Repurposing Retail Technology: Shifting Priorities for Safety of Staff

Under “business as usual” conditions, our software platform provides workforce management and communication tools that enable managers and workers to facilitate faster and better performance. And right now, for many companies, all that comes secondary to safety and compliance. 

Now, running a business becomes a balance between keeping operations up and running and keeping customers served, but also trying the best you can to protect the safety and the health of those front-line workers. Within our app, we’ve seen a lot of ebb and flow in a highly geographic and demographic mix to how teams are being deployed or not being deployed. 

So, as we’ve begun to recognize patterns in how our clients are using our product differently during a pandemic, we understood how retailers were flexing to fill gaps and meet the needs of teams and customers. 

One of our larger clients has been able to leverage our solution to do health screenings every day with their 60,000 employees. The platform is not unique to them – we’ve repurposed the tool to use it in a unique way, asking “How can we look at this as an avenue for monitoring health and responsibly managing employees?” 

The answer was to create a checklist to go over with each employee, collect information and get an understanding of how they’re doing across the company from a health perspective. It becomes also a method to provide direct feedback and set expectations with employees. For example, if a worker can’t meet all the necessary criteria to allow them to safely work that day – it sets directives to outline that they can’t come back to work until the symptom is gone or a certain number of days have passed, etc. 

It’s a really fascinating and brilliant use of the product that was born of requirements in certain areas and regions, but also through the thoughtfulness and agility of that company. They’re not the only team out there doing things like this, but we’re definitely following that lead and trying to help all of our customers to embrace that. 

In response, Movista has created a new program for use by companies and governments. Project Health allows for the collection of critical health and exposure elements and automatically lets employees know whether or not they should be working. Normally, collecting this type of information about employees would not be allowed, but because of the pandemic, collecting basic data related to COVID-19 is not only okay, it is encouraged. The solution is extremely inexpensive and can be set up in just a couple days - and can be used for virtually any industry or municipality. 

It’s part of our company culture to innovate, as well as to give back. We are leveraging the resources and technology we have in place to give back to our communities – offering our software for free to non-profits who are on the front line fighting against COVID-19. For small businesses who are trying to get more done with much less, we can set you up for free and waive fees to get you some help – then see in a few months whether it makes sense to carry on business with us. It’s in our nature to help; it’s who we are. 

Also, as states and industries look to potentially start reopening within the next couple of months, we’re also leveraging another division of our company, Capango, to work with state governments and agencies. Capango is our app that helps connect job seekers with companies who are looking to hire, especially in retail. We’re launching an initiative called Back to Work, which offers job postings to companies so the multitude of job seekers out there can get back to work quickly, when the green light has been given. With a matching algorithm, perspective employees can be paired up with hiring managers – and in app chat functions and video capabilities allow for virtual, instant interviews. Job seekers can create a CV online and even print it to take to other jobs they apply for offline. 

If your company or agency is looking for a rapid way to collect and manage data during this crisis – or if you are interested in signing up to list job openings in our Back to Work initiatives, you can learn more at  https://explore.movista.com/projecthealth or by emailing projecthealth@movista.com.

by Stan Zylowski, CEO & Co-Founder, Movista Inc.