Managing Hot Desking During COVID

One of the most straightforward ways to enjoy the benefits of hot desking during a global pandemic is to invest in desk reservation software. The option to reserve desks in advance through user friendly and accessible software has single-handedly revived the concept of hot desking.

Whatever the gains your organization is trying to achieve through hot desking, it is necessary to have a system in place where employees can reserve a certain desk or area for an hour, half day or even the entire day– especially in such times where safety and reporting are at the top of management’s agenda.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world has forced health authorities and businesses to re-think how employees interact with each other both in public and business settings.

To meet this challenge, OfficeMaps have developed several innovative new features designed to assist your business with contact tracing, social distancing, improving office dynamics, and employee and customer safety. OfficeMaps software keeps your workplace, employees and visitors safe during outbreaks through the following five key strategies:

Enabling social distancing

For the foreseeable future, gone are the days of employees' sitting side by side in open plan offices. OfficeMaps is making social distancing easier by enabling administrators to selectively block desks from being allocated to permanent or temporary users.

• Clear visual indicators on blocked desks to show what is available and what isn’t
• A simple, quick mechanism for administrators to selectively block desks for allocation
• Only enabled desks available for check in on the mobile app and kiosks 

Simplify contact tracing

No back to the office transition is perfect. It is important to plan for what happens if an employee comes to the office with the virus. Through a comprehensive tracing feature, OfficeMaps can help to answer the question of who the sick employee may have come into sustained contact with.

• Administrators can select an employee and a time period to undertake contact tracing
• Any or all desks can be selected by an administrator for inclusion in the contact tracing
• Automatically generate a comprehensive list of potential contacts within minutes rather than through a difficult manual process 

Display occupancy statistics

Ensuring appropriate people density in office buildings is a key method for limiting the spread of COVID-19. OfficeMaps gives your employees' the tools they need to know when a safe number of people have been reached in your building or in your meeting rooms.

• Display a current occupancy percentage for the available desks in your office
• Show the total number of permitted users for meeting rooms or shared facilities directly on the map
• Notify an administrator when the occupancy reaches a certain threshold

Find sanitizing stations

Strict sanitizing of furniture and desks as well as heightened personal hygiene are the new norm. To help employees adhere to new cleanliness standards, OfficeMaps makes it easy to find resources in the office. 

• New pins and icons to show where cleaning products are stored as well as hand washing stations
• Additional attributes can be attached to icons to show what is available at a station and any other     pertinent information
• Search for products or stations by any attribute on the main search bar

Find where team members are working from 

With many team members working from home either permanently or for some part of the week, it can be hard to find them when you need them.OfficeMaps helps by showing a team member’s ‘working from’ status from the map or search.

• Users can view where team members are working from by reading their colleagues profile
• Managers can view all team members and their ‘working from’ status in a handy organization chart format
• Team members are reminded each day to check in their ‘working from’ status to ensure data is up to date and useful

You can find out more about these features by booking a one-on-one demonstration with an OfficeMaps team member today.

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