With the growing trend of remote working, work has become an activity you do – instead of a place you go. If you are preparing to shift your workplace to a remote workers’ dream space, you need good workspace management software to sustain and manage operations.
So, what are the 10 steps you need to take?
1. Consult first – Choose a technology partner who understands what you want to accomplish and manage.
2. Demand integration – Look for an adaptable API that will integrate with other technologies.
3. Seek flexibility – Your company needs are constantly changing, so you need a solution offering flexibility from design to operation.
4. Select the proper model – Remote working is not one-size-fits-all. Decide if you need to use a trusted system of workspace management software where staff can choose their space, a managed version (desk inventory managed by a responsive booking system) or a mix of the two.
5. Go mobile – Your employees need to access the workspace management software while they are on the go, through a simple-to-use app where they can select and book rooms or desks.
6. Select resource agnostic technology – This offers an adaptable booking workflow as well as comprehensive booking guidelines and notification possibilities.
7. Plus digital signage and wayfinding – Tools that integrate with your system to offer perfect meeting guest management, so you impress each time.
8. Innovate with floorplan navigation – A graphical view so your employees can simply identify and book the space or desk they require.
9. Include occupancy sensors – Combined with your workspace management software, these provide real-time data on how space is being used. You can then base space planning on comprehensive utilization reports.
10. Guarantee engagement – Make sure you take your team on the journey with you by offering easy-to-use interfaces with minimum training necessary.
The outcome of using these 10 steps and selecting the right workspace management software? A modern, innovative workplace where remote employees have the technological support they need to find and book the space they need, while the facilities manager can be sure that every bit of valuable office space is being utilized.
Want to learn more about how to make your remote working journey a smooth road to success
You want that perfect meeting. You need it. But “just use Outlook” = trouble, no matter how big your company is.
Here’s why:
You struggle to juggle multiple booking elements while using plain old Outlook.
You can book rooms, but not the AV you need. Then you find a way to put AV in the notes, but now the guests have special meal requirements.
Then disaster — all the team members and the client are on the meeting notice, but the whole meeting gets bumped two days.
Will you remember all of the fields, files, sticky notes and emails that need to change for all the things not included in that Outlook meeting?
Many other organizations are exploring ways to digitize and streamline their workflow and business processes, but they find many booking scenarios remain disjointed when using Outlook.
The truth is, for complex organizations, plain Outlook just won’t cut it. And in these days of sophisticated meeting room booking software, that’s becoming more and more plain.
Using “just Outlook”, eventually something is missed, and your meeting starts off on the wrong foot, or worse yet, doesn’t happen at all. There is nothing more embarrassing than a client showing up when your team is booked or out of office.
Here’s where Outlook lets you down
When using Outlook, you cannot book the room and required vended services such as catering in a single process. Instead, you have to have to:
Find your meeting space by opening each individual room calendar to check availability via the scheduling assistant. You have to repeat this laborious task until a vacant slot appears
Call or email the catering team to request refreshments for your meeting, letting them know where they need to deliver to.
This means you have to know the business rules, notification and cut off times for each item, and also time for setup and breakdown — a big ask.
For some items, you may have to provide a cost code or client chargeback details, depending on whether your meeting is internal or client-facing.
In reality, there’s a time-consuming dialogue between you and the service provider, because details have to be added to progress or decline the request.
And what if the meeting changes? Ouch.
If any details change, including amendments to refreshments or location, your manual slog of telling the service provider just goes on and on.
You’re a busy person, so it’s easy to forget, too — and that means the wrong items are delivered to the wrong room at the wrong time.
It doesn’t make you or your organization look slick, that’s for sure.
If your meeting is cancelled, it’s a common mistake to cancel the room reservation, but forget the service providers, which leads to waste and unnecessary catering costs.
Did you know: Many large enterprises report catering waste of up to $500,000 annually.
Booking just with Outlook takes more than 10 minutes on average.
No big deal, if you have only a few meetings to organize. But when you add it up across a larger enterprise with a complex meeting schedule, and factor in the lost business from making mistakes, “Just use Outlook” can cost you the growth your company seeks.
Q. So if Outlook is broken for you, how do you fix it and create that perfect meeting experience?
With meeting room booking software at your fingertips, you follow just 4 quick and simple steps to book your full-service meeting:
Choose your meeting space type, date, time and the number of attendees
Choose the room you want from the search results
Select from the vended services available for that specific room
Confirm your booking.
Your smart meeting room booking software takes away the grind — automatically.
