Question 1

How do I know if my office needs Workplace Management?

Accepted Answer

Workspace management is indispensable for all offices. It is crucial to have insights into how your office is being used by your employees. Only then can you adjust your workplace to their needs, and potentially save yourself many costs.

If one or more of these statements are applicable to your current situation, it is a good indication that your organisation is in need of workplace management solutions.

I have hybrid workers;
I am not sure whether I have too many or too few workplaces / meeting rooms available;
I want to provide my employees with more flexibility and autonomy at the office;
I want to ensure that all of my employees have a pleasant working space when they decide to work at the office;
I don’t have an occupancy strategy in place;
I want to gain (more) insight into my office’s occupancy rate;
I want to gain (more) insight into the behaviour and preferences of my employees.
I run a flexible / hybrid office environment.

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Question 2

How do you manage the hybrid workplace?

Accepted Answer

One of the drivers of the hybrid working model is flexibility. Employees from all over the world wonder how they can increase their flexibility in and around the office? But, in addition, autonomy, personal responsibility, clear communication and involvement are also extremely important. You want to keep employees engaged and motivated. A sense of belonging is crucial to our life satisfaction, happiness, mental and physical health and even longevity. It gives us purpose and meaning. Research has shown that loss of belonging has been associated with stress, illness and decreased wellbeing and depression.

People want to feel heard and seen. They need to know where they stand. Both at home and in the office. If you decide to come to the office for a day, you will want to know in advance whether a place is available. Companies therefore need new tools to offer the security and insights that their employees so well deserve.

Desk Booking in the hybrid office

By furnishing the office with smart technology solutions, you can increase effectiveness, productivity and flexibility. In particular, a Desk Booking system contributes to the flexibility needed when people work on a hybrid basis. Employees can check the occupation status and book their desk in the GoBright Portal, or Mobile App, within seconds. With GoBright Desk Booking you can stimulate hot desking. Whether employees want to work at home or at the office, they can always manage their workspace.

Room Booking in the hybrid office

GoBright Room Booking also contributes to flexible working at the office. Employees are able to book a meeting room according to their preferences (AV equipment / lighting/ catering services). Our Room Booking system allows employees to be assured of a room that suits their needs. Furthermore, employees can also grab a room spontaneously or make an ad hoc booking for the ultimate sense of flexibility. Again, whether employees want to meet online or at the office, they can control and manage their meetings in the office environment with GoBright solutions.

Question 3

What is a Desk Booking System?

Accepted Answer

A desk booking system allows employees of a business to book their workplace or desk remotely, for example from home or while traveling.

With GoBright Desk Booking, desks can be booked remotely via the online platform and via the Mobile App. This way, it is possible to book a desk before you leave for the office, so that you are guaranteed the workplace you want. You can use the search tool or the interactive Map. This Map shows exactly which desks are occupied and by whom, so you can make a well-considered choice on where you would want to work that day. Within this interactive Map, you can also find a specific colleague with the ‘Find my Colleague’-function. Just type in their name and the Map will show you where they are seated for the day!

Sometimes you need more advanced bookings. Therefore, recurring bookings are possible within the GoBright Desk Booking environment, enabling you to book a desk for multiple days or other preferred periods of time. You can also make Team Bookings, for when you want to be able to collaborate effectively with your colleagues. Team Bookings make sure you can book several desks at the same time, so you are guaranteed to be seated near each other for collaborating.

When you forget to book in advance, or prefer to book ad hoc, you can also check in at desks at your workplace whenever you arrive at the office. You can check in via the GoBright Connect or GoBright Interact on the desk, or NFC stickers. Your desk will automatically be booked by you, and visible on the Map throughout the GoBright platform for your colleague’s information. If you are cautious with your privacy, you can also book a place anonymously. People will know that the specific workplace is occupied but won’t be able to see who’s seated.

Question 4

What are the advantages of hot desking?

Accepted Answer

More and more offices are introducing hot desking into their work culture. At the core of hot desking is the elimination of personal desks. This means that employees work at a different desk every day. There are a few benefits that hot desking brings to employees and employers.

Better collaboration and social cohesion

Hot desking entails that employees take whatever desk is available in the morning, instead of having one fixed desk for themselves. This enhances collaboration between different employees and departments within your business. Information will be shared throughout the company between different people, resulting in better overall knowledge of the business’ whereabouts. Working together with different people also stimulates creativity and increases social cohesion on the work floor.

The most important advantage of Hot Desking is that it stimulates building relationships with more colleagues, resulting in a better working environment for all. In static working environments, it is only natural that certain groups of people start to form that regularly work together. It can be beneficial to prevent this, to stimulate communication between colleagues from different departments. People will start sharing information with each other throughout the company, leading to a better overall knowledge of the company’s business. Additionally, this better cooperation will lead to the flow of more creativity. Your employees get to know different aspects of your business and become inspired by their coworkers and environment to think outside of the box.

