Ince Gordon Dadds Rolls Out Four-Stage Return to Work Plan for UK Staff

AIM-listed Ince Gordon Dadds has rolled out a four-stage return to work plan for its U.K. staff, as more firms eye a revival of office working in view of easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. 

Since the government lockdown came into effect in March, all firms and businesses have by and large been operating remotely.  

Following a four-stage plan, Ince’s new senior partner, Julian Clark, said he anticipates U.K. staff to return to the firm’s offices in London, Bristol and Wales by July 6. The firm’s leadership is in discussions to bring this date forward, however, depending on government advice.

The firm is currently in the first stage of the plan, which involves working remotely. By July 6, Clark said the firm will move to the second stage: the phased return of staff to the firm’s Mayfair office, once certain safety measures are put in place. These include setting up a coordination team, with whom all staff seeking a return to the office will need to liaise and provide reasons for wanting to return. Any member of staff feeling unwell will not be allowed to return. 

Reasons for returning might include client and business need, or staff wellbeing, Clark said. All buildings will be risk-assessed, while further measures include temperature checking all arriving personnel, one-way systems, halving the number of seats available in meeting rooms, socially distanced work areas, floor markings, and PPE stations. 

In the third stage, the firm will allow more staff to return to Mayfair, and will for the first time allow staff to return to its headquarters in Aldgate Tower, London, where the firm occupies two floors. Lifts in the tower will be segregated by full length perspex sheets, allowing just two people in at a time. According to Clark, the landlord has designated half the building’s lifts to people going up, and the other half to those going down. 

The fourth stage will see all of the firm’s U.K. offices reopen. But the timing of this depends on what restrictions are in place at the time. At this stage the firm will operate a rotation system, whereby at any given time half of all staff will be permitted to return while the other half will continue working remotely. Clark anticipates that this system will continue until a corona virus vaccine is made available.

The firm is among several to start formalising plans for a return to their U.K. offices, including surveying staff and drawing up transition schemes to assist with a phased returns to work. On Monday, CMS said it was targeting a return date in July, while Dentons has already reopened its London HQ.

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