Make Smarter, Data-Driven Decisions During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Karolina Stawinska
3 min readDec 27, 2020

We all make better decisions when we have all of the information. This is even more important when facing critical business decisions in novel situations such as the global pandemic. We cannot base our decision-making on our experience since we likely have no experience specific to this situation. Still, the decisions we make can impact the health of our employees and our business’s future viability.

During this pandemic, individuals, businesses, and governments have made consequential decisions not supported by data. In some cases, they have inadvertently harmed other companies or people by enforcing rules that have little impact on mitigating the risk of spreading the virus. Some governments shut down some businesses while data revealed that their operations had a statistically unlikely chance of spreading the virus while leaving others open that had a significant impact on virus spread.

Data-driven decisions can help organizations choose the right path forward during this crisis, an approach that balances a concern for workers’ health and safety with the need to keep a business running. Access to accurate and complete data is one of the essential tools in our toolbox when dealing with disrupting crises like COVID-19.

While there are many preventative measures we can and should implement to keep the virus from entering our workplaces, data helps us mitigate the chance of spread and reduce the possibility of a workplace outbreak. When managers have complete and accurate information, they can respond quickly and make the best possible decisions to protect their workforces.

All the Data in One Place

The OkDetect Analytics Dashboard connected seamlessly to OkDetect apps and dedicated hardware tags. While the data remains private and anonymous, the contact tracing enabled through the apps and tags can help managers quickly respond to reports of workers who test positive for COVID-19. Health information can be tied to employee device ID numbers allowing HR to track test results, symptoms, and infections.

Instant Notification

When an infection is entered for a device ID, other workers that have had contact that falls within the parameters of the organizations’ COCID-19 guidelines (based on distance and time) can be notified immediately and given instructions to follow that may include testing and quarantine. Exposure alerts to individual workers can be sent directly from the portal, while broadcast alerts can be sent to all devices keeping employees informed of the latest essential news.

The Data at a Glance The OkDetect Dashboard

The OkDetect Dashboard offers a visual representation of the entire workforce. With charts for the workforce’s overall health status, reported infections, symptoms, and non-social distanced contacts, managers can get a broad view of the status of the COVID-19 response. All of the data is automatically gathered, aggregated, and displayed. It can also be viewed in more detail through a downloadable CSV file easily manipulated in Excel or other software.

With data collected through OkDetect apps and hardware tags and integrated into OkDetect Dashboard, managers have the tools they need to move forward and through this pandemic. Now, instead of overreacting or responding too slowly or with action that is too limited, leaders can make the right, data-driven decision.

www.okdetect.com

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Karolina Stawinska

Head of People & Culture @ Uplink, an alchemist, #UnwrapYourDreams