The role of offices has evolved considerably in recent years. They have become a veritable social hub that only makes sense when they serve people. The biggest challenge for companies today is to find the right balance between the employee experience and workspace design.

To illuminate the direction in which workspaces need to evolve, in this blog we provide an overview of the expectations and challenges of the three pillars that contribute to a company’s success on a daily basis: employees, managers and facility managers.

1. Employee expectations regarding workspaces

The employee experience is becoming an increasingly important part in a company’s strategy for designing workspaces, with the simple aim of offering spaces that meet employee expectations.

The need for better collaboration always tops the list of important requirements mentioned in the studies.  For all the benefits of working from home, remote working can never replace physical relationships. The focus now is on meeting less, but meeting better.

In 2022, 61% of employees expected their company to introduce better collaboration tools to implement the new ways of working¹.

The question for companies is no longer whether to move to hybrid working methods, but rather when and with what tools.  Providing simple and innovative solutions has therefore become an essential pillar of employee satisfaction and thereby productivity.

ROOMZ value proposition for employees:

• Make available spaces more accessible.
  Boost visibility of available workspaces and save staff time by broadcasting their occupancy status in real time and across all channels:

> Connected TV screen
> Digital map by floor or buiding
> Mobile and PC application

• Find meeting rooms the easy way.
  Reduce hallway frustration and wasted time by allowing everyone to manage their meetings by booking a room in advance or “on the go” directly from the ROOMZ Display.
  Ghost meetings are automatically detected with the ROOMZ Sensor and the room is released if no one has shown up.
• Empowering teams.
  Enable your staff to plan their arrival on site autonomously by reserving an office or a parking space in advance using the myROOMZ app. The equipment in each space is indicated in the app with customisable tags to help teams with their individual and shared tasks.

   

2. Management perspective in space optimization

Managers are now faced with a twofold expectation from their staff: to make the organisation of work more flexible and to re-establish on-site collaboration that was undermined by the health crisis.
From a management perspective, workspaces must also serve productivity.

It is therefore essential to create an environment that adapts to the new habits of employees, coupled with tools that are well received by all. Indeed, as in all transition processes, user acceptance is a key issue. Taking the time to test and approve the tools before a major rollout is therefore essential, otherwise there is a risk that collaboration may be impaired.

Providing spaces suitable for hybrid working methods is also a way to strengthen the employer brand and attract new talent, as Flore Pradere, Research Director, Global Work Dynamics Research at JLL, points out:

“Employers who resist redesigning their work environment around the experiences now expected by employees will struggle to recruit and retain the best talent in their sector […] Now is the time for employers to reconcile well-being and performance.”²

ROOMZ value proposition for managers:

• Providing a seamless experience.
  Keeping track of different workspaces can be a headache as they are often managed through different tools depending on their typology. This kind of organisation makes the employee experience fragmented and can waste valuable time.
  ROOMZ offers users a simplified experience by allowing them to find the right workspace for their changing tasks throughout the day with a single solution.
  
• Increase productivity.
  myROOMZ supports daily collaboration with features such as “Find colleague”, “Make colleague a favourite” or “Reserve a space for a colleague”. Employees are autonomous and can reserve a space near a colleague of their choice.
• Gradual changes.
  The 100% wireless ROOMZ solution is perfectly scalable as it allows you to start with a single reservation screen. Once the users get used to it, it is very easy to install more screens, at your preferred pace.
  The same goes for our Flex Office management solution, it is possible to start with only desk sensors without the introduction of the reservation app for a gradual transition.

   

3. The facility management perspective

Workspace is the second largest cost centre after salaries and constitutes a significant expense for companies. This expense is becoming increasingly problematic now that offices have never been emptier due to the increase in home office work.

A recent study by Leesman³, a specialist in measuring employee experience, shows that only 19% of employees now go to the office on Fridays, and only one employee in three (31%) is present in the office on Mondays.
Many spaces are therefore under-utilised several days a week, resulting in additional costs for companies. According to the same study, it is estimated that most companies could reduce their space by 40% without affecting productivity.

The role of facility management for IT managers is to find the right balance between space and the headcount without compromising employee well-being.
To achieve this effectively, it is necessary to go through a phase of understanding use of the workspaces. How are they used? What is the performance of each space? What are the habits of the employees?

Data analysis is the best way to build a sustainable transformation strategy that meets current needs and future developments. Decisions based on sound analyses enable office management that is as close to reality as possible.

ROOMZ value proposition for the facility management:

• Reduce property costs.
  ROOMZ Advanced Analytics enables you to create data-driven workspaces by providing an accurate, real-time view of your space occupancy. Built on Microsoft Power BI, our platform offers flexibility with the type of data that can be analysed – per floor or per building.
  
• Anticipate growth.
  Our analytics solution provides access to data going back up to two years. This historical data helps your better understand how use of the space is evolving and to establish predictive strategies and anticipate future needs.

• Understand how workspaces are used.
  Customisable tags are great for understanding which spaces are more/less successful based on their type or layout. Decisions can then be made to redesign them to meet demand more effectively.

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Choosing tools for workspace management means choosing a solution that will hopefully serve all stakeholders in an organisation.

This is exactly the ambition of the ROOMZ ecosystem and our value proposition: to provide you a comprehensive workspace management solution that benefits both employees and management.

Sources:

[1] Workforce Preferences Barometer – 2022
[2] Article «3 things workers now want from the office .» JLL.com
[3] Leesman Days in Workplace module, 2022