The third wave of Covid-19 pandemic is here. Now positive cases in Malaysia has hit 3000-4000 daily, and everyone is busy going about their business despite the movement control order. To think about nearly a year ago when everybody was totally locked in their own house for more than two months when the positive cases didn’t even touch triple digits, today’s approach to the pandemic is baffling. Even more challenging for businesses is how to manage the workforce during this raging pandemic, without putting anyone at risk. Furthermore, there are infected patients from the recent c-19 variant showing no symptoms whatsoever, making it even harder for the company to suspect a possible positive case for immediate isolation.
Yesterday, it was reported that from 6 January until 22 January, a total of 350 clusters had been reported with 225 or 64.3% of them being workplace-related clusters. The uphill battle continues.
The workplace can’t assume a passive role in securing the safety of its workers anymore. The active role should involve having a system that identifies SOP compliance to the T before letting anybody into one’s premises. High body temperature is a huge red flag. But since some of the infected are not having temperature anymore (though some do), the more critical SOPs are mask-wearing and physical distancing. One has to keep 1 meter or 1.5-meter distance when communicating with the other person without fail.
While all of those precautions involve individual attitude, what a company to do at this juncture? Plenty.
Companies need to guard entrances with relevant devices, highlight the necessity of mask-wearing and provide enough space for physical distancing. Lack of space in an office is not an excuse to let more in under the pretence of 30% management leniency because mask-wearing lost its effectiveness with the absence of physical distancing. Better still is to adopt a contactless attendance system where staff can clock in and out using their own devices, cheaper and safer. Now, an attendance system using App like TimeTec TA is readily available, and it’s not costly to adopt.
Another area that needs precaution is visitor management. Make your visitor system contactless—discard pen and paper, don’t touch any ID for clarification. Digitalize everything. Let visitors preregister and scan the QR code when they arrive. Scan their temperature, make sure they are wearing the mask at ALL times and keeping a distance from one another.
All the information may sound redundant, but it is crucial for us to survive this ordeal.
TimeTec provides devices as a precautionary measure during this pandemic and other solutions like TimeTec Smart Attendance (www.timetecta.com), TimeTec Visitor Management System (www.timetecvms.com) for contactless visitor management and FingerTec Face ID 5/FTD (www.fingertec.com) that can scan face for recognition for attendance and door control, and scan body temperature and mask-wearing compliance at the same time.
