Benefits of Two-Way Radios During COVID-19 to Keep You and Your Co-Workers Social Distancing While on the Job
First responders have long known that two-way radios are one of the best solutions available during a time of crisis. They provide reliable communication, are affordable and easy to use, and can be sanitized between users. And while two-way radios have been a communications essential for many large companies, hospitals, and other sectors for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that there is tremendous potential for these devices across all industries as a means to promote social distancing policies.
As many areas of the country have begun to ease the quarantine and stay-at-home orders, employers face many challenges. The biggest challenge for many is identifying ways to operate that promote health and safety amid an ongoing pandemic. Two-way radios can be used in many settings to minimize employee contact and overcome some of the challenges and concerns that employers face while bringing back workers, reopening doors, and ramping up production.
Minimizing contact between workers will be essential in the coming months until methods of mitigating the virus has been figured out, which makes it imperative that workers have reliable communication channels. And while many employers have turned to cell phones as an interim solution, the problem with cell phones is quickly becoming apparent. They take a lot longer to make calls and send texts leading to distractions, loss of signal and worse, accidents. If an employee doesn’t have the contact information for another employee, they are unable to communicate until they find the contact information. Additionally, they are expensive, hard to sanitize, and some employees dislike having a company-issued cell phone or using their personal cell phone for business. Cell phones, and especially smartphones, also break easily, making them impractical to use in many industries. Two-way radios provide many benefits that cell phones do not.
Immediate Communication
Cell phones, in general, simply have too many features to be the best solution for company communication. While we all love the sophistication of modern cell phones and apps, most companies need straightforward ways to communicate quickly. Two-way radios are ideal for these settings; their push-to-talk feature ensures that you can immediately deliver essential information.
Easy-to-Use
Two-way radios have a simplified design, making them incredibly easy to use. The learning curve will be easy for most employees to overcome. They are especially easy to learn when compared to a new cell phone. This ease-of-use means that productivity won’t be as severely impacted as it would be for the deployment of a different communication platform. Employers can feel confident that they can roll out a two-way radio system that will enable employees to focus on productivity.
Shared Resource
Employees can use two-way radios during their workday and leave them at the workplace when they leave for the day. This means that employees aren’t burdened with additional equipment after they leave (as they might be with a company-issued cell phone). Employees would also find that they don’t have to use their personal cell phones while working, which is a significant benefit for the employer, too, particularly if there are restrictions for cell phone use while working.
Hygenic
While the sharing of radios between workers may seem like an immediate health risk by allowing for the transmission of the virus, two-way radios can be incredibly safe. Some two-way radios are constructed with antimicrobial elements, and nearly all of them can be disinfected in a way that would prevent the virus on the two-way radio from being transmitted between users.
Social Distancing
The reality is that COVID-19 has forced a new operational model on many employers – and likely one that is here to stay for at least the foreseeable future. Providing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace hinges upon the employer’s ability to promote safe social distancing policies.
In many instances, workplace communication can be maintained – or even enhanced – by the introduction of two-way radios, even in industries where we haven’t commonly seen them used in the past. Restaurants and bars are employing two-way radio systems to keep traffic moving and coordinate curbside pick-up.
And their applications that promote social distancing extend beyond the professional setting. Many families are now using two-way radios when one family member is sick to minimize contact. The bottom line is that social distancing will be here to stay for many businesses and individuals for the foreseeable future. But social distancing also presents challenges in communication and collaboration. Two-way radios are an affordable solution that can overcome many of the challenges that are presented by social distancing.