Post COVID-19 challenges: how to make sure my employees return to the office with confidence
9. February 2021
If you work with HR, you have most likely asked yourself “How to make sure my employees return to the office with confidence post COVID-19?” and you are not alone. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the management of staff has suffered a tremendous impact due to various reasons. Among all questions surrounding the virus itself, lockdown, and new regulations, the most important factor has been to protect those employees who in fact need to perform business-critical tasks at the office and to ensure they can work with confidence post COVID-19. And that from a distance, as most HR professionals work from home.
“How can I prevent the spread of COVID in the office and protect my staff from anywhere?”
New COVID-19 office protocols do not only prevent the spread the COVID-19 and protect the staff, but also give them the peace-of-mind to perform their work safely. The protocols include various activities from mandatory masks, to opening windows for more air circulation, to identifying common areas where employees could most likely have close contact.
To ensure that employees maintain the 1,5m distance between each other, for instance, staff rotation in the office is a strategy often used. Employees are separated into groups that work at the office on different days, respecting the building capacity and space. The question is how you can make sure the employees are using the appropriate parts of the office when you are working remotely.
Smart Locks as an ally to post COVID-19 office solutions
Mobile access with smart locks is a strong ally in ensuring the staff rotation is working as it should. You can easily grant and revoke access to certain areas of the office based on date and time, even if not at the building. So in case there is a last minute change in plans, for example, you can use our system from home to change access permissions.
And that is useful not only for employees, but also for staff and visitors in general. The cleaning staff, for example, can receive permission and sanitize only the used offices, while janitors and visitors can receive short-term permissions to restricted areas.
But not only the remote management is a benefit: smart locks also enable contactless openings. After all, viruses such that of COVID-19 can also be transmitted through indirect contact, for example by touching infected objects such as door handles. Our vast portfolio of BlueID smart locks offers, for example, wall readers and other solutions that can easily habilitate your office with contactless opening.
Next steps…
Deloitte has published an interesting workbook named Workforce strategies for a post-COVID-19 recovery, in which three phases to deal with the COVID-19 are named:
- Respond – dealing with the present situation and managing continuity
- Recover – learning and emerging stronger
- Thrive – preparing for and shaping the “new normal”
The switch from physical keys to a mobile access control solution could be the first step to quickly respond to the pandemic while it is still reality. Our locks and wall readers can be easily ordered and installed by your own staff. Within days you can have full control of who enters which parts of your office and most importantly: peace-of-mind for your and your employees.
For the legal office attendance requirements, please turn to your local health and employment agencies.