Why Is Visitor Management Even More Important in a Tight Economy?

In 2022 the economy was, well, weird. And indicators suggest 2023 will be another challenging year for business growth. And workers are feeling the pain. Already in this brand new year, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, laid off 11,000 people. That's 13% of the total workforce. Moreover, Amazon recently announced the elimination of approximately ten thousand corporate and technical positions. Similarly, Lyft, Twitter, Stripe, Netflix, and cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase are also cutting back.

We hate to say the quiet part out loud, but there is no denying the fact that things are bad. It becomes even more important for businesses to safeguard existing resources in times like these. The well-being of clients and workers should always be top of mind, but it's especially essential during a tight economy when safety is often the unintentional victim of budget cuts. A single mishap or security issue could send customers to competitions.

Businesses must ensure that their service and reputation don't suffer due to these avoidable security accidents, making a visitor management system more important than ever.

What Is Visitor Management?

Managing guests who come to your business premise is known as visitor management. However, logging them in is just the beginning of the procedure. Also, consider guest safety and emergency management, alerting staff of new visitors, and ensuring your guests understand what areas of your business or facility are off-limits to them.

The best way to create world-class visitor management is to automate it with a cloud-based virtual assistant.

Why Is Visitor Management Even More Challenging in a Tight Economy

Conventional visitor management methods rely on manual operations, such as keeping a paper-based log book and having receptionists alert workers when visitors arrive.

Technology companies and others find it challenging to carry out their manual visitor management. Here are a few of the reasons why:

Budget Cuts and Lack of Human Resources

The unemployment rate is relatively high these days, and there is a critical shortage of workers in the United States. Attracting and retaining top talent isn't easy; many businesses need help maintaining larger workforces because of the tight economy.

The average salary for a receptionist is around $36,853 per year as of October 2022. So the cost of using old-fashioned visitor management techniques can quickly add up. Furthermore, in today's economic climate, finding a suitable candidate to hire is a significant obstacle in and of itself.

As a result, many businesses have had to reduce their staff to keep up with their day-to-day expenses. However, this lack of personnel makes visitor management challenging for many enterprises.

Challenges of a Hybrid Workplace

Even though the pandemic is over, it has left lasting effects, such as the widespread adoption of a hybrid workplace model. Researchers at Stanford University found that hybrid workplaces are preferred by 55% of respondents.

Due to the possibility of employees working both on and off-site, it can be challenging to keep track of everyone. Every day becomes a guessing game about who will be in the office, who will be taking off, and who will be working from home. Such a situation can make visitor management more challenging than ever.

Following are a few other factors making hybrid situations challenging for visitor management:

• Most workers in a hybrid workplace are likely to spend some time away from the office. Therefore, receptionists and other forms of administration personnel won't be present round-the-clock.
• The on-site visitor management team might be unable to assist the remote employees.
• In-house staffing requirements would be hard to estimate. As a result, management might be unable to figure out whether they have an abundance of workers or are desperately short-handed.
• It can be challenging to track who is doing what because the hybrid employees might come to work as and when they want.

The Need to Grow Your Business

Although many top tech companies are reducing staffing levels due to the economic downturn, expansion remains a priority. This is only possible if the layoff will not negatively impact the company's functioning capacity.

Automating some of your processes might help you run your business on a budget until it gets back on its feet. For instance, if your visiting management team is unavailable, a visitor management system can help cover their absence.

An essential component of running a business is appropriately managing visitors. A staffing agency can be an invaluable resource for accomplishing this goal. While layoffs help save money, some roles cannot function without human resources. As a result, you should ensure that you have the right people employed in these positions throughout the crisis.

Next, you need a top-notch visitor management system to maintain your credibility, and a visitor management system can provide that.

How A Visitor Management System Can Help

Here are a few ways features of a visitor management system can help big tech companies manage these challenges.

Keeps Track of Employees

The rise of the hybrid workplace makes it increasingly necessary to track who is physically present in the office and who is working remotely. Having ready access to all relevant records for contact tracing is also essential. The good news is that these elements can be automated to ensure continued security in the workplace.

Cloud-based current visitor management solutions allow administrators to make changes to settings and monitor visitor logs for every single location across your company's global footprint.

Greets All Visitors

A human receptionist is no longer necessary to provide a positive visitor experience thanks to the automation provided by your visitor management system. It can help you guarantee that every guest is greeted and connected to their host efficiently.

Visitor sign-in software is an efficient assistant to front desk workers even when human receptionists are present. The software can handle simple check-in tasks more quickly, like taking visitors' photos or collecting electronic signatures on legal documents, freeing the human team to focus on more complex tasks.

Saves on Operation Expenses

The cost of implementing a visitor management solution is minimal. Fewer front desk workers, security guards, and escorts are needed to identify and welcome guests. Eventually, you'll see the savings and know it was worth it.

You won't need to hire many IT security workers to keep the system functioning since most of the work will be done remotely in the cloud. The software can be run with little to no technical knowledge, integrates with your existing tools like Active Directory, Teams, Slack, Zapier, and others,  and administration happens on the cloud.

Conclusion

Many positive outcomes can result from implementing a visitor management system. Your scalability and growth might be compromised if you choose not to enforce a viable visitor management system.

The installation of visitor management system software to control building access has become increasingly important as many workers prefer a blended work environment. This is because the platform can easily accommodate times when no human personnel can serve customers.

Moreover, it helps save time and effort by performing the functions of several workers at once, such as preserving a time-stamped log of visitor movement and facilitating efficient contact tracing when necessary. This necessitates using visitor management software in this time of economic hardship.