How to manage a future proof workplace with desk booking

The office environment has changed a lot in recent years and terms such as open spaced working, activity based working and hot desking are frequently heard terms. However, this way of working is not a one-size-fits-all concept. It is a combination of working, collaborating, meeting and inspiring that can be fulfilled differently for every industry, every organization and even for every person. The starting point for this working method is that employees must always and everywhere have access to relevant information and that they can work where, when and how they like it. This requires a flexible interpretation of your office environment.

In addition, floor space within offices is expensive. Meeting rooms and desks that are not used are an unnecessary expense. While searching for an available workplace is a killer for productivity. It is therefore the job of the facility manager to use the spaces as smartly and efficiently as possible; to make them available to all employees as simply as possible; and to save costs along the way.

What is Hot Desking exactly?

Hot desking is one way to apply the principles of flexible or agile working.
Simply said: anyone can find and work at any open seat (desk or workstation), when they get to the office, each day. A dynamic work environment, with sit/stand desks, huddle rooms and flexible workplaces, are characteristic of agile corporate cultures. Most people don’t need the same desk every day, all day long. As a result, desks often remain unused for parts of the day. With hot desking, you only use a desk when you actually need it. In reality, you will notice that you can reduce the number of workplaces in an office space and that you can introduce more diversity in the type of workplaces (quiet areas, relaxation areas, creative areas, larger and smaller meeting rooms, etc.). An additional advantage is that hot desking promotes collaboration and creativity because you are constantly in contact with different people and your creativity is stimulated by a changing environment.

Covid-19; adapt to new ways

The sudden arrival of Covid-19 put everything on edge for us office workers. Suddenly we were forced to work from home as much as possible and the office became the place to avoid. This meant that new ways of working suddenly had to be accelerated. Now, a few months later, it is still a strange situation. In some countries the virus seems to be decreasing, in other countries it flares up again locally. Some companies have already determined that they remain closed to employees until the end of the year, while others are trying to find ways to get their people back into the office. To reconnect with each other, collaborate and receive visitors. Even for the more traditional companies agile working and hot desking seem to be a good way to (partially) get back to the office. But how do you do that in a simple, yet professional way? While we take the social distancing and maximum capacity measures into account and offer safety to employees? Where we received a lot of requests for room booking before Covid-19, we now see that the need for desk booking solutions is increasing explosively. Employers want to get their people to the office in a safe, simple and smart way; rather sooner than later.

Work smart

The use of Smart Technology is unavoidable in agile work environments and helps you gain insight into the use of all areas in the office. By applying technology in the workplace, you help employees work faster, better and smarter. Making them more productive and giving them more time to focus on what really matters. The GoBright platform is a good example of smart technology. With the software for room booking, desk booking and visitor registration you can book meeting rooms or desks and invite visitors from any location, at any time; all from one cloud-based system. It integrates with almost all existing (office) IT systems and links with the Active directory of your organization. The facility manager has direct insight into the occupancy of each space and can use the office space as effectively as possible.

To measure is to know

Booking a workplace can easily be done via an app. The employer has already determined in advance which desks are “open” or “closed”, taking the social distancing rules into account. With employees booking their workplace in advance, you as an employer know exactly how many people are in the office and in which departments. Ideal for discovering trends like what are the busiest days of the week, or the busiest hours in a day. That way, you can advise teams to come to work at a different time or scale up the cleaning services on specific days. The employee is guaranteed to have a workplace and he is sure that the colleague with whom he works on a project is also present on the same day.

This blog post has been reposted from GoBright. See the source article here. VideoCentric is an authorised distributor and installer of the Gobright system. To learn more, please get in touch!