A brand-new on-line platform, which promotes safety at work amid the Covid-19 pandemic, has been launched by Leeds businessman Angus Armitage.
Angus, the co-founder of award-winning marketing and branding agency DS Emotion, was inspired to create the Go To Work platform when he faced the challenge of enabling his employees to return to work safely as the lockdown eases.
DS Emotion has offices in Leeds, Manchester and London. Angus explained: “Our new online subscription platform allows you to quickly and easily check whether there is capacity at your workplace for you to attend safely, and within social distancing guidance, on a given day and at specific times”.
“The platform allows you to set bespoke occupancy ratios related to number of workstations, floor area or other metrics. It will check who has already signed in to attend your workplace at that time, advise if there is capacity and, if not, suggest alternatives”.
“Our new platform has been set up in response to a gradual return to the workplace. This has to happen in a safe and sensible manner, which allows people to feel comfortable,” he said.
Angus explained that the Go To Work platform was a start-up and had been created as a direct response to the Covid 19 pandemic.
He has pledged 50% of first-year profits to NHS Charities to help support the fight against Coronavirus.
“I think it is vitally important to thank NHS staff for the tremendous work they have done, day in day out, since this awful pandemic began. This is our way of giving something back to those who have put their lives at risk to protect us.”
The platform, gotowork.me, will avoid needless commuting and the time-consuming exchange of e- mails and calls to establish who is going to be in the office on certain days and times of day and who is not. DS Emotion’s three offices in the UK are very different and present contrasting back-to-work challenges.
The Leeds office is self-contained with its own front door; the Manchester office is on the fifth floor of an office building; and the London office is part of a serviced office.
“It was the safety and well-being of our team in each of our offices that sparked this idea, as I aimed to minimise commuting and ensure social distancing was maintained in the workplace. The fact that our platform will save significant time and manpower in managing who can come to work and when is a real added bonus. It is only going to cost from £1 per user per week, so is very cost-effective in helping to manage the safety of your teams and prevent unnecessary commuting,” he added.
As an example, gotowork.me has evaluated the safety of a call centre, occupying one floor, where 216 people were employed and a single infected employee came to work. Over the period of a week, 94 of the 216 became infected. Out of those 94, 89 worked on the same half of the floor as the infected employee and only five from the others side of the same floor. The estimates were that 94% of infections were from respiratory droplets / respiratory exposure, and roughly 6% from fomite transfer (door handles, shared water coolers, elevator buttons etc).
“If we can help to control the number of people travelling and occupying workplaces, then we can also manage the spread of the virus. We want people to go to work with confidence, efficiently and safely,” added Angus.
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