1. It applies all business rules, notifications, and cut-offs, set up and break down times
2. It notifies the relevant service teams via email and through a service tracker which collates and displays all tasks in time order
3. It updates the service provider if you make any changes to the booking — a simple process
4. If you cancel the meeting, all associated deliverables will automatically be cancelled too
5. It enters all relevant cost codes are entered at the booking stage so they can be reported on and processed without time-consuming cross-checking.
Booking with meeting room booking software takes less than 30 seconds on average.
If you’re a busy PA making 100 bookings a month, you just saved over 15 hours.
By eliminating mistakes, errors, double bookings and client problems, that saving is a great deal more.
Not to mention the benefits it brings to your organization’s productivity and wellbeing by removing frustration and lifting the drudgery of tedious manual tasks.
So, you can keep using Outlook. It’s just money and time wasted, no big deal, right?
Wrong.
Download our brochure and set up a demo for Rendezvous meeting room booking software instead, which integrates fully with Outlook and 365.
Why waste another minute when you could be helping your organization to hold the perfect meetings that spark growth?
The 20th century model of a workplace just doesn’t get the job done efficiently in the 21st century. Today, work is not a place we go to, it’s an activity we engage in wherever and whenever our customers demand.
Work is now an agile, integrated activity that’s so far from the clock-punching drudgery of last century that the two seem barely related.
Want the truth?
If your office personnel is required to work within a 20th-century mind-set, you most likely have a morale problem — that’s if you can hire the best new talent to begin with.
Did you know: Gartner estimates that the average employee spends 27 hours a year looking for the right space to work.
An adaptive integration of processes and software can bring your workplace up to date and improve user knowledge.
Workplace management software helps employees control and improve their working environment to create collaboration, wellbeing and productivity.
And as a workplace owner or facility manager how you control surrounding conditions can make the environment right or wrong for your business and your employees.
Surrounding conditions can mean two different things:
Physical conditions – e.g. what type of space is available for meetings daily, how hot or cold your workplace is, how noisy it is.
Equipment – e.g. are collaboration tools such as video conferencing or AV available? What other equipment do your workers need or have available for successful meetings?
So when does all of this go wrong?
When your workspace is not set up to support modern ways of working.
When workers end up wandering around the building looking for somewhere to sit down and work, or hold a meeting.
When your workers are uncomfortable because it’s too hot, too cold or noisy.
When meetings fail because no-one shows.
When no-one wants to arrange a video conference because it’s too much admin and the equipment isn’t always available when they need it.
So how do you make it right?
Good workspace management software lays all these issues to rest, making your operations more efficient and delivering an effortless agile working environment where people can do their jobs efficiently.
Here’s how using workspace management software to find room works on a daily basis:
That’s true even when they are organizing a meeting to involve participants across multiple locations or time zones.
If they need a quiet desk in a cool place, they can specify that when booking the desk – DAILY.
Up-to-date inventory control means they can identify the equipment they need at each location and book that, too – and they can even add catering in the same transaction DAILY.
It can all be dragged and dropped into the familiar Outlook calendar thanks to good integration, and any changes are notified automatically to everyone who is taking part – even the caterers — DAILY.
Great room scheduling software works for agile workers travelling from one office location to another and also for office-based staff members who need to find available meeting rooms. Workpace management software allows them to:
Easily find and book workspaces/meeting rooms with day-to-day capabilities — it will Inform workers of room availability based on their specifications every day.
Create perfect meetings every time since the room scheduling software finds a room, books video conferencing within different time zones, books catering, and notifies participants if meeting times change. It will even release the room when the meeting is finished.
Allow collaboration for better innovation and team spirit.
Eliminates tiresome manual admin tasks.
What about long term space planning with workspace management software?
DLA Piper is a good example of long-term space planning aided by software.
The global law firm recently moved its Chicago office to River Point, a 52-story office tower on Lake Street. The law firm is leasing 175,000 sq. feet on the ninth through 16th floors in the tower.
With hundreds of employees attending several meetings in 33 rooms in one business day, DLA Piper needed to find meeting management technology to help increase office productivity.
They invested in Rendezvous, integrated with real-time occupancy sensors.
When people enter a room, sensors turn equipment on and instructions appear on the main screen alerting attendees how to project a laptop onto the screen wirelessly or physically plugged in.
Equipment will automatically shut down when the meeting ends. The room is automatically released and its availability displayed on digital panels outside the meeting space for all to view.
The integration of meeting room booking technology with a leading enterprise management system for digital signage and building control created a fully connected workplace for DLA Piper’s new space.
Thanks to the integration of the software and digital signage, workers can find a suitable meeting space, book the room and services and bring remote offices into the meeting by video conferencing, seamlessly.
