As more businesses reopen, employees and customers alike are searching for safer work and shopping environments. Fortunately, groundbreaking technology offers a way to keep both employees and customers safer as you reopen your retail business. Thermal scanners offer a fast and easy way to screen visitors to your business — regardless of mask mandates.
Many large retailers have come under scrutiny in recent months for not enforcing mask mandates. Lowe’s, a big-box home improvement store, was taken to task by customers for its laxity surrounding mask wearing. While the retailer claimed the policy aimed to protect employees from customers who got aggressive when asked to wear a mask, employees feel that unmasked customers put employee health at risk.
Regardless, other retailers have followed suit. Walmart and Walgreens issued policy statements indicating their employees would not prevent unmasked individuals from entering stores in order to protect workers from aggression. The problem is that many shoppers and workers feel uncomfortable with retailers’ nonconformance to public health and safety guidelines.
Now that the CDC has issued new guidance that fully-vaccinated individuals don’t have to wear face masks indoors, the situation has grown even more complicated. With no way to tell who has — or hasn’t — been vaccinated, the masks-off guidance may be putting even more people at risk.
Thermal Scanners Can Help You Create a Safer Environment for Staff and Visitors
Today’s temperature-sensing technologies allow brick-and-mortar businesses to provide increased health and safety parameters for employees and customers alike — without exposing employees to potential aggression.
With many configurations from which to choose, biometric scanning technologies provide safe, effective access control by helping businesses to identify individuals with high temperatures that may be at risk for spreading coronavirus or other pathogens. Businesses have several choices when it comes to deploying these devices:
1. Handheld Temperature/Thermal Scanner
The simplest and most cost-effective option, the handheld scanner provides pinpoint temperature accuracy at a scan distance of 6” to 3’ to allow users a non-contact thermal scanning option.
2. Stand-Alone Kiosk with Access Control
Stand-alone temperature-sensing and facial recognition (which can be used to detect PPE) kiosks give businesses the control they need to keep visitors safer. Not only can they measure temperature accurately through a no-contact wrist scanner, but they provide the added security of face mask detection and facial recognition. They also provide door control options that automate the entry process.
3. Temperature Sensing Security Gate
The all-in-one security gate not only provides non-contact temperature evaluation and alarm, but it can act as a metal detector as well. Similar in design to airport scanners, customers and employees simply walk through the gate and gain entrance if no alarms are sounded.
4. Temperature Scanning Camera
A temperature scanning camera provides bi-spectral body temperature screening without hands-on use to detect abnormal body temperatures. With a blackbody calibration reference that ensures reading accuracy, these cameras will sound an alarm when temperatures above a set threshold are measured.
Most of these options can be configured into your pre-existing access control system, and they offer the perfect way to begin an access control system if you don’t currently have one.
Trust CDS for the Widest Range of Temperature Scanning Equipment
Regardless of whether masks are required or not, today’s consumers and employees consider a safe workplace to be a top priority as we move through 2021 and beyond.
To help our business clients respond to these pain points, our team at CDS has curated a wide range of temperature scanning and thermal imaging equipment to assist you in creating and maintaining a safer business. We provide scanners that range from simple, hand-held options to full-service security gates, with the option to integrate this leading-edge technology with your current access control system for ease of use.
Our expanded range of camera and sensor options brings a higher level of health and safety within reach of any brick-and-mortar business to keep visitors safe and lower operational risks for your business.
Let your customers and employees know you care about their health and welfare. Contact a CDS representative now and learn how our wide range of thermal scanners and temperature scanning devices can help you create an environment of safety for your business.
