We turned to technology to support remote working during the COVID-19 crisis. Now, technology will help owners and occupiers transition back to the office, says Equiem’s Jon Lesquereux.
Established in Melbourne in 2011, Equiem now powers more than five million sqm of real estate globally with its market-leading commercial tenant experience technology. More than 175,000 people use Equiem’s app or desktop platform.
Lesquereux, Equiem’s regional head of Asia Pacific, says access to data from these 175,000 users found 92 per cent have worked from home during the pandemic. This has given Equiem “critical insights into sentiments and feelings involving the new way of working”.
Equiem launched its Remote solution in early April, which is now live in more than 100 buildings.
Remote offers a combination of live-stream experiences, e-commerce and marketing tools, content library and rich data insights. Equiem recorded a 30 per cent increase in unique users and a 60 per cent increase in content readership in just three weeks.
Now, as companies begin the challenging task of reopening their offices, Equiem is rolling out a new solution: Smart.
“Landlords need to build trust with their tenants. They need to over-communicate. We have worked very closely with our landlord clients, occupants and end users to develop a return to work solution that addresses the key pain points,” Lesquereux explains.
Smart is a series of dashboards that reports on real-time lobby traffic, building occupancy, air quality and other key measures gathered through smart sensors.
Smart helps landlords meet new tenant access and building safety requirements by controlling re-entry to buildings, managing queues to elevators, and tracking crowdedness in common areas and facilities.
Without a platform like Smart, tracking lobby density and traffic in and out of buildings is “very manual and offline” and “amounts to CCTV cameras, lobby and security staff reporting to management office,” Lesquereux says.
“Smart will give landlords a live virtual view of their buildings, helping them to manage and control crowdedness, density and traffic – and ultimately to provide the transparency to make occupants feel safe to return to their buildings.”
Smart is part of a broader set of platform updates Equiem calls its ‘return to workplace solution’. This provides interactive re-entry guides, controlled building access, touchless entry, lift access, visitor registration and more – new features designed to help landlords build trust with occupants and return them safely into buildings.
The technology rollout follows the results of Equiem’s customer survey, which found 26 per cent landlords ranked touchless hardware as the most important technology update to support return to work. Eighty-five per cent of occupants want to see up-to-date news on building policies and cleaning procedures before returning to offices, among other data.
“Knowing how crowded the building or your office is, what new safety procedures are in place, booking your time to enter so you’re not jammed with others, combined with touchless re-entry procedures and technology, will help employees feel more secure during their return to work as they adapt to the new social distancing guidelines,” Lesquereux concludes.
Learn more about how Equiem can help you support your tenant community as it adapts to the ‘new normal’.