Though the Covid-19 pandemic is easing up as vaccines distribute, not everyone heads back to the office. A recent McKinsey survey of 800 corporate executives found that the number of companies planning to have employees work remotely at least part-time has doubled, and 85% of these businesses have invested in technologies meant to facilitate remote work going forward.
While people will likely have to still show up at the office at least some of the time. All indications are that working from home is going to be much more accepted. Common in the wake of the pandemic.
This new style of office work was adopte very quickly because of the unusual circumstances
That pressure has created some new security issues and seriously exacerbated some old ones. One of those issues is facility access. This area has its own sprawling subset of concerns. Employees may need less access to the facility overall, but they may need it at odd or unpredictable times.
Maintenance and other outside contractors may be more frequently accessing facilities when supervisory staff is not there. The implementation of automation methods to replace the reduced office headcount may also increase the need for temporary third-party access.
Chris Martin, Owner of Millennium Fire & Security, Inc. in Orlando, Florida, is seeing this translate into an uptick in the need for flexible facility security arrangements that allow managers. Owners a high degree of remote access. He explains, “Businesses have obviously seen lower traffic through facilities during the pandemic. But that traffic has more specialized needs in terms of access and security. What a lot of companies are doing is transitioning to an electronic badge system that only allows. The holder access to certain areas during certain times.
For example, an outside vendor or maintenance person can have a badge designed that only gives them access to the necessary areas during the time frame they are expected. A manager can log into this system from home and update or shut off badge permissions as needed.”
Paired with remote monitoring that allows access to camera feeds at any time via a smartphone
remote access systems help to keep facility management flexible as remote work becomes the “new normal.” Martin says that security firms such as Millennium Fire usually install access. Monitoring as a package, allowing for remote access to all the necessary functions via one convenient interface.
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