As companies consider how to bring employees back to safe, COVID-compliant workplaces, it’s important to remember that few own their buildings. Corporate office owners lease these properties to organizations. While these companies consider establishing safety protocols and workplace adjustments, building owners often have multiple companies, including their own, sharing one property. As landlord and tenant, owners have to navigate returning to offices differently.
Building owners are using our platform in five key ways: to help their own employees safely return to work, to keep buildings Safe, to improve tenant experience, to streamline cleaning efforts, and to comply with legal and code regulations.
Owners Are Tenants
Building owners face a unique problem: preparing spaces in which they are both landlord and tenant. Owners have a vested interest in protecting the safety of their own employees and shoring up efficiencies so they save valuable resources throughout their portfolio. As tenants return to buildings, owners want to ensure the safety of their own employees when interacting with and working alongside tenant companies whose COVID-policies may not be exactly aligned with theirs.
Density’s platform enables them to monitor building occupancy in real-time, offer capacity data on digital signage, and empower their employees to feel safe when they come back to work. From common areas and amenities to workstations, owners can use Density’s people count analytics to mitigate safety concerns, clean spaces based on actual use, and help their team members make smart choices as they navigate the returning crowds.
Safe Buildings
Shared spaces compromise social distancing efforts in the workplace. Restrooms, locker rooms, fitness centers, and bike rooms offer ample opportunity for overcrowding. Building owners have installed Safe by Density to address this issue. With digital displays, owners can monitor the real-time occupancy of building floors and shared amenities with ease. Safe by Density measures capacity limits against actual occupancy and calculates approximate wait times until spaces quiet down. Using Safe Display, landlords can help their tenants avoid overcrowding in building spaces before entering. Safe Alerts enable workplace teams to respond in real-time to changes in foot traffic by enabling mobile alerts based actual occupancy.
The same is true for tenants navigating open spaces like rooftop patios, lounges, and food service areas. With the powerful data provided by Safe, tenants can trust displays to help them steer clear of crowds and return to areas when they are less busy. Since maintaining social distance is crucial to not spreading COVID, Safe Display gives agency to employees and helps them share the responsibility of keeping each other healthy in the office.
Improved Tenant Experience
Owners are also looking to improve tenant experience in the office. Curating a safe, efficient tenant experience greatly improves the tenant-owner relationship. Owners can design buildings that make health and wellness convenient and effective throughout. To that end, landlords are able to integrate Density data into tenant experience apps so employees can check the real-time occupancy of different building amenities from the comfort of their desks… or even prior to leaving the house in the morning. Providing tenants this information removes the stress from navigating busy spaces. This way, employees can avoid long lines in cafes and gyms.
Accurate, real-time occupancy data is actionable and reassuring. Owners have an opportunity to build meaningful relationships with their tenants. Investing in tenant safety demonstrates a commitment to providing safe, efficient, and healthy workplaces for the long run.
Streamlined Cleaning Efforts
Owners use Density data to target cleaning efforts and automate an otherwise arbitrary process. Through Density alerts or IWMS integration, owners can enable facilities teams to identify exactly which rooms and areas have been frequently used and need cleaning. Shared amenity spaces like restrooms and break rooms may be unevenly utilized for a number of reasons. Location within the office can play a big role in this, depending on directional footpaths, convenience, and general busyness. If cleaning crews service areas on a time-based schedule, they spend the same amount of effort cleaning areas that have not been visited as they do on rooms that have been heavily used.
Because the pandemic demands a significant increase in cleaning and sanitation, owners can pinpoint which amenities need to be addressed, when, and how to dispense valuable resources efficiently. Density’s real-time occupancy data helps organizations improve cleaning services and save money.
Code Compliance
Prior to bringing employees and tenants back to offices, owners are setting capacity limits across properties. Some of these limits are city or state mandated and, if exceeded, can result in costly fines. Owners rely on Density’s real-time people counting platform to help them anticipate surges in foot traffic. As buildings approach capacity limits, owners can trigger alerts to notify key team members about changes in occupancy. This helps companies avoid fines and code violations as they navigate their return to the office.
Density’s analytics platform also enables building owners to review occupancy over time, which can be helpful when proving code compliance to local regulators and enforcement teams. This data provides insights into foot traffic trends and empowers owners to adapt their re-entry programs as they go.
Designing a return to work plan is not one-size-fits-all. Each owner needs to review their respective portfolio, identify areas of potential improvement, and implement specific tools to address those needs. Density data helps building owners step up for tenants. Occupiers are looking for partnerships with landlords, and the right data can help bring employees back to offices, keep them safe, and save valuable resources in an uncertain time.