The pandemic disturbed almost every part of our lives, especially the office going employees. While most offices have still not stopped working from home, others are looking forward to the return of their employees to the office.
While the pandemic has not completely vanished from the world, how will offices ensure their employees' safety? That's where COVID-secure technology comes in to play. These technologies can help to address the crucial issues related to office space.
Read on to understand how technology can help you make a smooth transition back to the office while ensuring a safe and healthy environment for all employees.
Four Technologies To Ensure A Safe Return To The Office
COVID-19 had a huge and significant impact on the operations of companies. With technology, workspaces are now moving forward to ensure a safe reopening and working office environment.
The main 4 technologies to make a COVID safe workplace are:
- Digital Wayfinding
- Pre-Entry Wellness Checking
- Intelligent Hot-Desking
- Engagement and Communication Tools
Digital Wayfinding
With the restriction in office movements and contact with other employees, digital wayfinding helps you navigate the workplace efficiently. All you need is to install the digital wayfinding software to update and manage the information.
The workplace apps have made it possible to reach different parts of the office with a touch less guide. You can perform some primary admin tasks, including finding the free hot desk space, book meeting rooms, and much more.
Digital Wayfinding is perfect for shared office blocks and conference centers. Moreover, it is integrated with other useful technologies such as digital signage platforms and room booking systems. Your employees and visitors can effectively navigate different areas with touchless solutions and safely return to their workplace.
With tools like Appspace and Embrava, you can easily navigate floor plans, book hot desks and enable Locate me option to find your colleagues. The display will guide you and eliminate all the confusion related to directions.
Advantages of Digital Wayfinding
In this new normal, the way of grasping information has drastically changed, and that's why people find digital solutions more interactive and informative. With digital wayfinding, you will save your money on paper and printing, making it a cost-effective solution.
The best part is the self-service. Your staff is free from giving instructions and directions, resulting in more contactless operations. Also, it reduces the stress of finding a way by looking at a printed map. The touchless guidance helps you to be in more control of the search.
You can also make updates and add information to the database. The stylish design and simple to use interface offer a satisfactory customer experience.
Pre-Entry Wellness Checking
The entrances and Lobbies make the first point of defense and contact to fight against virus spread. The criteria to check employees and visitors entering the building include contact tracing, health indicators, and employee schedules.
Most companies that have opened their offices use apps to screen employees and perform daily health surveys upon arrival. This is to ensure that no one with possible COVID-19 symptoms enters the building.
Health verification and screening have also become common in office workspace and lobbies. The lobby and front desk workers use contactless thermometers to check each individual's temperature entering the building.
Contactless Thermometers like the iR37 use a seven-inch display with a camera that presents an individual's temperature using an algorithm and infrared technology. It is commonly used in offices for fever screening.
With the rise in COVID-19 cases, it becomes crucial to keep organised employee health data to improve the employees' health and work productivity.
Advantages of Pre-Entry Wellness Checking
Health and Fever Screening at the entry points has two advantages. First, the data will keep you informed about your employees' health conditions and ensure a safe working environment.
Second, health patterns enable companies to invent more opportunities to improve the overall health of their employees. For instance, if employees' temperature on the iR37 thermometer comes higher than expected, the company could take an instant decision and regulate work-from-home options to limit the spread.
By using technology for pre-entry screening, companies can create a safe and positive environment in the office. Finally, they are cost-effective solutions, and every company could afford that.
Intelligent Hot-Desking
The pandemic has led to some crucial changes in our thinking of personal spaces. We used to share our personal space with colleagues, but now, we have to keep at least six feet distance.
Most employees won't be able to use the same space like they used to do it before. Working from home has already kept you away from your colleagues for a long time; you need shared desk space to work efficiently.
Intelligent hot-desking enable you to work along with your staff while maintaining a certain distance. With intelligent hot-desking, you can easily book the available desks remotely and communicate for availability. It allowed you to maintain and follow hygiene protocols.
When you reduce the density of people sitting next to you, you can effectively prevent the spread of the virus. You can manage desk booking from platforms like Appspace, which also provides you with employee communication tools to remain connected with your colleges.
You can also use GoBright to manage and book desk and room for meetings. It also incorporates digital signage solutions. Additionally, Embrava also allows you to book or reserve your desk in advance.
Advantages of Intelligent Hot-Desking
With the need to maintain and follow social distancing norms, technology has made it convenient to sit with your colleagues at a safe distance. Intelligent hot-desking allows you choose a safe desk from your mobile.
Intelligent hot-desking enables flexibility to employees to choose their preferred desk. Also, they can check what desks are available at the moment. Employees can use the dashboard to check the crowded areas to avoid contact before leaving the desk. This boosts productivity and reduces time to locate your colleagues.
Engagement and Communication Tools
HR responsibilities are emphasised as the workforce is divided between remote workers and office workers. Technology tools help to fulfil three crucial criteria, manager effectiveness and engagement, employee wellness, and communication.
It is crucial to have seamless communication in the pandemic situation to encourage and motivate workers to work productively. Also, communication helps to boost the engagement of the employee.
With tools like Appspace, you can connect with your team no matter where they are located. It also enables employees to send crucial messages.
Another category is employee wellness. People have suffered a lot mentally in this pandemic, so it's also the responsibility of the company to take care of their employees. Having a mindfulness sessions from time to time ensure that company prioritises their employees.
Advantages of Engagement and Communication Tools
The tools provide individualized and personalized coaching to managers to identify employee concerns and boost their performance. Maintaining effective communication between in-house and remote employees forms a strong and stable professional relationship.
Lastly, the employee wellness programs will increase productivity and create a positive environment to fight against spreading viruses.
Undoubtedly, it will be a strange experience to return to the office after lockdown. Employees will be more concerned about morale, privacy, and safety. But with the help of these four technologies, you can create a safe, hygienic, and friendly working space for employees.
