It’s here and has been for a while now. I’m talking about Artificial Intelligence. Whether it's the virtual assistant on your smartphone or the smart speaker in your living room, you can agree that AI is everywhere. AI is probably in your workplace now. 

For example, AI might be a chatbot that facilities a customer service role on your social media channels, by providing 24/7 assistance and answering queries. 

At this stage, you might be wondering if AI is capable of facilitating more than just a customer service based role. The answer is yes, AI has the capability to enhance workplace safety post-lockdown. 

As talks of plans emerge for the end of lockdown, businesses will have to make certain changes to their regular functioning workplace. Businesses will need to think cautiously, be more sanitised, while still maintaining a social distance. 

AI could be a huge help for your business post-lockdown.  

 

 

What is AI? 

Let’s go back to the 1950s. Professionals in the field Minsky and McCarthy described Artificial Intelligence as any task performed by a program or a machine that, if a human carried out the same activity, we would say the human had to apply intelligence to accomplish the task. 

It is said that 1 in 5 households had a smart speaker at the end of June 2019, which translates into 5.8 million households and a reach of over 10 million users.

In the US, 47 million people have access to a smart speaker. This is astonishing considering it took television 13 years to achieve 50 million users, and for smart speakers, it took two. 

 

It Can Decrease Human Error 

You may have felt fatigued or stressed at a certain point in your working career and there could be a solution. Human errors play a huge role in workplace safety, with fatigue and stress contributing to accidents. 

One major advantage of AI is the inability to get stressed and even be fatigued. In other words, AI can scale down the human factors in the workplace, including maintaining a social distance between employees.

AI can also take into account the safety of its workers. AI can detect if employees are wearing the correct PPE for each working area by blending video footage, innovative algorithms and machine learning. If a worker is not wearing the suitable attire for work, AI can send an alert and restrict access. 

This will be crucial when returning to work. 

 

It Can Undertake Dangerous Tasks

In these uncertain times, going back to your workplace may seem daunting, especially if you have to social distance from your colleagues. 

Workplace safety and productivity is a top priority for every business. Between 2017-2018, 144 people were killed at work in the UK. A surprising figure considering the UK has the lowest fatality rate across the entire EU.

In order to prevent such tragedies, employers must ensure worker safety. Workplace conditions are set for companies to avoid penalties and for workers to work in a safe environment. AI is a perfect tool to help. 

What AI Tools to Use After Lockdown

Face Recognition 

To keep track of attendance, a good idea could be to implement facial recognition to replace fingerprint scanning, as this could be very harmful to the current pandemic. 

Facial recognition is a technology powered by AI that could record the entry and exit of employees without having the need for a scanner. 

 

Scheduling Meetings and Attendance

A relief for HR would be to set up AI so that it could set up and schedule meetings. Although the government has relaxed some of the laws regarding lockdown, they are still being careful about the number of employees that are in the workplace. 

With businesses trialling the number of employees it can have at one time in the workplace, an AI tool roster management system could do this automatically for the HR department, easing the post-lockdown workload. 

 

Thermal Imaging 

A prominent feature in technology throughout COVID-19 is the increase in body temperature. By setting up thermal scanners that are powered by AI, you can avoid having an infected person in the workplace. This is a great way to sense the body temperature that doesn’t involve any human contact. 

 

Keeping a Safe Distance

This may seem like an obvious one but it is very important to keep a safe distance from your colleagues post-lockdown. With AI, you can set up a tool that monitors if people are getting in close contact with each other. 

By setting up the tool, you won’t need to constantly monitor your employees as you be alerted the moment they cross a boundary. 

 

 

AI Can be Automated for Ease

Chatbots 

Chatbots have been a natural choice for distributing health information during the Coronavirus crisis. There have been advances in conversational AI technology like Siri, Alexa and Google Home that have are part of customers’ every day. 

Chatbots are there to distribute a low-friction approach to critical information to the vast populations. Chatbot, like websites, are available 24-7. What makes chatbots so popular, is their potential to curate information which can be customised to the needs of the individual asking the questions. 

Many companies and organisations are providing chatbots on their websites and across social media to provide COVID-19 information. If businesses are to adopt chatbots for COVID-19 information, this would reduce the burden for hospital call centres, easing the workload. 

 

Analytics 

In these uncertain times, data and analytics are crucial for businesses around the world to predict outcomes for the future based on historical information. Due to a mass of COVID-19 information being thrown at you, it’s very difficult to decipher who to trust. 

However, with AI, it incorporates machine learning capabilities and produces trusted analytics or information for you to see, without having to research for hours on end.

AI aims to eliminate the need for manual big data processing and can even present valuable business insights in a way that is accessible and relatable.  

 

 

A New World After Lockdown

Granted, the world after lockdown is going to be very different and we are going to have to adapt to contain the virus within the workplace.

Since the pandemic does not have a successful treatment option yet, people will have to develop immunity for it. The lockdown has been successful in parts, but can only protect until a certain point since it brings down economic and social factors. 

As post-lockdown commences, you will likely see AI technologies increase within the workplace due to safety precautions needing to be set straight away. AI tools will help businesses keep their employees safe and contain COVID-19 from spreading further. 

 

We understand the current situation is challenging and uncertain for everyone, but we want to assure you that at Parcel2Go, we take the health and safety of our people, our couriers and our customers very seriously. 

We want to help all our customers continue to send their parcels as safely and securely as possible.