With restrictions lifting, employees are now beginning to go back to the office.
But, as they do, companies will inevitably have a period of adjustment to handle. Challenges such as keeping workspaces clean and managing capacity of the office need considering.
We have collated four technology solutions that will ease this transition and set you up for an effective long-term hybrid office environment.
1. Gesture technology
Not touching doors and other surfaces – when possible – is obviously important to keep COVID-19 transmission low. As a start, you’ll want to use touchless controls for hand sanitisers, as well as automatic doors, which will help you maintain a more hygienic environment.
To take things to another level, explore advanced gesture technology for other hardware in the building, such as interactive kiosks and information points.
2. Voice interface technology
At the risk of stating the obvious, using voice interface is another way to prevent the need to touch things in the office. But, it can boost productivity too!
As an example, you can use Microsoft’s Cortana or Amazon’s Alexa to make daily tasks easier and faster to perform. Here’s a guide that illustrates what’s possible.
3. Cloud collaboration apps
The rise of hybrid work means that your staff need to be able to get their job done from any location. This makes cloud-based tools like Teams critical for daily communication and seamless collaboration.
For a deep dive on what’s possible with Teams, why not check out our on-demand webinar here? It’s packed with actionable insights that’ll help you get the most out of the software.
4. Return to Office Power App
At Chalkline, we wanted to do our bit to make life easier for organisations returning to the office. So, we created the Return to Office Power App:
- The app allows staff to book in time slots for them to come into the office on a shared calendar that shows office availability and capacity.
- As an admin, you can set the headcount limit. The app will then reject staff once the booking schedule is full.
It only takes us a day to configure on your calendar, and it’s based on the proven Microsoft Power Platform.
For more information, watch the below video where we walk you through the app in detail.
Going back to the office – made easy
According to Gartner, 82 percent of CEOs plan to allow employees to work from home some of the time going forward. This huge uptick in hybrid working, spurred on by the pandemic, means companies need to do what they can to manage flexible working and a more dynamic office space.
Using technology that improves hygiene standards and boosts cloud-based collaboration will help. So too will using tools that allow staff to understand when there’s space for them to come in to the office. It means you can say goodbye to checking each other’s diaries and manually balancing office space capacity.
If you want to find out more about how the Return to Office Power App could make it easier for your company to return to the office, book a chat with us today.
