Join the tech revolution - or else...

16th of January 2025 Article by Lotte Printz
Join the tech revolution - or else...

The future Nordic workplace will be more reliant on technology to be successful, and organisations seem willing to adapt. This report from ECJ's Lotte Printz.

This summer Coor, a leading FM provider in the Nordic countries, released its third ‘Join the Workplace Revolution’ report. This time exploring technology trends in buildings and facility management. Based on a March 2024 survey among 402 respondents classed as decision makers, Coor concluded emerging technologies are believed to have a high impact on the workplace and that companies show willingness to embrace technologies that can ensure company safety and security, increase efficiency, manage new data sets and drive down costs.

This goes for the FM industry as well. In fact, this industry has never changed as rapidly as it is now - CEO of Coor, AnnaCarin Grandin, writes in her opening remarks of the report.

An increasing number of Nordic companies use AI and apps for instance, more than half of the respondents are planning to implement such solutions or sensors, drones or even virtual reality within the next three years, and 17 per cent said they’ll invest in data-driven cleaning - needs-based cleaning or cleaning on demand - in the course of 2024-2025. On the face of it, the number may seem low, but less so if we take into consideration some companies have already invested in those technologies.

Others are, naturally, more hesitant as it can be a challenge for organisations to understand where investment will serve them best, as it says in the report. However, adopting new tools and technologies will be crucial for their future success or even survival in the industry.

Speaking to the official magazine for this year’s autumn fair of the Danish cleaning industry (Rent i Danmark) tech expert David Guldager, one of the keynote speakers, predicts that in 20 years the entire cleaning process will be automated. Guldager stresses, though, there’ll be no need to fear this development as there’ll still be a need for the human ‘touch’.

“It would be naïve to think we can keep on having physically demanding jobs. We have to live longer and healthier. People should not have to lift heavy objects or do other physically strenuous tasks,” he said.

Besides, someone must operate the robot and make sure the job is done properly. Robots cannot just go and get work started, as Guldager puts it.

Training plays a key part, but cleaning professionals do not need a degree in engineering to become tech-savvy for the cleaning industry, Guldager explains. These days robots are operated via apps and are thus easy to handle.

That’s the good news. The bad news, according to the tech expert, is that any cleaning companies or operatives insisting that digitalisation is not ‘their thing’ will be bowled over!

For companies within the industry that might be reluctant, time registration for employees - which became statutory in Denmark as of July 1 last year to comply with the EU Working Time Directive - may have come as a blessing in disguise. To a fairly large extent, cleaning staff are already using apps and NFC tags or QR codes to register their presence and time spent with the customers and it’s only a small step further to register their working hours. And once that has been implemented, the next steps towards integrating more technologies and digital cleaning may seem less uphill.

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