They can even set up lighting, control temperature and lower window blinds.
Sensors – how do they work?
The system aggregates all the data from the sensor technology – whether that is monitoring desks, meeting rooms or social spaces. Using this data, it is possible to model and predict the future space requirements.
The system sends management an alert when space usage goes above or below user-defined levels. The system provides enough granular data to even suggest how the office should be configured.
For example, using this data to deliver 10% in space savings you can delay future office moves and expansions, or reconfigure the existing space for more flexible working patterns.
One of the great features of the solution is that it can release a space automatically at end of use to the next employee who requires it.
This can increase space utilization by around 30%.
Based on your business rules, space and desks can be automatically re-allocated when you have a “no-show”. For example, a desk can be reallocated if it has been unoccupied for two hours.
Given that the average employee spends 27 hours a year looking for the right space to work, this time saving translates to a major cost saving – creating a win-win scenario for the facility manager.
Want to reduce wasted space and streamline operations?
Many enterprises are currently beginning to create Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs within their organizations. These programs allow employees to use their personal devices for work activities, further allowing them to be more productive from anywhere with an internet connection. These devices include mobile tablets, smart phones and laptops. Although expanding programs have really been lead by an increased demand from employees, the businesses see huge benefits as well. These benefits include increases in worker productivity, increased revenue and happier employees.
Forrester conducted a survey recently to find out just how effective BYOD programs are within organizations. The statistics may surprise you. The study found that 70% of employees that use a tablet for work selected the tablet themselves. 67% of employees that use smart phones for work selected these smart phones themselves. Lastly, 46% of employees that use laptops for work selected the laptops themselves. Moreover, these devices were not purchased by the company; they were an employee expense. One may think that employees would be opposed to purchasing their own equipment, but another study conducted by Good Technology found that employees are happy to buy their own equipment. The reasoning is that employees can use devices they actually like, which isn’t commonly the case if a business purchases older equipment to save on expenses. Most companies, as you can image, are happy to allow the employees to cover the expense. Thus, over 50% of North American and European companies have already begun incorporating BYOD programs. There are more benefits still, which are causing this practice to explode across the business world.
One of the most significant benefits of BYOD programs was found to be an increase in worker productivity. According to a recent Trend Micro survey, 80% of companies saw an increase in worker productivity with the implementation of BYOD programs. This is attributed to employees having constant information at their fingertips. They can update information from anywhere, anytime. This has increased communication and collaboration among employees, which has in-turn, increased productivity. With this, since employees own the devices they use for work, they are able to take them home and manage projects during previously unproductive time. Surprisingly, employees are happy to have the option to put in the extra work, if it means projects are being done faster, on their schedule.
The next benefit is an increase in revenue. One way companies have increased revenue through BYOD programs is by eliminating the section of the budget previously allocated towards purchasing computers and electronic devices for employees. An article published in Mind over Machines found that 70% of companies that have implemented BYOD programs have seen an increase in their bottom lines. Since employees are gladly using their own devices, the companies save dollars. With this, employees are able to use more technologically advanced mobile devices, if they so choose to purchase them. Another way revenue increases is with an increase in the ability for employees to work remotely. Since salesmen are able to access their programs mobile, they can manage more accounts on-the-go. For example, if they’re waiting for a client to show up for an appointment, they can still manage their other accounts before he arrives. This produces a potential to increase sales, since salesmen can manage more accounts within the same amount of time.
So, we know that companies can see tremendous benefits from implementing a BYOD program. However, how do employees feel about this shift? They are enthused, states a recent article published by CIO. It seems that employees were rarely happy with the ‘ancient’ electronics most businesses provided for them. Thus, although they may need to purchase a device themselves, they are able to get something they enjoy using. Also, again since they own the device, they can take it home and be productive in the evenings or weekends, if they choose to get more work done, or get a head-start on a project. This, along with telecommuting, produces happier employees, as they are better able to balance their home-life. Happier employees lead to less turnover and again, increases the organization’s bottom line. BYOD programs may be a win-win for both companies and employees.
If you’re wondering how to make the shift to support BYOD programs with your business, the best place to begin is with a booking software company that’s at the forefront of these new technologies. You’ll want to look for a forward-thinking company like NFS that creates innovative software that can provide meeting rooms and schedule resources for your company. You’ll need to know your business’s needs, because each business is different. If your employees are going to be purchasing their own devices, you’ll need to make sure the information they’re viewing is secure. With this, you may need to look into a booking software like Rendezvous to allow employees to collaborate by booking rooms, booking resources and using hot desks via any device. With so many devices on the market (iPhone, iPad, Windows Tablets, Blackberry and Android), it’s also important to make sure the program you choose is compatible for every device. This will ensure your employees remain well connected in a digitally savvy world.
