81363Phased return to the office: enabling employers to safely return staff to offices through further development of an existing easy-to-use (demand-driven) technology platformClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKCOVID-19 has had a huge impact on every aspect of our lives. For many, the rapid lockdown marked the first time that they worked from home consistently, having being forced to set up at home in a hurry, often with limited resources and competing for space with household members. As a result, workers have reported issues with everything from new physical pains (from unsuitable working conditions) to mental health issues associated with loneliness. Working from home over such long periods can have a negative impact on work-life balance, particularly among working parents who have to look after children during the day, often working late into the evening. This can negatively impact people's lives and wellbeing. Ultimately, workers will need to return to offices but managing a phased return to work at scale poses a hugely complex challenge for large companies who currently have no way of easily managing the number of staff in their buildings or allocating staff to specific areas, as they will need to in order to comply with social distancing protocols. Our Phased Return to Work solution will develop new functionality within an existing UK-wide platform to enable employers to manage who can access offices (and for how long), see where staff are working, measure occupancy, and track staff wellbeing data. The project will therefore enable companies to easily manage building occupancy, while employees are reassured that they will not be entering an overcrowded workspace. If a member of staff does become infected with COVID-19, the system of zoning areas in combination with desk bookings means that it will be easy to track and inform colleagues who came into contact with that member of staff. Instead of having to shut down the entire building and ask all staff to work from home again (as we saw in offices where there were outbreaks before the lockdown), the zones and other areas they had access to can be deep-cleaned and only those staff who came into contact with them will have to isolate. In addition, this system of zoning means that entire workforces or teams are far less likely to all become ill at the same time: even if an infection spreads through one zone, the spread is limited to that area. However, the success of this software also has a much larger impact on employees' health. Enabling staff to return to the office in a safe way has potential to dramatically improve mental health and wellbeing. Not only do staff have the reassurance that all precautions are being taken, they can come into work safe in the knowledge that the building will not be overcrowded and that they will have a desk to work at. Ultimately, the Phased Return to Work solution will help companies and employees return to some form of normality without compromising on employee mental or physical health.