With the recent developments of the COVID-19 vaccine, it inspires hope for many people and businesses to return to some type of ‘normality’. For some workers, that means returning to the office. Organisations and employees must be confident that the buildings offer a safe environment that is compliant with regulations. With the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) conducting spot checks and issuing fines for failure to comply with COVID secure workplaces, it re-emphasises the importance of prioritising people over the workplace. Factors for FMs to consider include social distancing compliance, workspace density, sanitising stations and deep cleaning, environmental quality, contamination planning and visitor management facilities.

2020 showed us that public safety, emergency management, and the department of health need to collaborate more in order to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19. By getting the right information out and sharing data will enable us to protect our communities and prepare for what’s to come for the remainder of the pandemic. Finding solutions to streamline information and communication is vital in order to encourage collaboration across various departments of the business and other stakeholders. This includes co-ordinating incident response, sharing real-time data and communication, compliance and protocols, audits and reporting.

COVID-19 has raised the importance of smart buildings and the safeguard of its occupants. The reduction of staff and remote working has meant many facility managers will need to re-evaluate their current procedures and processes to adhere and comply with the many and varied legal regulations. Smart technologies such as contact tracing, access control, temperature checking, occupancy and visitor management for social distancing are examples of how these can protect staff and control the disease.