Why You Need a Workplace Management Software More Than Ever Before

A workplace management platform is an essential software solution for any organization that wants to enable hybrid work and transition to a flexible workforce. Workplace platforms help companies create safer, more flexible, and more delightful employees’ workplace experiences. Furthermore, it streamlines the day-to-day work-related processes that get in the way of great work. The key elements of a good, future-looking hybrid workplace platform are:

• How easy it is for employees to manage their work-related schedules and book the spaces they need.
• Is the system advanced enough, extensible, and highly customizable to support the agility of your organization?
• Does the platform integrate with the 3rd party apps you need to execute your workplace strategy?

A workplace platform gives the office, facility, and HR managers a complete toolbox to enhance the workplace experience for the entire organization – remote, office, or hybrid employees. Let’s dig in for more details!

What is a Workplace Management Software?

Workplace software systems have almost always been with us. However, the world changed drastically over the last few years and so the workplace systems have to change too.

The previous generation of workplace systems was called Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS). These complex, cumbersome software platforms were mostly used for managing the complexity of the real estate, as well as the space and facility management needs of corporate customers. In other words, the focus has always been on real estate and not really on the people. They’ve been resources management systems first and quite often only.

The focus of the workplace management software of the future though is more about managing the hybrid workforce, employee workplace experience, automation, extensibility, and ease of use. Technology is so deeply ingrained in our life and so the workplace must be too. However, in order to get there, workplace apps have to be at least as good as the apps we use on a daily basis, if not better.

Employee scheduling – Book from anywhere, work from anywhere

The shift to a hybrid work model means that employees no longer know for certain who will be in the office each day. Booking a day in the office when your team isn’t there may easily feel like a waste. You can help your employees coordinate and make it a lot easier to schedule visits and invite teammates to co-create and work together.

Your main focus when choosing a hybrid workspace management software should be the ease of use and potential reach of the application. The adoption of your scheduling platform, thus your employee satisfaction relies heavily on that. You really want to enable booking on all screens.

• Web portal; We spend our working days in the browser and it is still the #1 utilized way of booking desks.
• Mobile app; Your booking system must have an extremely easy-to-use and awesome mobile app for iOS and Android.
• Integrated Calendars – Outlook or Google Calendar; Your system must be extremely well integrated with your organization’s calendar system.
• Collaboration system – Teams or Slack; Your booking system must be where your people are – in your messaging app, like Microsoft Teams.
• Extensibility – Google Chrome; Most people use Google Chrome and have your booking system deeply integrated into the browser can make it a million times easier to reserve a space.
• More screens – Tablet apps; Some people prefer to directly book the space from the tablet mounted on the space.

We use many screens for many reasons in our daily life. Your booking software should be available anywhere in order to increase your employee adoption and satisfaction, thus your use of office space.

System Configuration, Extensibility, and Customization

The modern workplace management systems are highly customizable, configurable, and extensible to suit your need for agility. Some of the more important elements you should look for include:

• Desk booking system; Empower employees to easily find and reserve shared or assigned desks directly on the floorplan. Desk booking software is essential to implement desk hoteling or hot desking strategy.
• Meeting room booking system; Make it easy for your employees to find and book the right spaces for their meetings. Conference room scheduling systems are key to making hybrid work possible for your employees.
• Workplace experience apps; Improve employees’ office experience with an easy-to-use mobile app and web portal. A good app and web portal will allow your employees to interact with the workplace and do the most important tasks such as book a desk, schedule a conference room, or see who’s coming to the office on Thursday.
• Visitor management and reception app; Welcome guests with a delightful visitor management system that saves you time and keeps the workplace safe.
• Health and safety management; Track the physical presence of employees and set appropriate limits on the number of people in the office.
• Space and floorplans management; Easily manage your office assets, desks, rooms, parking spots, and any other resource available.
• Integrations & 3rd party apps; Connect all the platforms you need to ensure a seamless hybrid work experience for your employees.
• Extensibility and APIs; Have access to a well-documented and public API so that you can extend the platform the way you need.
• Workplace analytics; Last but not least, you should collect, measure and analyze all data about your space utilization. This way you can adjust your space to the needs of your employees.

Why Do you Need a Hybrid Workplace Platform More Than Ever Before?

To compete in the most difficult job market and continue to grow your organization, you need to attract and retain top talent. With the rise of the flexible workforce and the receding pandemic, employees will rely even more on their workspace to connect and collaborate with their teammates. However, today’s workplaces can be very chaotic, inefficient, and disorganized and expose safety risks that could diminish the employee experience.

Workplace platforms empower you to enhance the workplace experience, and streamline internal operations, by bringing everything work-related into one solution. Furthermore, by using the desk reservation and conference room scheduling modules, you can build and rely on data to optimize your workspace utilization, and get more out of your real estate, thus reducing your costs.

It sounds simple, however, the benefits exceed many times the investment in an easy-to-use, customizable, and integrated workplace management system, such as OfficeRnD Hybrid.

How to Get Started with a Workplace Platform

The easiest way to start is by talking to one of our workplace experts about OfficeRnD Hybrid. You can book a time slot here. Or you can try it yourself by starting a free trial! It is as easy as 1,2,3!

Happy hybrid working! We hope to see you all collaborating in the offices. 🙂