UKAA Webinar: Emerging from COVID-19 with safe ways to manage access – Life Unlocked
We’re truly delighted that we’ve been given the opportunity to participate in one of the webinars hosted by the UKAA. Our COO Mark Curling took the opportunity to talk about tips and practices that can help us when it comes to managing access in residential property & shared spaces. Don’t worry if you’ve missed it – you can find and watch the webinar on the UKAA website or continue reading for a full summary.
Hygienic use of buildings
Hygiene of access is very much the so-called touching problem. Our main goal here is to prevent the spread of the virus. Firstly, hand-to-hand touching between humans brings a very high chance of transmission and the second most risky thing is shared use of communal spaces where you touch shared surfaces (keypads, door handles, lockboxes, etc.). Access surfaces, in general, are very commonly touched surfaces and we’re touching them with fingers or hands which is why we need to be extra careful.
You can find a lot of guidance and cleaning protocols although contactless options are still safest when it comes to hygiene of access. You can even read one of our previous blog posts where we shared how you can make access completely contactless for your own properties. Mark also pointed out that smart locks alone don’t necessarily mean entering spaces will be touch-free.
Upgrading your spaces within budget & regulation
When you start researching what you can do to make your access smarter and contactless, you quickly find a bunch of different regulations you have to adhere to. Mark mentioned three main things we noticed from our experience at Klevio:
- Regulations are complex and confusing and there is a lot to learn.
- Regulations are important and we’ve seen the consequences when things are not done properly – security and fire risks are real and significant and cannot be ignored.
- Regulations are constantly changing and right now the frequency of change is quite fast.
Mark advises getting all the information about door and lock fittings from manufacturers or suppliers and make sure to meet the required certifications. This is exactly why Klevio has its own operations team and we can easily provide our customers with all the rules and regulations. Nevertheless, it is great if you can get a thorough understanding of all the symbols associated with these regulations so you know you’re not breaching any rules by accident.
Reducing human interactions
In the last two years we observed that there was a slow and steady industry move towards self-check-in for short-term letting. We still see that some companies like to offer a meet and greet because of the guest experience associated with. But actually what we’ve observed is that guests are increasingly demanding and preferring self-check-in. With the arrival of the virus this year this trend has become a lot more prevalent and we’re seeing that a lot of companies realize that this is something that is no longer just a nice-to-have but is actually becoming quite fundamental to the business model.
Managing flow of people through spaces
We mustn’t forget about communal spaces that also bring a lot of complexity when it comes to the distance between people and also the duration of the interaction. This is a problem that not only people working in offices are facing but there are also property managers who now have to think about all the communal areas in the building (corridors, post rooms, gyms, cinema rooms, …) and how to manage them.
When it comes to capacity management, Mark pointed out three levels of handling it and they go hand in hand with how important they are and how much you have to spend on them. Klevio takes care of the smart access part – more importantly, it allows our users to define who can have access at all. If you integrate smart access with a booking system, you can manage a restricted inflow of people into the room. The third level is so-called full capacity monitoring – it is quite expensive but becomes increasingly important when you’re looking at bigger commercial spaces. To achieve that, you need a system that is able to tell you how many people are in the building alongside a booking system and smart access.
We hope you enjoyed this brief summary – do watch the video to get even more information and to see the Q&A section at the end as well. And of course, as always, if you have any questions or there is anything else we can help you with, drop us a line at hello@klevio.com.
