Although the vaccine rollout has started, Australia may not have yet seen the full impact of COVID-19 on our industrial workplaces, according to a recent roundtable of business, security, and supply chain sector experts hosted by Nirovision, the workplace health & safety solution developer.
The roundtable, which has been summarised into the whitepaper Keeping Australia Open for Business, voiced concern that we may be in for a third wave of outbreaks as restrictions relax. In addition, they felt that business confidence in their COVID-response plans is too high and will not translate into reality if tested, particularly when faced with rapidly changing guidelines, unknown timeframes, multiple rumours, and general panic among staff.
Michael Brown is an IT&C Director at Visium Networks, which saw multiple clients experience outbreaks last year. Brown said: “From a readiness perspective, the reality of how you have to react in a real COVID outbreak versus your expectations can vary widely because until it occurs, you have never had direct contact with the relevant government department to know what their demands are, and what they need you to do.”
However, it was noted that whether the health and safety measures introduced this year will be retained as the threat fades, most if not all industry sectors have gone through a rapid digital transformation that will greatly increase productivity. New technologies and adaptive existing technologies, born out of a COVID-19 response, are allowing greater flexibility in how we work and how our time, security and health moving forward.
Clint Wolff, Managing Director of Innovative Security & Data, explained: “In many organisations, the infrastructure was already in place to be able to deploy things like contract tracing or to add identification tracing to existing security cameras. There are multiple benefits to be realised that not only make us more efficient from a technological or security perspective, but also from a continuous improvement process and people basis.”
More than half (57%) of respondents in a recent Nirovision survey believe that their workplace will return to a pre-COVID level of normality in less than a year, with around a third (31%) believing that normality will return between one and two years. Only 7% of respondents believed that their workplace will not return to a pre-COVID level of normality until two years or more.
“How to keep business open and safe in a strategic way, rather than reacting with short-term measures that negatively affect workplaces and their supply chains, is the most important issue businesses across all sectors are grappling with now,” commented Christian Beck, founder of Australian Technology Innovators and Nirovision. “Whether we face this threat for only a few more months, or it extends into years, we need to allow our businesses, and most importantly their workforces, some form of stability that upholds their protection and safety.”
Jimmy Lee, CEO of Nirovision, commented: “Over the past year, the appetite for technology to protect workplaces and workforces has been huge and has come with a lot of challenges for both government and businesses. We have been working closely with businesses, particularly in industrial workplaces where staff must come to work, to provide solutions that ensure the safety and privacy of staff while also enabling the workplace to stay open and operational. Unfortunately the COVID threat isn’t going away as fast as we would like so its an ongoing challenge for Australia and the rest of the world.”
The Keeping Australia Open for Business whitepaper is available to download at: