The effect of COVID19 on commercial workspaces has completely changed just about everything we once never even thought to question. New communication tools have been adopted overnight which has totally transformed the nature of our working environment.
Offices have felt the brunt of the change more than any other work space. The change could be compared to the downfall online shopping brought to retail, a change that although inevitable, brings pros and cons. After the pandemic hit, offices turned to ghost towns virtually overnight. The need for physical space was dissolved to accommodate the requirement to distance office workers due to ongoing restrictions. Zoom, Teams and other UC software allowed office staff to continue to work together by means of video and instant message communication. Thankfully this has kept the essential part of what’s involved in office work to continue as a temporary solution to what has now turned out to be a less than temporary problem. Video Communication alone, however, is not a viable way to keep a business running as productivity has the potential to drop when physical interaction ceases to exist. Human collaboration is key to success in many business sectors. The presence of another human being can allow coworkers to be creative by bouncing ideas off one another - allowing body language to act as a key role in decision making, a quality which lacks over video conference. Frequent users of UC platforms have complained of ‘Zoom Fatigue’ which Psychiatric Times believes this could be due to the lack of Oxytocin, a hormone released in the brain which plays a role in forming social bonds between colleagues. For many, productivity has seen a decrease as a result of being forced to adopt a totally virtual, non-contact method of working.
Even though in light of a new vaccine, it's clear that COVID19 is not going away anytime soon, so commercial work spaces such as offices must adapt now in order to survive. With the rise of shared office spaces such as PLATF9RM and Spaces giving businesses flexible options for office and meeting rooms, allowing for their clients utilise professional business tools such as Video Conference and presentation systems to attract customers to their service. In the the context of COVID19, just relying on traditional office infrastructure alone may not be enough to entice some workers back into the office. The bottom line is that people need to know that they are being kept as safe as possible in their work environment by following COVID related precautions we have all come to know so well.
Companies have had to quickly adapt to changes in demand due to tightly restricted workplaces by developing and adding to existing products and technologies. Room booking and scheduling is not a new tool, but is now more important than ever as a management system for social distancing and contact tracing in the workplace. Systems such as Space Connect and UMA Book reassure office workers by giving them the confidence to return to a safe working environment. "Our desk book functionality allows you to assign desk availability based on regulatory compliance with social distancing guidelines”. Tablet displays are wall mounted outside of meeting spaces to visually indicate a rooms availability. Kramer have recently released their own method of contact tracing with ‘Corona Tag’ which is a personal tag which workers are given on arrival and tracks and records distance between workers. In the event of a positive test users who have come into contact can be tracked down allowing isolation of effected rooms as opposed to whole buildings.
Collaboration between coworkers is ultimately why they would leave their safe and secure, working from home setup to enter and shared working environment with the potential risks involved. Once precautions have been taken care of and workers feel the confidence to return, one AV tool that aids productivity are Interactive Displays. These work as regular screens for meeting spaces by allowing users to display presentations but with the added advantage of full interactive collaboration. Users can annotate the display with touch, voice and pen features. All these features provide a collaborative and unified user experience that is simply more rewarding than a Teams or Zoom meeting.
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