Bringing Trust to the Workplace

HID Global became its own case study in safely opening its sites

Author: By Jaroslav Barton, Director Product Marketing, Global Regions, HID Global
Contact: chris.gibbs@vol4comms.com
HID Global: https://www.hidglobal.com/access-control

As businesses and governments enter a new era of workplace safety, two prerequisites are preparedness and the ability to pivot quickly. Widely adopted access control, authentication, Internet of Things and other trusted identity offerings provide the foundation for safely and confidently reopening workplaces.

Facing the challenges
HID Global faced the same challenges in returning its employees to work. The first step the company took was to develop a strategy and comprehensive playbook, as well as processes for communicating to employees in a time of rapid change. These elements help guide the safety and security of employees while ensuring operations continue to run smoothly. The Return to Workplace playbook provided clear recommendations and reassurance for site leaders, employees and support for customers in an ever-changing environment.

Health and safety are front of mind for employees. It is essential to anticipate very real emotions and valid concerns. Equally important is looking ahead and showing what the ‘new normal’ looks like for employees by defining and providing reassurance about the new behaviours needed in an otherwise familiar place. The playbook provided this reassuring clarity.

Every office or facility has to adapt to its individual needs, but for HID Global they concentrated on four core areas: protection, cleaning, messaging and distancing.

For protection and distancing, HID Global turned to its own product and solution portfolio. Site-specific distancing guidance was provided related to face-to-face meetings and the time and spacing constraints, as well as greeting practices, dining habits and managing mail and package deliveries. The guidelines also covered activities related to meeting rooms, personal offices and workstations Site leaders also concentrating on how they could reconfigure assembly stations and other density- management challenges. Ongoing focus areas include ensuring compliance in cube arrangements, traffic flow pattern design and management, and the use of plexiglass and other barriers for ensuring separation.

Putting the guidelines in place
With these separation guidelines in place, HID then applied its own technologies to automate the process of compliance. There are two key components:
– Dynamic Workplace Safety – Cloud-based visitor management, remote employee and visitor badge issuance, and fully touchless access solutions reduce person-to-person contact. Rule-based physical distancing management provides immediate insights and alerts to keep employees compliant with safety and sanitation requirements.
– Automated Rapid Response and Compliance – Automated visitor compliance, contact tracing, physical distancing, and hygiene behaviour removes the burden of tracking new health and safety procedures.

HID piloted its solutions with 200 essential workers soon after public health distancing guidelines went into effect. The solutions were deployed across different physical environments from manufacturing floors to cubicles, eating areas and entrance lobbies. Each employee was given a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) fog on a lanyard, which uses peer-to-peer capabilities to sound an alert if people are closer than 2m for a specified time period. Simultaneously, this data was sent to the cloud for analysis and location information to identify where the incident took place within the building.

As an alternative to fobs, the same capabilities can be delivered using a badge/ badge holder that is easily added to existing ID cards. In either case, there is a full digital trail of an employee’s whereabouts and historical interactions while at work. Fobs can be issued to all onsite visitors and contractors as well. Employers define distancing policies and alert parameters for mitigating an infection outbreak per public health guidelines, and zones can be created with geo-fences around high-traffic areas (breakrooms, hallways, lobbies) to minimize large congregations of people.

Playing a key role
The solution also plays a key role when someone tests positive. With a click of a button, detailed reporting enables contact tracing using historical data on movement and interactions. This triggers safety protocols based on reporting that includes a chronological list of all the times two people were in the same zone or had a distance incident. The facility can assess the risk of each employee exposure and minimize disruption as it rapidly responds to cases and activates isolation procedures as needed.

The HID Global pilot revealed much about employee reactions to the global health crisis. They generally wanted to be part of something that could have a tremendous impact on the worldwide workforce. Their participation in the pilot also revealed how best to implement guidelines while also creating the optimal experience for employees. Additionally, the pilot underscored how an IoT ecosystem can quickly scale and adapt to the dynamic requirements of hospitals, manufacturing facilities and enterprise organizations. Real-time time monitoring and analytics capabilities can help ensure compliance with a number of other safety requirements, such as hand hygiene policies and other regulations introduced as part of the ‘new normal’. At the same time, organizations can leverage their investment in these IoT solutions beyond today’s global health crisis, since they lay the foundation to easily add even more IoT applications, all of which can be centrally managed on a single platform.