What Does a Safe Return to Work Really Look Like?

Work, at its core, is what you do and how you do it. But when it comes to reopening offices and facilities in the midst of a pandemic, the “where” is just as important—and it’s one of the most pressing challenges for organizations to address.

The logistics of creating a safe and sanitized workplace can extend far beyond such commonplace measures as plexiglass partitions and hand-sanitizing stations. The demands are further complicated by the fluid nature of hybrid work.

Which tools should be marshaled to support employee health and safety at this time of dramatic flux? How should physical spaces be restructured to meet evolving needs?

As they look to re-shape offices and workspaces for a hybrid work future, operations and facility executives need fresh and forward-looking strategies, says Jeremy Witikko, Global Director of Smart Buildings, Cisco. That means updating traditional approaches and avoiding assumptions about people, the technology they use, and the physical spaces they occupy.

Myth # 1: You Must Buy Specialized Solutions to Enhance Health and Safety in Your Offices and Facilities

The market is filled with standalone systems designed to track air quality, social distancing, building occupancy and other important health and safety metrics—but that doesn’t mean that organizations need to buy them, says Witikko.

In many cases, organizations can gather the same data by using their existing technology infrastructure, whether by upgrading software, adding sensory components, or tapping into solutions via APIs (application programming interfaces) that are already in place.

“People don’t realize that they can move a lot faster than they thought they could, because they have much of the infrastructure that’s already there,” Witikko says.

Myth #2: Understanding How Your Real Estate Is Being Used Is a Labor-Intensive Process

To ensure that they’re only occupying the square footage they need, many organizations want a more detailed understanding of how their spaces are being used.

“There’s this perception that they’re going to have to commission studies and get folks with clipboards to do time and motion studies, watching how people interact with the space,” says Witikko. “That’s really the old way of studying human behavior inside a facility.”

Today’s technologies, such as cameras, sensors, and facial-recognition software, can handle the same tasks with greater speed and accuracy. As they rethink their workspaces, continues Witikko, organizations should also draw on insights from both IT and human resources departments. Workspace needs can shift quickly, and the more complete and up-to-date the picture, the easier it is to effectively adapt.

Myth #3: A Safe Return to Work Means Installing Partitions, Hand-Sanitizer Stations and Contactless Door Handles

While these commonplace measures are important, the main priority for operations and facility managers today is air quality. Prior to the pandemic, air quality was a back-burner issue, a concern for landlords more than anyone else. Today, it’s also top of mind for tenants, with surveys showing it to be the health and safety metric that employees care about most.

“Now, as we come back, it’s going to be the number-one thing tenants want to see,” Witikko says. “They want to know if they go into a conference room, ‘Is the air OK to breathe in there?’”

Using technology to track and share air-quality data is more critical than ever. Collaboration endpoints with built-in sensors can measure everything from volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) to relative humidity, which can have proportional relationships to the percentage of pathogens in the air.

Myth #4: There’s a Limit to What IoT Devices Can Track

IoT devices can detect much more than headcounts. With vast capabilities for keeping tabs on how and when workplaces are being used, they can provide the detailed information that companies need to ensure employee health and safety.

Cameras, swipe badges, facial-recognition software and other tools can track not only who entered a building and when, but also where they went, which keyboards they touched, which conference rooms and floors they shared with colleagues, and more.

“Think about contact tracing. Let’s say someone fell ill on the fourth floor. You can quickly go back and find who else was in that space at the same time,” Witikko says. “I can even tell you if a desk was used on one day versus another, so now I know whether it needs to be cleaned.”

Noise levels are another relevant metric, as they can influence workplace wellbeing. IoT networks can measure them, too. “Pretty much anything you can think of can be sensed,” he says.

Myth #5: Once You’ve Decided on a Real Estate Strategy, You’re Set for the Foreseeable Future

The workplace of the future won’t be built on a single strategy, and data-driven insights will play a key role in helping it continuously evolve. By democratizing data on a secure shared network, Witikko says, organizations can make better, faster decisions around office size, configuration and operations. Even more importantly, they can constantly optimize their spaces for everything from safety and productivity to energy efficiency.

“If a building can tell you what’s happening between people and the space that they’re physically in, then that building is smart,” says Witikko. Technology, he says, is like “the fourth utility, as readily available as water, gas and power.”

Successful smart buildings take sustainability seriously. Buildings, Witikko notes, contribute 30%–40% percent of greenhouse gases globally. “A question we get excited about when we have a conversation with real estate executives is, ‘If I’m going to redo my office anyway, how can I do it in the most sustainable way?’”

Myth #6: Talent Recruitment and Retention Are Only in the Realm of HR

In addition to their role in promoting health and safety, workplace renovations can double as a powerful recruiting tool.

“We have one customer who shared data with us showing that for the first time in company history, they had a 100% acceptance on their job offers,” Witikko says. “And the number-one reason people accepted was because of how interesting and safe the space was from a technology standpoint.”

Improved recruitment is just one example of how today’s safety measures can lead to long-term impact beyond the pandemic.

“All these sensors and systems, all these things that we’re doing to these spaces, will continue on past the current pandemic because there are other health and well-being benefits, as well,” says Witikko. “So, my advice would be, don’t just think about hybrid work and solving for the immediate need. Let’s build something that stands the test of time.”