What is Contactless Access Management & How to Implement It

Published: January 27, 2022
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Planning a return to the office? This blog explores how contactless access management can help make your workplace safer, track visitors, enhance security, and reduce costs.

Businesses worldwide are looking forward to reopening their offices, and the biggest challenge they face is employee safety. Research by Envoy found that 66% of employees worry about going to the physical workplace. 

Yes, regular disinfection drives can stave off the virus. But simply maintaining a clean environment is not enough! As a manager, you must assure your employees that they are safe while working in the office.

This is where contactless access management can come to your rescue. 

What is Contactless Access Management? 

Contactless access management systems provide a safe and contactless way for employees and visitors to enter your facility. They allow employees to enter and exit office spaces without touching surfaces like keypads, fingerprint scanners, or doorknobs. They need to scan a QR-code or provide OTP to access the building.

Contactless access management systems can also increase the security of your workspace. How? Well, they can seamlessly integrate with your visitor management and surveillance systems.

So, your team can monitor, detect and report unauthorized entrants with ease.

Why Do You Need a Contactless Access Management System?

Now, you are probably wondering why even invest in a system? You can replace your existing contact-based access points with touchless devices and call it a day. 

However, that would not be effective. You need a sophisticated contactless access management system to go truly touchless. The reasons can be stated as follows:

1. Centralized Cloud-based Management

Since contactless access management systems are cloud-based, they are easy to use. To begin with, they remove the need for complex physical-access systems. They also offer greater control and visibility to monitor your data.

Security is not a concern here. Because the system protects your company’s database from cyber-attacks. 

2. Easy Wireless Implementation

Contactless access management systems do not need any cabling. Instead, they work on a wireless mesh technology, such as BLE-Mesh (Bluetooth Mesh Networking) or Thread. 

If you are worried about installation time and convenience, don’t fret! Because wireless, contactless access management systems are easy to configure, run, and maintain. They have low installation and up-gradation costs, so they are scalable within the office. 

But what if you have to apply the contactless access management system to another work location? Well, you can do so without hefty infrastructure costs.

 

3. Smartphone Convenience

With a contactless access management system, you can offer smartphone-based access to your employees. So, you will no longer have to issue RFID cards or any other access devices. Ultimately, this will help your company reduce costs.

Benefits of a Contactless Access Management

You can assure your employees a safe return to work with contactless access management. You can also enhance existing security methods and provide a secure way to manage visitors. Here is how you can achieve it. 

 

1. Safety

As new variants keep cropping up, bringing your employees back to work will remain challenging. 

Even with regular cleaning and disinfecting, you cannot eliminate the chances of infection, and it can still spread quickly at the workplace via hi-touch surfaces. After all, from doorknobs to elevator buttons and keypads, employees share the same pathways every day. 

But with contactless access management, you can make sure employees can maintain a healthy distance and reduce the risk of infection. 

Bonus Read: How to Maintain Office Sanitization

2. Advanced Security

You can program your contactless access management system to limit access. And have more control by allowing only authorized people inside the premises. 

For example, you can permit staff members with a specific access level to unlock a room on a given floor. You can also decide the hour and the day.  

What’s more, you can easily track your employees’ whereabouts and identify unused areas in your building. This way, you can control the flow of people inside your facility. 

3. Visitor Management

When a visitor, like a client, comes to your workplace for the first time, a contactless access management system can serve a dual purpose. Firstly, it gives them a sense of safety and confidence. Secondly, it helps you track all the areas and people they have contacted. Therefore, making it easier to keep a record.

All you need to do is integrate your visitor management system with a contactless access management system. So, your visitors can perform a self-check-in and access certain areas through a QR-code.

Also Read: How to Select the Right Visitor Management Software?

How to Implement a Contactless Access Management System?

Before adopting a contactless access management system, you must assess two factors first. 

  • The size of your office facility 
  • Employee strength

Apart from the above, your plan will also depend on the number of access points, expected traffic, and the access control levels you wish to authorize. 

Once the plan is ready, you can start making it work in the following steps. 

1. Configure Touchless Door Controllers 

In a contactless access management system, you can use special door controllers to verify your employee or visitor’s identity. Even add another layer of safety by asking your visitor to scan their vaccination certificate. 

You can check if your visitor is wearing a mask before allowing them to enter using data from video cameras and add a thermal scanner to record their body temperature. This way, door controllers can help strengthen your security further. 

For example, they can alert your security team in case of unauthorized access. What’s more, these controllers also work in sync with other nearby controllers. By doing so, they allow you to enforce decisions at all access points. 

2. Host the Contactless Access Management System in the Cloud

Instead of a local server, host your contactless access management system on a cloud-hosted remote server. Why? Because cloud-hosted servers do not require constant maintenance. Therefore, diminishing the need to spend a lot on upkeep. 

Unlike local servers, cloud-based servers don’t require you to back up data every other hour. Plus, your database remains protected from security threats. 

3. Add Hands-Free Authentication Methods

Finally, you can choose various hands-free authentication methods for contactless access management. But the most affordable solution is QR-based mobile verification. 

Your employees or visitors need to pre-register and download a QR code here. Then, they can scan the code at the entrance before stepping into your office.

To Conclude

To ensure the safety of your employees, staff, and visitors, get started with contactless access management today. 

Want to make your implementation hassle-free? WorkInSync is your one-stop solution to ensure safety and flexibility at work. With our convenient mobile app-based access control, your employees can enter the office without interacting with multi-use touchpoints. 

Subscribe to our blog to know more about in contactless access management. 

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