Don’t work at home, it’s better to sleep in the office

Written by: Pablo Rodriguez

The epidemic is not over, and to show Shanghai. China’s largest city has once again been hit by the coronavirus, and local authorities have ordered its 26 million residents to be confined. Some of the measures that prompted many companies in the city to adopt a striking emergency solution: placing beds in offices and factories or renting rooms in nearby hotels to house their employees, and maintaining economic activity without violating restrictions to curb the new wave, according to Quartz.

Like in the Olympics. This strategy to reduce infection is similar to that adopted by the Chinese authorities during the Winter Olympics in Beijing, where closed circuits around hotels and sports venues known as bubbles are designed to ensure that potential infection spreads only through a limited and controlled circle of people.

Factory bed. Thus, there are many companies that have decided to put beds in their facilities, and not just Chinese. The American company GE Healthcare, which makes medical devices, decided to integrate sleeping spaces in its factories in Shanghai to continue production, and the same was done by the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer-Ingelheim and several dairies and automobile companies in the metropolis. China, according to local media reports.

Also in offices. But factories are not the only ones that have taken these measures to keep them going. Both companies and financial firms have made similar decisions to continue their business, such as investment fund Zhong Ou Asset Management, according to Bloomberg. In the case of this company, employees who spend the night in offices receive a bonus of an additional $300 per day. There is no information about the rest of the companies.

Other measures. Temporarily moving workers’ residences to factories and offices is not the only measure that companies operating in China have taken to keep them active during the new wave of infections, although it is certainly the most noticeable. Other companies have chosen to shift production to unaffected areas and pay overtime to increase activity there, house their workers in hotels or allow employees with negative tests who live near facilities to continue working.