How smart companies will protect their employees
As the dust begins to settle on our current situation, most of us are sitting at home hoping we can return to our normal lives. This means wondering what life will be like when we return to work. Personally speaking, I know that I have gained a newfound appreciation for what our lives were once like in public, appreciating small things like a lunch meeting or a drink after work with friends. I’m hopeful that interactions with the people around us and the public space we use will return to normal, but with a few changes.
To start, we need to understand that technology is going to have a major impact on how we interact with our day-to-day environment. Many companies now have full task forces discussing what “business as usual” will look like, and there are many views. There are more obvious answers to our “return-to-work” solutions, including reducing employee counts in the office while we begin to ramp up our economy once again. However, during a time where we have relied so heavily on technology to bring some semblance of normalcy in our lives, companies should also prepare themselves to understand the technology in our workspaces that will help usher in the “new normal”.
One example of these technologies will be location and interaction tracking. Apple and Google collaborating to track interactions using Bluetooth have recently created some press. The Bluetooth tracking technology has similar applications in indoor environments, including collecting data about our employee’s usage of space, who and where employees interact with, and what an employee’s behavior is in those areas. Over time, this will enable smart businesses to better provide safe and secure environments for employees.
Of course, we also know major events like live sports and concerts will never be the same. As suggested by a major executive in the Wall Street Journal, “sanitation and cleanliness of facilities will be an ongoing issue for the rest of my career.” Cleaning is no longer a topic that only the operations team needs to discuss, it will be top of mind for the highest levels of major corporations. More than just internal task forces need to be thinking about these problems and how to solve them.
Protecting employees so that they are safe, but also feel safe is critical. It doesn’t get any easier, as this responsibility is being placed squarely on the shoulders of employers. Employers need to consider investing in vital products like sanitizers and PPE for employees, and the technology to help support these products actually being available in public spaces. Handwashing compliance monitors and real-time monitoring of critical supplies could be a major difference-maker not only to our health but to our psychological well-being. Doing so while also investing in cost-savings measures could mean the difference between success and failure of our businesses.
To be a company that values employee safety, one should consider the need to invest in the infrastructure required to support new technology. All technology has a learning curve, but once we learn, we can’t remember what our lives were like before.
To help ease this transition to a new technological world - Mero is here to help. Our technology provides peace of mind to business owners that their employees will be able to return to work healthy and safe. By keeping core products like sanitizers and soaps available for public use, Mero will be at the forefront of technologies we interact with during the “new normal”. With the right planning, we can create a healthy public world together.
