Almost three years after the pandemic pushed office workers out of the office, employers are now facing the challenge of bringing them back. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the pandemic shutdown has left a lasting impact on norms and expectations surrounding work arrangements. Many employees have experienced the benefits and flexibility of remote work, leading to a shift in their preferences and desires.
The question remains:
How do we bring workers back to the office?
The answer is certainly not pizza parties or under the threat of job security. It’s by taking tangible action to improve the workplace experience, starting from the day employees step foot into the office. This is where automation can play a significant role in facilitating a smooth return to work. As organizations transition from remote work arrangements back to physical workplaces, employers can create a hybrid work environment that combines the best of both worlds. Employees can enjoy much of the ease and security associated with remote work while still being able to engage in physical workspaces when necessary. Automation effectively supports this transition by streamlining communication, reducing costly errors, and ensuring efficient collaboration regardless of location.
In this blog post, we will identify what it takes to create a positive workplace that employees actually want to return to and outline how to successfully do so with the implementation of automated solutions.
How to create a workplace worth returning to
- Recruit and Retain Top Talent: Recruiting and retaining top talent in the return to work is vital for organizations to thrive and succeed in the post-pandemic era. These types of workers bring a wealth of skills, expertise, and innovation that are crucial for driving organizational growth and adapting to new challenges. Their presence fosters a culture of excellence, inspires their peers, and elevates overall productivity. Retaining these individuals ensures business continuity, minimizes disruption, and preserves valuable institutional knowledge.
How to Make It Happen: A recent survey by Glassdoor found that great onboarding programs can increase staff retention rates by as much as 82%. Vector Flow’s Physical Workforce Identity Management Suite allows organizations to maximize day one productivity with automated access provisioning upon onboarding. The power of this access recommendation engine is that administrators don’t have to manually set up access permissions – instead, Vector Flow analyzes employment details, location details, colleagues, access usage, and previous requests, and makes permission recommendations based on the access of other, similar identities.
- Embrace Contracted Workers: Not all of your previous employees will want to return to the office, regardless of any new policies and practices you may implement. To fill the gap, consider turning to temporary and contracted workers. These types of workers provide flexibility in managing workforce needs, allowing businesses to scale up or down based on demand. What’s more, hiring contracted or temporary workers can be cost-effective, eliminating many of the costs associated with benefits, training, and other long-term employee obligations.
How to Make It Happen: There is often hesitation associated with hiring temporary employees related to potential security or access violations. To alleviate some of these concerns, consider implementing automated contractor requirements. This could look like an automated badge application review and approval process, automatic termination of physical access immediately upon expiration of pre-requisite criteria, or a secure application process that will collect all pre-requisites (training confirmations, identity documents, background checks, etc.) required to confirm work assignment eligibility. Additionally, creating a paperless office where data and documents like NDAs can be pre-signed and approved makes the process both faster and more secure. Implementing these solutions will go a long way toward efficient and secure management of contractor access.
- Welcome Visitors with Ease: It’s not just employees who are returning to the office – it’s visitors too. Ensure you create a positive first impression for all those that come to your office by creating a seamless integration between security and front of house services that are inviting yet simple and secure.
How to Make It Happen: Vector Flow partners at Vpod provide Vgreet Virtual Reception which is an employee and visitor management kiosk that delivers an amplified reception experience and poses ROI to modern businesses by reducing administrative costs and improving efficiencies. When integrated with Vector Flow’s Physical Workforce and Identity Management platform, Vgreet’s visitor management capabilities are further enhanced with capabilities that include automatic access provisioning, AI-based recommendations to tasks and compliance audits, employee occupancy tracking, smart mustering, and more.
- Understand How Space is Being Used: In the post-pandemic era, building owners and employers have a voracious appetite for information about building usage and occupancy. They want to know if their space requirements will be the same as they were pre-pandemic prior to bringing workers back. This directly relates not only to the organization’s bottom line, but the employee experience as well. Maybe it’s time to invest in a second kitchen if most employees prepare their lunch at work, or perhaps it’s time to downsize so your 50,00 square-foot office doesn’t feel like a ghost town.
How to Make it Happen: Vector Flow’s Workspace Occupancy Dashboard makes use of existing security systems to capture valuable occupancy and usage data, then applies AI/ML technologies to provide actionable insights which can be leveraged to identify popular and underutilized spaces and forecast future use of your space. Armed with these insights, management can make data-driven decisions about workspace planning, areas that need more attention, areas that are overcrowded or under-utilized, and more, with real-time and historical data.
- Make It Easier on Your Workers: The mandated return to work leaves many employees unenthused to say the least. Workers may have various concerns and fears regarding a return to the office, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the shift to remote work during the pandemic has provided employees with increased flexibility, autonomy, and a better work-life balance. Returning to the office may mean relinquishing these benefits, along with the avoidance of commuting time, associated expenses, and potential health risks. Making the return to work as smooth as possible for employees will help mitigate the negative feelings about their presence in-person.
How to Make it Happen: Make communication and information as clear as possible by implementing a connected workplace ecosystem; Empower your workforce with simple self-service tools that help them work safely, confidently, and productively. Ideally, they should have access to an app that lets them check in, self-screen, and even upload vaccination status before entering their facilities. Daily worker attestation takes 10 seconds or less with the flexibility to be done over a phone or tablet. This makes it easier and better for workers, leading to less worker apprehension and a much higher rate of returning employees.
- Reduce Menial Tasks: Repetitive, tedious tasks like data entry and self-audits are dreaded by employees in their return to work. By automating these repetitive tasks, organizations can liberate employees' time, enabling them to concentrate on the type of innovative, value-added work that is uniquely human and often more fulfilling. Reducing these kinds of menial tasks allows employees to channel their skills and creativity into tasks that drive productivity and job satisfaction, ultimately fostering a more fulfilling and rewarding work experience.
How to Make it Happen: There are a number of tools available for automating processes across the workplace. A great example is Vector Flow’s PIAM platform. Leveraging AI, Vector Flow can automate approvals of low-risk, high-confidence personnel, or make recommendations to business managers. This greatly reduces the workload of business managers or physical access area owners who now only need to approve a small set of access requests in between annual or biennial physical access audit campaigns.
- Make Wellness a Priority by Creating a Culture of Security: At the end of the day, it is human nature to want to be in spaces that feel safe. Creating feelings of safety, security, and warmth matter in a workplace because it is these feelings that contribute to an organization’s success. The absence of such feelings can lead to poor mental health and mistrust, decreased productivity, and even a hostile work environment. Employees require a space where they feel safe, both physically and mentally, in order to truly thrive within an organization.
How to Make it Happen: Many of the solutions outlined above have a direct impact on workplace security. However, organizations can improve their security posture with Vector Flow’s automated Physical Security Threat Intelligence solution. This automated threat detection platform employs advanced AI and machine learning to autonomously analyze and correlate data from system logs, batch data, PACS, and other physical security systems in real-time to uncover anomalous activities that pose potential insider threats. Vector Flow helps quickly detect risky identities, sites, IoT edge devices, doors, etc. across the entire enterprise, effectively alleviating risks and liabilities to your organization.
By embracing automation and adapting to the new expectations of employees, organizations can strike a balance between flexibility and productivity, ultimately creating a positive work environment that caters to the evolving needs of their workforce. Contact us to learn more about Vector Flow’s suite of automated solutions and integrations such as Vpod Solutions’ Vgreet Reception Kiosk for the efficient and effective return to work.
