A safe space provides peace of mind to employees, visitors and employers. It is a physical space that enables people to come together to work, collaborate, learn, and socialize in a way that minimizes their health risk.
A safe space simultaneously prevents risks of infection from entering the workspace, protects its occupants, mitigates potential infection risks and issues, responds effectively to detected incidents, and facilitates the recovery of the workspace to a usable state after any incidents.
We developed the Safe Space SolutionsTM Safe Space Assessment model to help companies analyze the risk and safety of their work spaces. This model incorporates a holistic approach to evaluating the “safeness” of a space. It comprises of four main dimensions – the physical aspects of the space and how it is used; the measures (and extent) undertaken to prevent and protect against infection exposure; the measures (and extent) undertaken to respond and recover the workspace from an exposure incident; and the strategic measures incorporated to engage with and build trust with occupants and visitors of this workspace.
Approach and methodology
This section describes the overall approach behind the Safe Space Assessment. We start with an overview of the Safe Space Assessment framework, followed by the scoring approach, and how the scores are interpreted.
Safe Space Assessment Framework
A safe space provides peace of mind to employees, visitors and employers. It is a physical space that enables people to come together to work, collaborate, learn, and socialize in a way that minimizes their health risk. A safe space simultaneously prevents risks of infection from entering the workspace, protects its occupants, mitigates potential infection risks and issues, responds effectively to detected incidents, and facilitates the recovery of the workspace to a usable state after any incidents.
Your workspace risk and safety assessment results were based on the Safe Space SolutionsTM Safe Space Assessment framework.
This framework incorporates a holistic approach to evaluating the “safeness” of a space. It is comprised of four main dimensions:
Space and Usage. The type of space, the activities conducted inside the space, the characteristics of its occupants, as well as its interior design and ventilation characteristics determine the inherent risk of a workspace. Strategic intervention in some of these factors are critical in reducing the risk levels of a space.
Prevent and Protect. A series of properly planned and executed measures within a workspace plays a significant role in reducing the potential infection risk within a workspace. Five broad types of measures are employed – workspace safety plan, training and knowledge, roles and responsibilities, policies and practices, and uses of technology. An effective safe space incorporates a number of specific tactics evenly across the five measure categories.
Respond and Recover. Despite the rigorous and thorough application of various measures, the potential of an infection incident occurring in the workspace exists. An effective safe space plans for this possibility, and employs a variety of measures to help respond, and quickly return the space to its original “safe” state. Four broad types of measures are available – management and coordination, policies and processes, implementation of policies and processes, and use of technology. A set of diverse tactics, spread across the four measure categories, are necessary for a truly safe space.
Engage and Trust. This is an often overlooked, but strategically vital, component of a safe space. A workspace is only as safe as the trust and perception of safety its occupants have in it. A workspace can implement the most advanced measures to protect its occupants from infection risk, but if its occupants don’t feel safe, then it is not safe and they will not physically return. Four broad types of measures are available to increase engagement and trust of a workspace – leadership and commitment, reporting and metrics, resources and tools, and trust building. An effective safe space incorporates a number of key tactics evenly across the four measure categories.
