Employee Governance mechanisms around the world are striving to make businesses more efficient, cutting edge and workforce-friendly. Investing in technology that combines intelligent algorithm to reveal patterns of data, gives every business a definite advantage. Apart from learning employee behaviour, the adoption of some innovations is directly proportional to positive emotions, convenience & employee delight. Let’s take a look at some of the technology trends of the future workplace.
Smart Parking
An employee’s day starts with a drive to office and finding a parking spot. While not much can be done for the drive, the parking access can sure be made a much smoother experience. In many parts of the world, parking infrastructure is massively inefficient- either manually managed by security personnel or via access cards- high cost for the management & inconvenient for the employees. This hassle is being rapidly replaced by digitised parking infrastructure that uses simple & secure smart-phone access technology eliminating the need for access cards. In addition, Automatic Number Plate Recognition integrated with car parking barriers transforms the entire process and reduces the need for any security personnel to man premise entrance. Affordable digital apps help employees/ vendors/ contractors/ visitors access real-time data on parking spot availability, pre-booking a spot etc
Larger Play of advanced Biometric & Encryption
Biometric technologies that use physical characteristics of an individual like fingerprints, facial/ voice recognition or retina scans for security purposes are set to redefine workplace security as they reach a threshold of general awareness & acceptance across the globe. Biometric access & mobile access enhance employee mobility vs the outmoded badge readers that need them to carry tags/ cards everywhere they go. This not only enhances employee convenience but also empowers the authorities to smart manage property & personnel security. However, security vulnerabilities of a biometric system like spoofing & tampering should be kept in mind while scouting for a system that uses this technology.
Intelligent location-based tools
With the increased use of beacons, new office technology is revolutionising location based benefits with features like indoor turn-by-turn directions to allow employees and visitors to easily navigate a corporate building or campus, reach meetings on time, and find bathrooms and break-rooms. It's particularly useful for new employees and employees visiting from other locations. Proximity-based notifications can be used to provide personalized information such as details on sites of interest, corporate updates, and pending events. Location sharing allows employees to locate coworkers, and location-aware printing will only print a project once the user is standing next to a printer.
Smart ordering
We are beyond the times when employees needed to call the cafeteria to order their specific coffee selection or another unnecessary call to the office admin for ordering stationary; and many times a boring call to the receptionist to expect a courier. Pre-programmed smart office apps help companies automate all these mundane tasks on the click of a button. On the back-end, this technology helps identify ordering & consumption patterns for cost-optimisation & planning.
The meeting experience
Planning a meeting for work is only the first step. Unfortunately employees have to waste their mental output on mundane and frustrating activities like booking a meeting room, sharing the meeting location with the visitor, sharing parking instructions, authorising digital assets is secure zones, wifi authentication, phone calls from the receptionist to intimate the visitor’s arrival, authenticate the visitor..so on and so forth. Offices are swiftly adopting millennial-friendly technology. We can soon expect a transformation in this high-touch meeting experience given the shift in this cohort’s preference. They are an enigma, in that they are super-connected to their friends, and yet prefer self-service kiosks & automation to interacting with humans for mundane tasks. What’s the impact: Fast paced adoption of an electronic Visitor Management system like Veris that is highly configurable and can offer flexible workflows as per enterprise security requirements & employee needs. Veris allows facilities of various sizes get rid of the passe visitor log-book & manage premise access in a secure seamless and super-fast way. It helps employees & visitors maintain the warmth of human interactions by automating all unnecessary verbal communication via Veris App Suite. it is an entirely cloud & mobile based solution in line with the expectation of this tech-savvy generation.
IoT is being described as the big wave in technology. Though it is described as a machine-to-machine system, IoT is aimed at empowering office workers to save time, become more efficient, increase productivity and happiness quotient!