Envoy Protect powers one million safe returns to the workplace

2020 has brought unexpected challenges to nearly every aspect of our lives. From Silicon Valley technology firms to food processing facilities in the Midwest, we’re all getting used to the “new normal” of life at work. For some of us, that includes working remotely or in a combination of home and office. For others, it’s showing up to a workplace with new and robust health screening procedures.

When we announced Envoy Protect in May of 2020, we wanted to give workplaces the tools they needed to keep their workplace safe and healthy. Since that time, over 5,000 workplaces have used Protect to power one million safe returns to the workplace. At each step, workplace leaders have shared their feedback and shaped the product. Thanks to their help and guidance, we’re proud to announce that Envoy Protect is officially out of beta and full of new features, integrations, and partnerships designed to help you, your employees, and your visitors stay safe and healthy at work.

Additionally, we’re thrilled to announce the next component of the Envoy Workplace platform, Envoy Desks. Envoy Desks is a product for managing dynamic workplaces with flexible desks, known as hot-desking or desk hoteling. We’ve built it based on feedback and requests directly from our customers. Many organizations tell us they need help managing their space and keeping their team safe in a work environment that will continue to require social distancing for the foreseeable future. Envoy Desks is here to help.

Better space management with Envoy Desks

Workplace leaders need to manage every inch of their space. Previously, their focus was on finding creative ways to make their current space work for a growing team. Now, these same leaders are focused on creating a safe, germ-free workplace for their teammates. With Envoy Desks, employees will be able to reserve a desk for the day as part of their registration process. Workplace leaders can ensure that each desk checked out has been sanitized and is a safe distance away from other employees.

We’re rolling Envoy Desks out in a closed beta to make sure that we’re addressing customers’ current and future desk needs. We’ve heard from workplace leaders across the country that are planning for a hybrid model of remote and in-office work for their teams. To do so, they need to be able to keep their spaces flexible. With Desks, these workplace leaders will have the flexibility to ensure each workstation is being used effectively, no space is being wasted, and their teams have what they need to stay safe, healthy, and productive.We're testing the program with a select group of Envoy customers in a closed beta today. You can sign in here to join the waitlist.

Follow local screening guidelines at all of your locations

It’s challenging to keep workplaces open, period. It’s even harder when you consider that every city, state, and country has slightly different health and safety guidelines.With Envoy Protect, you can customize what steps employees take to certify they’re healthy based on the location where they intend to work. This gives each workplace the flexibility needed to adhere to local health and safety requirements while standardizing the process for employees. With Envoy Protect, making your health certification process available to employees at a new location is easy. Either create a new registration flow or select one of your existing flows. If you make changes to one flow, all the locations that use it will update to match automatically, so your locations are effortlessly in sync.

Ensure employees are up-to-date, no matter where they are

Many employees are working from home or in shifts in the office. Information about COVID-19 and office openings by state and city are still changing weekly. That means keeping your team informed is harder than ever. With Envoy Protect’s new Announcements feature, you can easily share important information with your team, and keep FAQs and important updates top of mind.

Administrators can share announcements through the Envoy Mobile app. When you share an announcement, the information will show up on the main screen of the mobile app. Employees will see your news each day when they reserve their spot in the office. To ensure that employees see your message, you can send the announcement as a push notification to employees who were recently in the office. Rather than risk important information getting lost in a sea of emails, slack threads, and shared docs, you can rest assured your team gets the message.

Protect your people and your building with integrated access control

For the foreseeable future, employers need to ensure only the right people have access to their workspace. That means employees won’t have unlimited access to the office. Instead, workplace leaders need to make sure that only those who are healthy and have been approved to come to work can enter the building. Now, you can integrate Envoy Protect with your access control system. Adding this layer of security will help protect your team and make your building even more secure. Protect Administrators can require that employees complete a health questionnaire first, before enabling their badge to grant access for the day. Integrating Envoy Protect with your access control provider will guarantee that only healthy, approved individuals are allowed into your space to give you more control over capacity and reduce the spread of germs.

Envoy Protect currently integrates with Lenel, Openpath, Kisi, S2, Genetec, Brivo, and Proxy. We plan to release more access control integrations over the coming weeks and months.

More tools to keep your workplace safe and healthy

Since May, we have shipped over thirty-five features and improvements to our customers to help manage a safe and healthy workplace. These updates are available to anyone that uses Envoy Visitors and Envoy Protect. This includes:

• ‍Touchless sign-in for Visitors: Visitors can scan a QR code on the Envoy Visitors Kiosk when they check-in for their visit, without touching any surface or spreading germs.
• ‍Workplace contact tracing: If an employee discovers they’re sick, it’s essential to know who else may have been exposed. With the contact tracing feature, you can quickly pull a list of anyone who was in the office at the same time and notify the right people.‍
• Registration instructions: Employees often have questions about getting started with their health screening questionnaire and what comes next. Now, it’s easy to add custom instructions at the start of your questionnaire and a custom message when employees finish.
• ‍Temperature check integrations: Temperature checks are an excellent way to maintain your workspace’s health and safety. Envoy now integrates with Athena and Flir so you can log if an employee has a fever. Our seamless integrations make it simple to associate the temperature check to the employee registration process, as well as your access control tools.

Just the beginning

Journalists and industry luminaries continue to forecast the end of the office. We disagree. It’s clear to us that the office will change, but will not go away. Our mission at Envoy is to help you run a safe, productive, and happy workplace. We’re committed to building the tools and integrations you need, when you need them. We’re sincere in our belief that these tools need to work for the administrator and provide a great experience for your employees that keeps them focused on the work that matters. If you’re already an Envoy Visitors customer, Envoy Protect is included in your Visitors plan at no additional cost. You can set up Protect in just a few minutes and get your workplace ready to reopen quickly and easily. If you’re not a customer yet, get started with Envoy Protect today or talk to our team to learn more.

If you’re already a customer and are interested in joining the Envoy Desks beta, please fill out this short form in your dashboard, and our team will be in touch with next steps.