Months past the date the first cases of Covid-19 were reported in the United States, the country is still grappling with the best ways to move forward with protecting citizens with minimum damage to the economy. For enterprise businesses, the struggle takes on the added hurdle of privacy and security. The privacy concerns within enterprise businesses – who must protect not only employee data, but also customer data – is different than what is expected in public spaces.
Many enterprise businesses have given employees the option of waiting to come back to the office until they feel safe. However, this may lead to a split in the workforce, with some staff working from home and others opting to come back to the office. Even when it is deemed safe for offices to reopen, there is still the issue of how to manage contact tracing, should either an employee or a client become infected.
Fortunately, there are already tools available for enterprise organizations that can facilitate this process. Many businesses are already using converged Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) infrastructure in the badges they give to any visitors or staff to their buildings. This infrastructure can be easily adapted to track where specific badges have traveled within the building, and whom those badge wearers have come in contact with.
For businesses that haven’t yet taken advantage of this technology, the Covid-19 pandemic has given yet another reason why it’s worth the investment. Even outside of contact tracing, this kind of connectivity has several other valuable uses, including facilities management, journey mapping and valuable asset tracking.
The need for more streamlined connectivity and security technology within enterprise businesses has become paramount in the face of the worldwide pandemic that has brought a lot of organizations screeching to a halt. By investing now, companies can better ensure the safety of both their workers and clients while protecting the privacy of both.