Protecting employees from each other

The social distancing measures that remain in place to counter the spread of COVID-19 make it difficult to imagine a return to a traditional office environment. And the new normal of home and flexible working could be here to stay, according to some of the world’s leading businesses.

Facebook expects half of its workforce to do their jobs away from the office in the next five to 10 years. Personnel Today reports that 68% of UK workers feel more, or at least equally, productive working from home and Barclays Chief Executive said, “I think the notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past.”

The necessity for some face-to-face working will, of course, remain, but with less staff in the office simultaneously many companies will be moving towards hotdesking and shared computing facilities to cut spending on largely unused desktop computers. But is your IT equipment safe to share? To answer this question, you may need to first ask another. How confident are you that every one of your employees always practices exemplary hygiene?

Is your IT equipment spreading germs?

One in every four office keyboards is dirty enough to be considered high risk for spreading illness, according to a Kimberly-Clarke Professional study in which 5,000 workplace surfaces were swabbed and tested. What’s more the test, which measured levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule found in animal, bacteria, and mould cells, revealed that seven out of 10 keyboards and over half of computer mice tested were deemed dirty enough to warrant a scrub-down.

Unfortunately, keyboards are not the only offenders in the workplace IT department. Germs can find a home on tablets for as long as four days. A tablet’s glass screen can harbour live coronaviruses for up to 96 hours at room temperature.

Using D-Tech’s computeIT self-service device dispensing kiosk, you can safely lock your laptops, tablets and other devices for 72 hours (adjustable in line with current medical guidelines) so the next user can be confident they have a device that is safe to pick up and to work on.

What are the benefits of sharing on-site IT assets?

Modern workspaces have regularly been proven to more productive staff and ultimately a smarter use of resources. Combining flexible tech access with innovative working environments, more creatively stimulating workspaces, and even additional exposure to natural light has been shown to facilitate multiple benefits, including boosting staff alertness, engagement, and performance, reducing IT spending (sometimes by as much as 70%), and helping organisations improve their performance overall.

Did you know a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds in the UK? Most commonly from bars and public transport. While the benefits of modern, flexible working are widely accepted, an additional benefit of on-site shared IT assets is the effect on a company’s bottom line. With the average total cost of a stolen laptop reaching as high as £35,000 – according to studies taking into account management and support costs and downtime, in addition to replacement hardware – do you want employees regularly removing your valuable IT equipment from the safety of your workplace?

The computeIT solution

computeIT also keeps your devices secure and charged, in temperature-controlled bays that ensure your devices never overheat during the charging process, so, when the next colleague comes to use the device, it is safe, ready to go, and still there.

Issuing devices securely via a user-friendly touch screen interface. computeIT is a secure centralised location to entrust with valuable IT equipment. Available from 12 bays, computeIT is a modular system which can be tailored to suit any volume requirements, and its bays are the optimum size for storage of most major and models of laptop, netbook, tablet or iPad.