Facility management professionals should advocate that their workplaces and college campuses reconsider their physical spaces and invest in technology to help create safer environments. This would allow workers and students to feel safe to return to in-person experiences after they were forced to go remote because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those suggestions were detailed during Facilities Management Compliance Week 2022 with a session entitled “How to Optimize and Automate FM Compliance for Today’s Modern Workplace and Campus.” Tim McLean, Director of Strategy for Education, Public Sector, and Corporate at Accruent LLC, was joined by Thomas Allen, Senior Product Manager, also from Accruent LLC.
Physical Spaces
Spaces should be reconfigured by reducing the number of desks and creating collaboration areas while following COVID-19 safety protocols, according to Allen and McLean.
Maximum capacities of meeting rooms and classrooms should be reduced. Some furniture could be removed to encourage the meeting of smaller groups.
Allen said that some college campuses, during the pandemic, have used outdoor tents for cafeteria and study spaces to create more breathing room and advocates this solution for workplaces and campuses, if weather permits.
Booking and Check-In
The two advocated that workplaces and campuses should require reservations for the booking of:
- Desks
- Study carrels
- Meeting rooms
- Huddle spaces
- Rehearsal areas
- Workout rooms
Folks should be required to check in when they arrive so that actual usage can be tracked. This would allow for better scheduling of sanitization workers who would clean spaces between uses.
“It provides a foundational level of contact tracing,” Allen said.
Touchless Check-In
Allen suggested that those wanting to see different available spaces, make reservations, and check in should be able to do so on their mobile devices.
“The move to mobile is critical. I think that employees and students are much more comfortable using their own devices to make reservations and to check in and check out,” McLean said.
The check-in process should be set up to ensure folks know that the area will be sanitized prior to their arrival, they explained. QR codes can be installed at meeting rooms and desks, allowing users to check in with their own devices or with an NFC (near-field communications) employee or student badge.
Digital signage can be set up to alert people that a room or cubicle is available and cleaned for unplanned check-in, is awaiting cleaning, or has already been reserved.
Hybrid Meetings
Allen and McLean suggest workplace meetings and campus classes be live streamed and recorded so that employees and students can catch up if they have been out sick.
The reservation system should give an option for a setup with two screens, one for the presentation and one for the audience, along with other video conferencing services.
McLean believes that college campuses will need to provide necessary training to staff so they can effectively teach in an online environment.
Visible Cleaning
Immediately after someone is done using a space, Allen and McLean recommend that a digital sign at that location, and notifications on a mobile app, alert people that the space is closed for cleaning.
These alerts should be used to communicate work orders to sanitization personnel, who should be the only ones authorized to clear them once cleaning has been completed.
“Anytime you can utilize technology to make it more apparent, that’s a good thing,” Allen said.
Additionally, they recommended the installation of occupancy sensors for open areas so that people can see how busy a location is in real time.
Data on Space
McLean and Allen believe that workplaces and campuses should have data on what spaces are available and how they are being utilized based on sensors and check-in data.
Repurposing large spaces into several smaller spaces should be considered for groups. Groups should consider whether their footprint is too small or too large for the actual number of people who usually come.
McLean said that workplaces and campuses should “know what types of spaces people are looking for on a regular basis” and utilize the data to measure trends. He suggests the installation of motion sensors, people sensors, and heat sensors to gather anonymous data.
Energy Conservation
Based on data, facilities managers should consider periods of time when certain spaces are not being utilized and coordinate that with automatic building management systems.
“If a space is going to be unoccupied, for let’s say two hours, they will cycle it back down to a holding point, whether it’s not being heated or not being cooled, for a period of time and start to cycle it back up when it gets between 15 or 20 minutes of the reservation time,” said McLean.
Learn more by watching “How to Optimize and Automate FM Compliance for Today’s Modern Workplace and Campus” on-demand for free by clicking here.