saying they are more concerned about the ‘healthiness’ of their workplace than since the coronavirus pandemic began, it is clear that altering the office setting to ensure that health and safety is prioritised should be a top concern for HR.
This may also mean utilising tech to improve wellbeing; over half of those who left their workplace and have not yet returned agree they would feel more comfortable returning to the workplace if their employer was using data to improve the ‘healthiness’ of the building or workplace.
“Employees are returning to the office, but their expectations have changed,” noted William Cowell de Gruchy, CEO at Infogrid.
