Employees continue to head back to work in person in 2021 — is your company ready and equipped with workplace security and safe rooms?
As we progress through the second year of the Coronavirus pandemic, many sectors were and still are being tested daily. Current challenges include an ongoing slowdown of supply chains, shortages of everything from workers to raw materials, and changing cultural pressures from consumers.
On top of all those issues, companies also need to determine how to navigate important safety issues in a changed society. This isn’t just about preventing illness, though data shows there are still about 30,000 new reported COVID cases each day. But it’s also about helping employees and visitors feel safe from potential security threats when they spend time on location.
Workplace security and safe rooms constructed with quality materials may offer businesses and building owners some semblance of control over their safety during a time when so much still seems quite uncertain. Here’s what you should know about these concepts as we navigate the changing landscape of 2021.
Importance of Workplace Safety Measures
Workplace security has always been important. However, companies haven’t always focused on this area as much as they would have liked, usually due to other commitments or more pressing or urgent priorities. However, like so many other areas, 2020 changed all that.
During the past year and a half, many workplaces shut down or had their employees work remotely to comply with social distancing mandates and keep people as safe as possible. As the world begins to reopen, employees, business owners, and government agencies are reconsidering many of the concepts that we once considered normal. Some are switching to fully remote or hybrid models. Others are offering more scheduling flexibility. And teams are questioning parts of their work that make them feel unsafe or that they feel may no longer be necessary to perform their specific job duties.
So how might this impact workplace security and safe rooms? With so many employees already feeling uneasy about the potential health and safety risks of returning to in-person work, it’s important for employers to ease concerns in any areas they can. You may not be able to fully eliminate the potential of COVID-19 entering your workplace, even with strong sanitizing and distancing measures in place. But you do have the power to provide a safe area for employees or valuable goods that may lessen the chances of certain safety risks occurring.
In addition, the many oddities of 2020 simply led to more people paying attention to current events than ever before. The news is at our fingertips with smartphones and 24/7 news channels. And that means people tended to be a bit more focused on things that could go wrong. Since tragic and negative events are so commonplace on news sites and channels, it’s easy to get caught up and have a fearful or negative outlook when returning to the world.
With all these factors in mind, now more than ever it is important to ensure strong access to workplace security products like safe rooms and barriers. These protective systems are designed to stop or slow down a variety of threats, helping team members and visitors feel safer when they begin conducting business in person again.
How Workplace Security and Safe Rooms Can Help
There are a variety of workplace safety and safe room systems available to improve safety conditions at various workplaces. For example, bullet resistant transaction windows can help customer facing team members feel safer when interacting with the public. Especially in a changed society where some visitors may be angry about various policies or decisions, this type of strong barrier can help employees feel more confident in communicating boundaries without fear of immediate retribution. These are also popular in businesses like banks and convenience stores where robberies may be a concern.
Businesses may also utilize a similar concept for protecting employees and cash or valuable items. Rooms or storage areas constructed with bullet resistant doors, windows, and panels can shield money and inventory from the public, making the building a less desirable target for robberies. And this type of structure may also provide peace of mind to employees, since they know there’s a safe place for them to turn if they ever need to.
With all these concerns in mind, it’s important to have a trusted partner providing architectural security solutions who can meet the needs of businesses and government agencies as we all navigate major societal changes. They can provide insights along with the tested, quality materials necessary to help employees and visitors feel safe in 2021 and beyond.
Insulgard meets all of these qualifications and more. Our workplace security and safe room products are tested to meet rigorous industry standards and can even be customized to the needs of each client. Our BULLETBLOCK products provide a full line of bullet resistant windows, doors and storefronts while our SAFECHANGE products offer transaction windows, protective barriers and counter line solutions for customer facing employees. We work with clients through every step of the process to provide extra value with industry leading knowledge and customization options. We can even work with architects and builders to retrofit certain materials to suit existing structures, or we can provide quality materials for new construction buildings. To speak with a workplace security expert that can provide the ideal solutions for your specific applications, visit our website to reach out to our team today.
