To say that colleges and universities have been through a lot this year would be an understatement. Campuses closed their doors for spring break and didn’t reopen again until fall semester. An event that professors, students, and administration didn’t see coming. But now as universities and colleges continue to reopen it’s time to look for new ways to safely support staff and students. Our guide discusses how a comprehensive human capital management solution (HCM) can be the secret weapon in your arsenal.

The way colleges and universities operated before this year won’t be the norm for a while. Now faculty and staff can expect virtual meetings. While students and faculty can be expected to wear masks while in the buildings and may even have to do temperature checks to enter a building. Before the Spring 2020 semester, most classes were offered either online or in-person, very few were offered as both. But now in the era of social distancing and an increased anxiety of being in large groups, colleges have started to offer hybrid classes. For hybrid classes, students have the option of attending a lecture in person or watching it online. The online version can be offered in two ways, either a livestream of the class forcing students to still show up at the correct time or recording the in-person lectures and posting them a few hours after class for students to watch at their convenience. While both virtual options have pros and cons, the most important component accomplished by both is the limited exposure and risk for your faculty and staff.

Whether you’re a small or large college/university, you likely have hundreds, if not thousands, of people to consider on a daily basis. With everything going on in the world, it’s important to rely on a people management tool who will do the heavy lifting for you, so you can focus on keeping your students and employees safe. Let’s take a look at some of the features that can help you. A sentiment analysis tool can be leveraged to ask your people open-ended questions where you can gauge employee emotions and common themes in real time. The surveys can also be distributed at any time to help you plan for next semester and track changing sentiment over time. While a broadcast feature can enable you to communicate important information, updates, and guidelines to your employees with a click of a button. Email or text important information quickly and easily to all employees regardless of their location to keep up with transparency and trust. This can also reduce the need to more in-person faculty meetings. With user-friendly platform configurability, you can easily log each building an employee has been, if any classes have needed to quarantine, and for what reason. Permission-based access means essential employees will see this data, so they can easily track important information, when and where they need it. Provide employees easy access self-service. This not only reduces the administrative requests HR has to complete, but it allows employees to access pertinent information when and where they need it.