According to webinar moderator Richard Betts, Group Publisher and Co-Founder at Real Asset Media, many of the UK government’s proposals, such as temperature gauges, Perspex shields, one-way systems and decreasing occupation rates are mainly geared towards protecting employees in the workplace and monitoring employee health.

However, both Christophe Gomart, Senior Vice President of the International WELL Building Institute, and Whitney Austin Gray, Group Director of Security & Crisis Management at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, agreed that monitoring the health of employees won’t necessarily solve the problem without measures in place to deal with (and isolate) someone safely who is unwell.

Moreover, as Steven Khoury, Head of France & Client Solutions Europe at The Instant Group, pointed out, the key issue is that not only are companies and employees afraid of a return to work, but they’re afraid of a return to the commute, where health and safety measures will be near-impossible to implement.

Key to managing the situation will be a degree of collaboration. While most of the panellists and audience believed that it is the duty of the occupier of buildings to establish their own workplace strategy, Csongor Csukás, CEO REPM France of BNP Paribas Real Estate, pointed out that everyone will have a responsibility.

For Csukás, landlords should agree a plan of action for their buildings with their tenants, and while the onus is on the government to institute regulations, individuals and their employers will also need to ensure they are working safely.