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Social Bubbles at Work & School: What is it & How Does it Work?

Social Bubbles at Work & School: What is it & How Does it Work?

Social Bubbles at Work & School: What is it & How Does it Work?

Various governments are giving people permission to hang out with a small group of friends and family (at a safe distance) as they begin to relax 'stay at home' orders. They call it your 'Social Bubble'. An example of how it's being implemented is here courtesy of the state of Alaska. There are some question marks over the practicality of this, and it seems to us the only way to make it work is to keep it simple! Here's a light debate on the subject outside of the workplace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlagOuQzdOU

 

But What About Social Bubbles at Work & School?

We already know that Make Safety Visible.com customers are doing a great job of embedding social distancing at work and controlling high touch areas with regular sanitation. However, this of course has largely been with essential workers, and anyone who can has worked from home.

Now, with more people slowly going back to work and school, are our current social distancing measures going to be enough?

In this context, Social Bubbles at work seem to make sense? In fact it could work better than outside of the workplace? Let's explore it some more..

 

Are Social Bubbles at Work & School Easy to Plan?

Resisting the temptation to over-think Social Bubbles at work, should make it relatively easy to embed into virus control and social distancing plans.

Think about your organizations current structure, it'll likely allow for social bubbles to fit right in... For example, do marking NEED to go down to the shop floor or can they stay in their own Marketing team social bubble? And can purchasing e-mail the requisition for a signature instead of delivering it in person?

Perhaps a shop floor, or college campus, is already departmentalized and so using social bubbles will be pretty straight forward too?

In the video above, they say you can move between bubbles. Is this realistic in the work environment? Even if it's some designated, well controlled people as an  exception? Don't forget, during lock-down at home, you've had to leave the house to go to the store where you'll come across people outside your household/bubble...

Remember we don't think this would replace your current social distancing measures. People within bubbles will still socially distance right? And you'll continue to control where and when people eat lunch and take breaks etc. We see the introduction of Social Bubbles is and evolution of your strategy as more people come back to work.

 

We're Really Busy, How Do I Make It Happen?

The easy answer is use the tools on Make Safety Visible.com (ok sorry that was a BAD plug 🤦‍♂️ ).

However you do it, it shouldn't be too challenging. In previous blogs we've talked about people's readiness to come back to work accepting things will be different and expecting change.

The global pandemic has created the need for change for you. This means you aren't going to have to work as hard to help your people understand why your organization is doing this. In fact it'd likely be more difficult to justify doing nothing! The key then is to make it simple and easy. After all, there is still a business to run, and a job to do. Therefore lets make it easy for everyone from the shop floor to the boardroom.

Our suggestion is color coding. You can identify an area as the 'Purple Zone' , as well as identifying a person with a purple lanyard for example.

Check out some ideas around this by clicking here and if you have your own, we'd love to hear them at help@makesafetyvisible.com

 

Final Thought

The segregation of your people using the 'Social Bubble' methodology seems a great answer for today's question. Although much has been said about the positive long-term changes the 'lock down' will have in business (e.g. the way we communicate and the working efficiencies we have found), it feels like Social Bubbles aren't one of these but are a necessary short/medium term measure to get us through this next period.

Only time will tell the impact social distancing, and social bubbles will have on our organizations cultures, but for now we have to take care of our peoples health first, and Make Safety Visible.com has got your back.

 

Please tell us what you think of these thoughts and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn.

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