The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is first and foremost a human tragedy, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. It is also having an impact on all businesses around the world. Businesses will have to navigate a broad range of interrelated issues from keeping their employees and customers safe, reorienting operations and restructuring marketing strategies as office life resumes.
Where we are and where we might be heading
As the pandemic gradually eases, rates of new infections are slowing down – known as flattening the curve – so a gradual normalization(1) can start to happen. Countries are beginning to consider and put into place exit strategies one step at a time. The process of normalization also impacts businesses when opening up offices again. Organizations have to prepare and implement pandemic recovery strategies whilst following tight governmental regulations regarding the necessary protective measures for their employees.
How technology is helping to normalize office life
The focus of a pandemic recovery strategy is how to keep employees safe by promoting a change of employee behavior, social distancing as well as adapting cleaning and disinfection routines for shared office equipment such as office printers. Currently, there is no overall agreement among scientists as to how long the virus remains active on various surfaces. However, the virus seems to remain active on some surfaces for long periods, in particular stainless steel and plastic; the latter material is of course relevant to central office printers.
With uniFLOW organisations can reduce the amount of surfaces that an employee needs to touch, limiting the possibility for possible smear infections.
Why consider central office printers in a pandemic recovery strategy?
Central office printers are available for a large number of employees. Employees gather around these devices and regularly touch the same areas, such as the device user interface panel to release print jobs. As this equipment is essential in daily office processes, it cannot simply be shut down. Regular disinfection does not eliminate the risk of infection. It is therefore vital to include central office printers for consideration when implementing a pandemic recovery strategy.
How uniFLOW can help prevent touching the office printers
With the implementation of uniFLOW, Canon can help businesses to implement a thorough pandemic recovery strategy for keeping essential, shared, office equipment available for business employees. uniFLOW decreases the risk of possible smear infections of highly frequented office printers by offering contactless secure printing. Employees can use their personal ID cards, or their smartphone to authenticate at the device. Following authentication, all print jobs in the queue can be released immediately in one go, limiting touching the device. Alternatively it is possible to release print jobs, without physically touching a device, via the uniFLOW mobile app. After login in the app users can select jobs from their print queue for release at whichever device they choose.
As print jobs are only released when an employee releases them, large gatherings are avoided at devices. Print jobs do not pile up in the delivery tray, waiting for employees to search through the pile. This means time spent at the device is reduced, crowding is avoided and productivity is increased.
When you begin the process of returning to normal office life after this pandemic, Canon can help you to implement the necessary measures to ensure safe operation of your office print equipment by your employees.
