As months of pandemic work-from-home arrangements start to show the strain, St. Louis-area commercial contractor Landco Construction has a solution: REMOTivate yourself and your employees with home office makeovers.
Landco president Linda Bernhard said its new service can help companies lean into an uncertain situation with improvements that keep employees motivated and efficient.
“It could be a long time before we get back to normal. Everybody has people working from home - sitting at their dining room table or down in the basement surrounded by 2x4 studs and raw insulation. A proper home office can make them more productive,” Bernhard said.
Landco specializes in constructing contemporary, effective and environmentally aware workspaces for many St. Louis companies and campuses, including several Fortune 200 organizations.
Bernhard says that when the coronavirus struck earlier this year, it quickly became clear that the shelter-in-place orders were putting many clients’ construction plans on indefinite hold.
“They didn’t know how long they’d be keeping employees working remotely,” Bernhard said.
So, her team came up with REMOTivate, a service it could offer to both employers and employees to improve the work environment for the remote workforce.
Landco’s bundled offerings bring home office functionality to work-from-home locales. They range from the very simple -- a desk and chair -- to more premium packages that could include a sit/stand desk, executive chair, acoustical panels, even light construction such as installing a privacy door.
“We can make this package work for everybody. Employers can offer it as a perk to their workers, maybe to help transition them to permanent remote work. “They may be looking at downsizing their campus, giving up some rental space to save on their rent,” Bernhard said
Employees may treat themselves in order to be more efficient and comfortable in their home offices -- or may upgrade an employer’s offered renovation with extras of their own.
Landco is working with its partners, CI Select, Golterman & Sabo (G&S Architectural Products), Request Electric Inc. and Automated Data Systems, to put together a menu of standardized offerings that can be ordered easily and delivered quickly.
“We need products that are turnkey -- that we can turn around in three to five days,” Bernhard said.
Landco employees will observe stringent safety protocols, maintaining social distancing when they deliver and assemble the REMOTivate orders.
And it’s a service she believes will continue to be attractive to some clients, even when the initial COVID-19 crisis abates.
“What we’ve been encountering over the past few months has opened everybody’s eyes to a new way of working. If employers can save rent, if employees can work from home, I do see a need (of) continuing for this," Bernhard said.