Trust me, post Covid-19, the offices won’t be the same again. This change is for the greatest good of a large number of employees.
Let’s accept this, the Lockdown has impacted businesses. Even though the work from home fantasy for every employee and employer came true but this backfired to a large extent. Work from home caused a 9 to 5 office job more like a 24/7 work with kids around and you all know that pressure cooker sound in the middle of a client call is totally embarrassing. So, we have to go back to the office in order to be more productive and effective at the workplace.
Trust me, post Covid-19, the offices won’t be the same again. This change is for the greatest good of a large number of employees. Office hygiene was always taken up lighty but Covid-19 changed our office experience forever.
Employees feel the Biometric Attendance machine first thing in the morning, then touch the door knobs, go to the washroom, come back to get a Garam Chai or Cafe Latte.
Do you remember the last flu season? When one employee was sneezing and coughing in the office spreading the virus in the office infecting other employees. Slowly this spread and more and more employees got sick. This spreads because of contaminated surfaces via human touch. Office is a community with a large number of people working within the same space and hence infection can spread very fast impacting a larger section of employees.
What if?
What if one of the employees had a deadly virus exchange to the hands while commuting to the office in the morning via the metro? And What if she does not wash her hands nor she sanitizes her hands before punching the biometric attendance system? This negligence contaminates the biometric machine, compromising the health of the entire office staff.
We are aware of the suspension of biometric attendance systems due to the scare of spread of coronavirus through the biometric attendance machines. Across the world, millions of people have abandoned the offices and it’s sad. We all miss our colleagues. Don’t you?
Boycott Biometric
Of Course, humanity will win over coronavirus. One day the lockdown will be lifted and we will hit the office again! That’s the day I am also waiting for. The fun of working with colleagues and solving complex problems with the help of your colleague is incredible.
We are approaching 3rd May 2020, when hopefully we expect the lockdown to be lifted subject to government directives. Hence, let you and me think of ways that will make sure we are no longer the same again. Our office lifestyle will change forever. The office post Covid-19 will adopt a Bye Bye Biometric perspective, that means employers would now “switch off biometrics” permanently. Not to be too happy that you won’t do attendance but be grateful that your boss will embrace a contactless attendance system. Your boss has one major ambition, to keep you safe and secure at your workplace.
The biggest challenge is to stop the spread of viruses and bacterias in the office and that motivates HR’s to propose a contactless attendance system to the senior management.
Failed Facial Recognition
China has a plan, and that’s the business of your face. Chinese manufacturers have come up with a Facial Recognition system as a solution of contactless attendance system to combat coronavirus. They claim it also works with the mask on the face but that’s false. Many of us think that Facial biometric is secure, well, that’s a myth. Facial and Finger biometrics of one million people were exposed to data breach in the United kingdom in 2019. Remember you can reset your password but if you lose your facial data, you can never rest your face. So where is the security as claimed? Moreover, San Francisco, Oakland, Somerville are some of the cities in the US to impose a ban on Facial Recognition technology. Misidentification of Asians and African-Americans was the cause behind the ban. If you are deploying a Facial Recognition attendance system at your workplace, you are endangering the lives of your employees.
Investment in Indian Innovation
Facial recognition has failed to live up to expectations, well, that’s a bad news. Here is some good news! HR’s and employers are now deploying a contactless non-human touch made in India attendance system as well as contactless non-human touch made in India access control system as a precautionary step to stop the spread of virus and bacterias in office.
How about your Phone becoming your access card? Your employee taps the phone on the attendance system or access control system entirely made by Indian Entrepreneurs, Engineers and Scientist and access all the logs on a cloud dashboard.
Such a connected devices non touch attendance system makes your phone an access card eliminating plastic access cards as well as containing the spread of viruses in office on the other hand.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house