As lockdown restrictions ease and more people return to work, corporate South Africa has turned its attention to the safety and security of returning employees. It remains critical to ensure that the right measures are taken to protect employees and help flatten the curve at each stage of our evolving response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In its efforts to support the South African economy in a meaningful way and help organisations respond to the changing way of working, EOH has developed Sikhona – a crisis management App which means “we are here” in Zulu.
The employee app and risk-management portal has been designed to monitor and protect employee wellness and enables the informed management of workspace and organisational risk.
The app allows for the effective management of a controlled re-entry of the workforce, offers real-time risk reporting, controlled office-density management, enterprise extendibility and ensures safe productivity and sales.
The app notifies employees about whether they are allowed to return to the office based on their specific risk factors. Through engagement with the App, an employee will be advised if they will be granted access before they leave the house, thus preventing possible cross-infection that could occur while waiting for temperature screening at the entrance to the office.
With Sikhona, employers now have the tools to track Covid-19 and its associated protocols, guidelines and legislation, and to manage business continuity. It allows for a deep understanding of workforce risk and provides the data needed for better decision-making during the Covid-19 pandemic, including the context of developing regulations and legislation.
The app provides companies with the ability to actively manage the wellbeing of employees and their adherence to social distancing guidelines within the office through daily health checks, workforce transition and infection analytics, density management and a symptom checker aligned to best practices.
The app can further be white-labelled or ring-fenced based on each organisation’s specific needs. Included in the functionality is the ability for open integration into internal systems and access control, including thermal temperature scanning, HR systems, access control, and extended reporting to include internal system data and real-estate management.
Stephen van Coller, EOH group CEO, comments: “It’s inevitable that the world of work will be fundamentally changed by the virus and by the necessary measures taken in response. Social distancing is here to stay. But it is also clear that the extent to which we’ll be able to ameliorate the devastation to economies, and job markets in particular, is dependent on our ability to adapt quickly. Sikhona allows companies to manage the ‘new normal’ in their decision-making and potentially get more people working sooner.”
The app includes robust consent and privacy functionality (in line with the Protection of Personal Information [PoPI] Act), to protect the employee’s sensitive information. It can be integrated with payroll systems and national databases including HANIS, CSIR, NDoH and National Data, and Consumer Bureau Data.
Brian Harding, MD of iOCO Solutions and Regions, says: “We’re using this App at EOH and iOCO and it has provided us with great insight and assistance as to how we responsibly reopen our own offices and make sure that we take care of our employees’ health, allow for a quick response should instances of infection appear on site and proactively manage the capacity of our offices. We are deeply committed to developing solutions that enable responsibly-managed workplaces that are geared towards mitigating the risks of Covid-19.”