With corporate offices and companies reopening after months of lockdown, a new need has emerged for offices to keep their employees safe.

Across all industries, workplaces have implemented some basic measures and safety precautions like adapting one-way systems, placing desks far apart, removing chairs from meeting rooms to reduce capacity, and setting up hand sanitizer stations on every surface.

Employers have a duty to reduce workplace risk to the lowest level by taking cautionary measures to protect the health and safety of your workers and visitors by working through the following steps:

 

1. Workers who feel unwell must stay at home and not visit the workplace.
2. Increasing the frequency of cleaning & handwashing.
3. All workers and visitors must comply with social distancing guidelines.
4. If social distancing guidelines cannot be fully met, businesses should consider redesigning the related activity to maintain a safe distance, and take further mitigating actions that include:
   – Further increasing the frequency of handwashing and surface cleaning.
   – Keeping the activity time as short as possible.
   – Using barriers to separate people from each other.
   – Implementing back-to-back or side-to-side working instead of face-to-face.
   – Using ‘fixed teams’ so each person works with only a few others.

In addition to the basic guidelines most workplaces are following, there are more sophisticated solutions that corporate offices can implement to tackle the current challenges better, as well as the challenges that will arise in the post-pandemic world.

1. Remote working flexibility
The lockdown has drastically changed employees’ expectations. People have now gotten used to a healthier work-life balance, and they will be hesitant to go back to long hours spent in the office. This is why a more relaxed attitude to working remotely flexible working will be important for hiring and retaining the best talent in the future.

2. Proximity alarms
Maintaining a safe social distance will become increasingly difficult as more employees go back to working from offices, which is why proximity alarms are being used to enforce social distancing more effectively.

3. Touchless technologies
‘No-hands’ technologies will be crucial moving forward, and occupancy sensors will play a big part in this.

4. Temperature checks
Some organizations are using thermal cameras to identify people with an elevated temperature.

How V-Count Can Help
Our people counting and occupancy solutions can help your offices adapt to the challenges in the following ways:

1. Live-monitoring Occupancy & Traffic
Occupancy data can be integrated into your application through an API to keep your employees updated about the safety of your office space.

2. Displaying Occupancy Recommendations
Installing digital screens at the various entrances of your offices is a visible safety measure for employees that helps them feel more confident coming back into the office.

3. Facility Management Per Zone
Optimize facility management per different zones like toilets, meeting rooms, cafeterias, or elevators, etc., to provide periodic sanitization and optimize energy usage per zone.

4. Push Notifications
Employees can stay updated about traffic levels with mobile alerts and emails.

5. Anonymous Tracking
VCARE collects no personal information; all data collected is anonymous.

Learn more about VCARE and how it can ensure your office is prepared for the post-COVID world.