Industry Research: Envisioning The New Normal Of Employee Safety

No one can say for sure yet what the new normal for American business will look like in the coming months and years. As we begin the slow climb back from the coronavirus pandemic, employers and workers share a stronger focus on workplace safety than ever before. The ultimate goal is getting back to business as usual, but there are many more changes to be made before that can happen. 

We’re already starting to see some of those changes taking hold in the workplace: as workers start returning to on-site roles, measures like protective face masks, social distancing policies, and temperature checks are becoming the new standard. The push toward creating a safer workspace will also require major changes in the overall structure of businesses, including the ways companies approach efficiency and technology.  
 

One of the silver linings of our current situation is that workplaces are now being forced to confront some long-standing issues that might otherwise have gone unaddressed. Health and safety considerations are now primary considerations not only for employers, but also for employees and job seekers. Even with jobs in high demand in the aftermath of the COVID-19 epidemic and the accompanying economic downturn, job applicants will place a high premium on a workplace that demonstrates a commitment to their health and well-being. A well-designed and clearly communicated system for protecting employee health is likely to become a huge factor in both attracting qualified employees and retaining their service in the long term.

Formerly common practices like using a physical time clock or touch screen to clock in and out for a shift will be necessarily replaced by new technology. That will mean big changes for manufacturing plants, office buildings, construction sites, and any other workplaces where multiple hourly employees physically touch a shared surface in order to punch in. Even with meticulous sanitizing and social distancing practices, the potential for spreading disease in that kind of setting is too great. 

Human resources leaders will need to keep a close eye on developing news and expert advice as the situation continues to evolve. For example, as it started to become evident that meat-processing and packing facilities across the country were hotspots for COVID-19 outbreaks, the Centers for Disease Control distributed guidelines recommending touch-free time-clock technology.

Fortunately, the coming shift in HR tech is not completely unprecedented. The past decade has seen rapid development in automated and software-based workplace solutions. Many businesses have already upgraded to new technology like facial recognition scans and biometric identification. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has quickly rendered some tools that were very recently on the cutting edge almost obsolete. 

Biometric fingerprint readers, for example, have been growing in popularity as a time and attendance solution for several years. Now, however, large employers have begun moving away from or outright banning fingerprint technology. Asking employees to touch the same shared surface with their fingers twice a day now seems much less sanitary than it did not long ago. In workplaces that now require workers to wear protective gloves, a fingerprint scan becomes inconvenient as well as unsanitary.

Even some touch-free technology seems insufficient in the context of COVID-19. Facial recognition scans may still be feasible for some places of employment, but in environments where protective face masks are required or recommended — which includes most shared workspaces for the foreseeable future — a clock-in process that involves removing face coverings or personal protective equipment becomes cumbersome and potentially risky. This is a particular concern in healthcare fields, where face masks are essential to the well-being of both staff and patients.  

New tech focused on worker safety is already beginning to spread across multiple industries. Hard-hit Tyson Foods, for example, has begun installing infrared temperature scanners at its meat-processing facilities to check employees for fever, a potential sign of COVID infection. The Target corporation is collaborating with Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development to institute a screening process combining a symptom-seeking questionnaire with regular temperature checks. Global demand for cameras with facial recognition and thermal scanning capabilities has skyrocketed at businesses from Amazon to small retailers.

Of course, not everyone is enthused about the shift to more intimate employee tracking tech. Civil liberties groups have raised concerns about automated temperature scans in work environments as a potential invasion of privacy. In some places, new safety tech may butt up against existing regulations. Several states, including California, Illinois, and New York, already place limits on the collection, processing, and storage of personal information like biometric data. Further complicating the issue, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently established policies that exempt employee body temperature measurements from restrictions laid out in the Americans with Disabilities Act and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. All of this makes it worth an employer’s time to investigate all possible legal ramifications before investing in a new time-clock system.

No matter what the new normal eventually looks like, major changes are inevitable in the coming days. Ascentis is working to ease that transition as much as possible with innovative new touch-free time clock add-ons designed to keep employees safe as you get back to work. Our new Ascentis CarePoint add-ons are the first completely touchless timekeeping solution on the market, featuring a touch-free time clock with voice command capability, thermal body temperature checks, and Bluetooth beacon technology. Ascentis CarePoint integrates easily with existing Ascentis timekeeping tools, helping to get American workers back in action safely and securely.

Recognized as a Best Place to Work, Ascentis helps organizations improve their human resources and payroll functions with its industry-leading workforce management solutions and a la carte, full suite human capital management technology platform. Supported by an ongoing commitment to delivering an unsurpassed client-centric service model, Ascentis’ recruiting, HRIS, benefits administration, performance and learning management, payroll and workforce management modules work independently or together to meet the needs of each client, wherever they are in the HCM journey.

With 30+ years of experience and more than 4,000 clients, our sole purpose is to enable mid-market and enterprise level companies to streamline processes to unlock an organization’s full potential. Ascentis’ combination of technology solutions and expertise provide companies with actionable insights to make smarter decisions to optimize their company’s best asset – their people! For more information, please visit www.ascentis.com