Workplace IoT
can help to keep
employees healthy
and safe

According to a recent poll, 87% of workers are ready to return to the office. Yet as the world recovers from COVID-19, expectations around health and safety conditions remain high if not higher. A recent survey found 38.3% of respondents, regardless of whether they worked from home during the pandemic or stayed on-premises, would consider changing their jobs if their workplace was not cleaned properly.

Since 1999, research from Gallup has found that safety at work tops the list of what's important to employees. What has changed since 1999 is the development of technology, such as workplace IoT, to help keep employees healthy and safe.

Internet of Things (IoT) technology has spread everywhere from smart cities to suburban homes, where everyday objects can connect online using sensors and other hardware.

Collecting and sharing information via the IoT doesn't require human intervention and has already offered organizations many benefits, such as predicting when equipment will need to be repaired or providing touchless shopping experiences in retail.

However, workplace IoT isn't limited to customer-facing situations or remote sites like an oil rig. The same technology can be deployed to enhance the employee experience as people move from their desks to breakout rooms, boardrooms and other communal spaces.

At the general level, IoT technology can offer benefits such as increased productivity, enhanced monitoring and greater convenience. These same benefits apply to workplace IoT. Here are some common use cases for how IoT can be used to improve workplace health and safety.

Sensors can help address potential concerns about overcrowding. Researchers have shown how IoT sensors can track the number of people entering a workplace at a given time. This can be implemented more granularly, to monitor occupancy status of office kitchens, bathrooms or meeting rooms within a workplace.

When paired with room reservation tools, sensors can help address IoT workplace safety by helping organizations maintain capacity limits while effectively allocating available space. Sensors could also help companies that wish to voluntarily reduce room capacity limits to address one of the major concerns about employees returning to the office: potential overcrowding.

It is perhaps no surprise that cleanliness remains an important employee priority—nearly 90% believe workplace cleaning protocols are very or somewhat important, while over 47% say regularly disinfecting shared spaces is the most important safety step an employer can take. Workplace IoT sensors can streamline this process by sending alerts after a desk or space has been occupied for an extended period or by multiple people. Facility managers can also be notified when soap dispensers and towels are running low to allow immediate replacement without relying on a manual check.

IoT sensors can collect real time actionable data to monitor indoor air quality, such as CO2, temperature and humidity levels. Automated air quality control systems integrated with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning and purification systems can not only detect and display issues, but also remediate them.

Another way to address hygiene is to reduce the number of places an employee comes in physical contact with during their day. From the moment an employee arrives on site, for instance, workplace IoT can offer a more touchless environment by using sensors to automatically open doors, turn on lights or adjust temperature controls.

IoT-enabled wearable devices could be used to identify workers (that have opted in to share biometric information) that show signs of strain, fatigue, stress or other physical issues. Data collected from wearables can also help to show how employees interact with their environments, such as highlighting common walking routes through a factory floor. When integrated with worksite schematics, companies can analyze the risk of harm and injury from these actions. This same technology can also be used to notify staff about hazardous situations or prevent them from entering areas they are not authorized to access.

Devices with geolocation capabilities can also provide exact locations of employees, which can be critically important during crisis situations such as rescue operations.

Workplace IoT sensors can be used to mitigate a number of possible threats to employee health and safety:

• Fire safety sensors can identify rises in temperature.
• Movement sensors can help detect unauthorized visitors.
• Sensors can be used to enhance vehicle safety by monitoring movement in warehouses and storage areas as well as on roads.