Frequently and thoroughly washing hands, limiting unnecessary physical contact, maintaining social distancing and keeping workstation clean —moving forward, hygienic practices such as these should be incorporated into the daily work life. Even though the following term is overused nowadays, but nonetheless, this should be the “New Normal” for businesses and its employees while they are at their workplace.
This is especially necessary for commercial tenants who rent properties and often times coexists with several other businesses in the same vicinity — and it is the tenants themselves who need to take ownership of the responsibility of monitoring and maintaining cleanliness.
The recent crisis has opened the eyes of the people of this country and has exposed its vulnerability to infectious diseases. For a developing nation such as Bangladesh that has a robust workforce and a growing economy, the need to mitigate this vulnerability to keep progression intact is of utmost importance. The economy cannot and should not take another major hit if it is to keep afloat. And that means cultivating hygienic practices in all aspects of life and livelihood so the curb, when flattens, remains flattened.
First and foremost, the practices themselves should be maintained for the health and safety of self-entity. If a business and its employees underrate the importance of staying clean and disinfected, they leave an opening for contamination. As a result, it is possible for a significant portion of an organization's employees to get infected on get shelved — curtailing if not completely stopping the ability to continue operation of the business.But if safeguarding one’s asset does not motivate a business properly, protecting others should.
Since major hubs such as Dhaka and Chittagong have limited spaces available, particularly for commercial activities, most of the businesses share a building or property with others to host their operations — which is a vulnerable state on its own. Cramped spaces can be a hotbed for transmission of infection, and disregarding proper hygienic practice will only flame the fire. That is why, in this forthcoming new world, commercial tenants need to understand the role they will, willingly or unwillingly, play in keeping the sanctity and the safety of the real estate they occupy and the people around them.
Even if two organizations operating out of the same building have no connection or communication with each other, they still share the same common spaces such as the lobby, the elevator or the stairs. It is those places where the transmission can easily occur — all it takes is a simple sneeze or touching a part of the place that is contaminated. But if employees of each organization are careful of their unwilling impact and take necessary steps to sanitize themselves, they can help ensure the health of others in their proximity.
This vigilance will also be a very important and necessary step to keep the landlord’s asset safe as well.As a tenant, it is their duty to make sure they do not cause damage to the property they rent. However, irresponsible unhygienic practices can have a devastating impact on the landlord as evident by the current scenario where many of the commercial buildings are under lockdown. Similar lockdowns can occur in the future if there is a chance of further transmission of diseases — leaving both the occupiers and the asset in a dishevel and catastrophic financial condition.
But aside from practicing and maintaining a hygienic environment at the workplace on a daily basis, assistance from cleaning services can also be enlisted to thoroughly disinfect and sanitize every once in a while. Furthermore, while maintaining such practices within the office spaces can be managed by the organizations themselves, enlisting those cleaning services to maintain the common spaces may not be such a bad idea. That way, the entire building or property can remain safe and the burden to do so does not hamper ongoing operations of any one tenant.
And that is very important. The Covid-19 economic crisis will be hard to recover from. It may as well take months and years to get back to the pace Bangladesh was on before the situation deteriorated. Even now, the crisis is far from being under control and will take strong monitoring to ensure that the virus does not make a resurgence once it is mitigated. That is why proper hygienic practices need to be implemented and maintained for the foreseeable future. Then and only then can the workforce truly focus on the task at hand, without having to worry about risking their lives, and continue to be the drivers of Bangladesh’s economy.
So, whether it is for the sake of personal health, the safety of others or the growth of economy, vigilance and awareness of hygiene at commercial spaces by tenants is a must.