Make the return to the office as safe as possible

Companies will need a plan to deal with a hybrid approach to work, says Ergo's Coman Burke

Pro

Coman Burke, Ergo

In association with Ergo

With the World Health Organisation saying that the current coronavirus outbreak will be with us into 2022, organisations need to plan their return-to-work strategies carefully. There may be periods of time when older workers are vaccinated while younger people are still waiting their turn. And with vaccinations expected to become an annual event, businesses would be well advised to build a new kind of employee visibility into their HR processes.

The Ergo Return to Office Solution is the simple way for businesses to navigate unprecedented times. There is widespread acceptance that the way we work has changed, that a hybrid combination of home and office will become the ‘new normal’.

Return to Office is a cloud solution that combines an easy-to-use app with an enterprise backend. It can be integrated into HR and other systems, and used to address planning, productivity and compliance challenges that businesses are going to have to live with for the foreseeable future.

• Planning – Put procedures in place that ensure people are safe and comfortable when they come into the office. The app can manage the booking of desks/areas/rooms as part of planning to ensure distancing is respected and that offices are not over subscribed.
• Compliance – Make sure your procedures are aligned with the government’s Return to Work Safely Protocol and contact tracing requirements.
• Productivity – Enable teams to work efficiently and safely by managing people on a department-by-department basis.

The endgame is getting back to business safely, to extricate your company from a very difficult period without compromising the health and wellbeing of employees.

One-stop application

Ergo’s purpose-built software solution combines processes and checks in a one-stop application. With desk area booking and check-in functionality, it provides customisable forms to implement best-practice procedures in a way that works for your business. Employees can pre-book a seat for the days when they wish to come into the office, subject to built-in and configurable capacity rules.

Workers check in through the app on arrival, which not only ensures everyone is accounted for in the area where they sit, but also sets up notifications that will prompt facilities staff to sanitise the area when they leave. The solution caters for bulk bookings and gives managers oversight of where everyone is without the hassle of trying to track them manually on spreadsheets.

Features and functionality:

• Desk booking & check-in – This caters for specific area bookings in the office, hot desk bookings or geographical location bookings. Having pre-booked their seat for the days when they wish to come into the office, subject to built-in and configurable maximum capacity rules, workers check in through the app on arrival. This ensures everyone is accounted for and that the area where they sit is sanitised after use.
• Pre-return to work form – In order to access the desk booking functionality, workers must complete the pre-return to work form in advance of returning to the office. Workers can complete this form directly in the app. Information shared is stored securely and deleted when appropriate to do so, typically 28 days.
• Visitor management screening – Any external client or customer that enters the office building must complete a form that gives an overview of their current and past state of health in relation to the virus. HR will be alerted if a high-risk person might be entering the workplace and will have the ability to plan for that accordingly

Ergo provides the option of embedding the app within Microsoft Teams or SharePoint for cross-business integration. The good news is that usage may be covered by existing Microsoft licences.  Return to Office is a low-cost way of simplifying a process that may be with us well into next year and even beyond.

Talk to Ergo about a demo.

Find out more contact Coman Burke coman.burke@ergogroup.ie +353 86 842 8651