Considering these benefits of BYOD programs, how have they been working for you?Contact us today!
Do you remember what “water cooler chat” means? That’s what we used to call the moments of unexpected collaboration at the water fountain. Office employees gained insight from one another when taking a moment to go get a drink of water. Some great ideas developed during those small, yet thoughtful moments of socializing.
But that was when offices were divided into fixed spaces. Most likely, you had a desk that stood empty half the time and only used meeting rooms on formal occasions. Since the era of the fixed space, office layouts have changed.
Today, you might still chat around the water cooler, but the way you work has been transformed. Now, workspaces are created strategically to encourage interactions that spark inspiration. Being kept in a cramped space with a limited possibility of collaboration wasn’t doing anything for anyone. In a modern, connected workplace, you move about freely, making the most of agile desks. Meeting rooms have become multi-purpose. They act as informal meeting spaces, which are now common in offices everywhere.
Many generations are working together — Generation Z is even starting to join the party — and they each have their own needs and working preferences. As times change, “one size fits all” is no longer going to suffice. To grow a successful business, employee satisfaction is a key component. Providing employees with their own preferable workspace improves employee happiness and well-being, ultimately boosting productivity. And, a boost in productivity is going to make everyone more money. However, it’s tricky to track each employee’s personal work-life preferences.
The solution? The latest workspace management technology with room reservation software.
Many organizations, including large law firms like DLA Piper and other major companies, are using room reservation software to streamline their operations and make agile operations genuinely flexible.
Even people who work at home benefit from the software. More than 8 million people in America were already working from home by 2017, according to the US Census. But, many say they lack tools and technology to work agilely. Two-thirds say they would spend more time in their office if it had better facilities. Room reservation software can make that happen for you.
What benefits does your organization gain from using room reservation software?
1. Empowered employees
It allows employees to feel a sense of control with their workload.
It creates a positive working environment that encourages talent to stay.
A recent survey found that 1/3 of US office workers wanted to be more trusted to manage where they work.
2. Perfect meetings
The smartest organizations are turning to state-of-the-art workspace management technology to manage their working environments and automate boring, time-consuming tasks.
Room reservation software means your employees can spot suitable workspace and book it easily online via an app. They can book resources like AV, video conferencing and even catering at the same time.
Meetings are easy to organize across multiple locations. The technology takes time zones into consideration and automatically informs everyone if any of the meeting details have changed.
It’s a great way to remove tiresome admin tasks from your employees’ work day. That gives them more time to focus on their real work.
Additionally, the software lowers the risk of no-shows, a common problem that makes meetings fail and costs dearly in time and frustration. The result? Perfect meetings, every time.
3. Improved Collaboration
We know the benefits of collaboration tools like video conferencing and AV. They get teams together, no matter how far apart the co-workers are physically. This eliminates the strain and cost of travel.
Companies love these tools and spend a lot on them, but employees can be reluctant to engage if they are hard to organize. Room reservation software removes the obstacles faced by employee uptake by making it simple to book rooms with the right equipment for an unlimited number of locations.
So, you never turn up to your video conference only to find that the equipment is not in place — your organizer has booked it with a single click at the same time as reserving the room.
4. Better space utilization
Keeping tabs on a changing work environment causes real headaches for office or facilities managers.
Tracking how office space is utilized can be tough, particularly if your organization is based in many locations or if you need to recharge other departments within your company.
Room reservation software such as Rendezvous by NFS integrates with occupancy sensors that monitor space and desk utilization in real-time and provides comprehensive reports.
It gives you accurate data at your fingertips so you can make informed decisions about space going forward and make sure your real estate spend is justified.
What about ROI?
When the right technology is in place so that all of these factors can act together, the connected workplace gives your employees an elevated sense of control over their work environment. Satisfied employees will work harder for your business, which benefits everyone in the long run. Why miss out on the chance to eliminate stress and increase profitability? You don’t have to re-invent the wheel… There’s software for that!
If you are in management, the captured data gives a complete, real-time view of whether your space is being maximized, and how it can be improved. You are able to configure your space to meet the changing requirements of your workforce, no matter how they evolve. By making it easy for your people to find the room they need, you can also reduce the cost incurred when they decide it’s simpler to book external space. All of this amounts to the fact that room reservation software offers a quick ROI.
When competitiveness and productivity are at a premium, and talented staff is hard to find and even harder to retain, all of this should sound like good news for your business.
Allow this technology to benefit you. Get into the connected workplace.
