Employee concerns still top of mind for services firms returning to the workplace

Concerned employees returning to work - COVID-19
Blog / Contact Tracing

Employee concerns still top of mind for services firms returning to the workplace

As vaccination programs continue to gather pace, many professional services and technology firms are using this period to plan their return to the office. Recent surveys show that their employees have mixed feelings about a return to the workplace, with safety concerns and privacy worries top of the list.

Services firms intuitively know that how they use the office moving forward will be different. But they are using this time to intelligently plan how their workspaces can be used to service clients, deliver projects and maintain company connections and culture.

In this article, we will talk about the concerns of professional employees, and the steps RightCrowd can assist with to give your people the confidence to return to their workplace.

People want to return to their workplace

An overwhelming majority of professional employees want to head back to the office (90% across recent surveys), but how often and what will surprise most employers.

Many people have enjoyed the flexibility of remote working and the focus time it gives them. But professionals in business and tech services want to head into the office at least one day per week, to connect with colleagues, collaborate on projects and coordinate client engagement.

RightCrowd can help by ensuring that only healthy and approved people can access your workplace. Project and client teams can pre-register to enter the building, have meeting rooms allocated, complete pre-entry health checks and have their building access card provisioned through automated approvals. For security and safety, their access can be revoked until the next time they request to come into the office.

RightCrowd solutions can be configured so that your workplace can be productive but physical access can be finely controlled.

People are concerned about sick co-workers

Recent studies show that when people are in their workplace they are most concerned about not knowing if a sick co-worker is present and that the preventative measures are effective and taken seriously. Those same studies cite workplace capacity limits, maintaining appropriate social distancing and exposure notification as being of greatest concern.

Today many organizations already use health status questionnaires to ensure sick people are aware they should not come into the office, and to help employers exercise their duty of care. They are also undertaking significant refurbishment programs to change the workspace, reduce capacity and maintain safe distancing.

RightCrowd turns your existing building access cards into a digital Contact Tracing and COVID-19 exposure reporting system. With business-grade security built-in, the reporting dashboards provide fast, accurate reporting to keep people safe and the office operating.

People are concerned about their privacy

Despite their concerns about sick co-workers being present, many employees do not want to compromise their privacy. Recent studies show that 37% of employees report they would consider a job switch over privacy concerns. Millennials and Gen Xers are more likely to consider leaving over privacy issues.

Privacy requirements differ between organizations, industries and legal jurisdictions. RightCrowd allows you to configure and operate the Contact Tracing reporting dashboards to maintain employee privacy. At the highest level of privacy reporting is based on the RightCrowd Badgeholder serial number only. In this case, the solutions do not read the access card inserted into the badge holder and there is no integration with physical access control systems or HR.

The employees privacy, safety and health can all be proactively protected with RightCrowd solutions.

While many companies are still working from home, one in five have returned to the workplace in some capacity, and that means that 8% of organizations need better solutions to get their people back to the office safely and confidently.

If you need more information, you can contact us.