Eliminating wasted resources with occupancy management

When your employees have fixed workplaces, these desks remain unused if the employee has a day off or is not present for any other reason. This is a waste of resources and space. You may be able to save these costs by hot desking. Hot desking enables optimally using the desks and other workspaces at the office, as unused desks may be occupied by anybody else. If you combine hot desking with an occupancy management tool, you can measure how many of your desks are actually used. This information can be used to help reshape your office to fulfil the needs of your employees.

Tidy workspaces

People like to bring home to the office. This is why fixed desks usually have personal items, such as pictures and stationery. When your office makes use of hot desks, employees will have increased accountability in keeping their desks organised and clean. After all, someone else is going to use it after them. This will help keep your workspace clean. Employers can help their employees keep tidy by providing them with lockers where they can keep their personal belongings. You can choose for regular lockers, or digitally monitored lockers such as GoBright’s, which you and your employees can book from home.

Question 5

What are the benefits of a Desk Booking System?

Accepted Answer

Implementing a Desk Booking system into your office environment has several benefits for both the employees and the employer.

1. Facilitates new ways of working

We know that flexible working, or Hybrid Working, is becoming increasingly popular. People want to decide for themselves when they want to come to the office, and when they would like to stay home. If they do decide to visit the office, employees want to be assured of a workplace. A Desk Booking system facilitates this for them. It also stimulates collaboration. It becomes easier to reserve a workplace close to the person you want to collaborate with. Managing the occupancy rates via a desk booking system ensures that pleasant workspaces are always available. With a desk management system, employees are able to filter and select a desk according to their own preferences. This way, you can provide employees with lots of freedom and give them control in regards to when and at which desk they want to work at the physical office.

2. Support collaboration

With desk booking, the collaboration between teams or departments is boosted. Employees can collaborate better by simply reserving desks side by side. For example, the GoBright Desk Booking Platform even has a Team Booking function designed to support these kinds of collaborations.

Besides employee benefits, using Desk Booking is also beneficial to the employer.

3. Cost effective

With desk booking software you are able to manage and control the occupancy at the office. Data that is collected gives you more insight into the way the office is being used. By gaining insight into the actual occupancy, many offices discovered they did not really need the number of desks that they had. This information can be used to make strategic data-driven decisions in regards to reshaping the office and providing your employees with the best office environment. You might even be able to get rid of some real estate costs, because you discover you have way too much office space on your hands. Cost-efficient, too!

4. Sustainability

Desk Booking encourages people to only use the space that they really need. This way, the office becomes a lot more sustainable. No more unoccupied and unnecessary costly office space.

5. Time efficiency

In most cases, not all employees will be at the office at the same time due to new working models and other changes in the office environment. Some days it might be quiet in the office, and some days it might be a lot busier than expected. Regardless of the situation, if an employee decides to come into the office, a nice workplace must be available. Using a desk booking system allows you to assess the situation at the office in advance. By being able to anticipate, you don’t waste any time going into the office and run into surprises.

6. Insight into analytics

A smart data-driven workplace is what it is all about these days. With the data derived from desk booking solutions you are able to understand employee behavior a lot better. You will get insight into how the office is being used. Why do employees often book their desks on a specific floor? What is special about these desks? Perhaps your employees like to work where there is the most natural lighting, or near the company restaurant? These are all valuable analytics that can help you optimise the office. Adapting the office to employee behavior is one of the most important ways to ensure that your office is future-proof.

7. Attract a new generation

Not to forget, the younger generation enters the job market with new ideals. Flexibility and freedom is a must for them. They don’t want to be tied to the 9 to 5 traditional office cubicle. They expect a workplace that represents their standards and accommodates their wishes. Integrating desk booking into the office fits really well with the perspective this generation has on the future office. Because the future office is a smart office.

8. Health and safety

With desk sharing, several people share the same desk at the office. You might assume that this will automatically lead to concerns in regards to health, hygiene and safety. However, there are two sides to the story here. When people use the same desk and this process is not monitored, it will indeed lead to increased risks in regards to hygiene and safety. Yet, with use of a desk booking system, this process is in fact monitored. Especially in times when safety needs to be extra emphasized (e.g. during a pandemic), the use of Desk Booking systems ensures that it does not get too crowded in the office. For example, an office manager is able to block certain desks so that a safe distance is guaranteed. Also, with control over the occupancy rate, you ensure that there are never too many people on the floor at the same time.

Even with monitoring, the fact remains desks are being used by multiple people. How is this going to be safe? GoBright has already thought about this. With the GoBright Connect, you are able to adjust your status while working at the desk. Besides the obvious “occupied” or “available”, it will also adjust to “Needs cleaning” when an employee has checked out from their desk. The facility department will automatically be alerted that the desk needs to be properly cleaned. After it is cleaned, the desk will be ‘available’ again.

In conclusion, there are many benefits to using a Desk Booking system. It supports the new way of working, stimulates collaboration, and is cost and time effective. It is also beneficial for your office’s sustainability, it attracts new talent, stimulates health and safety at the office, and provides insights into your office’s occupancy.

Desk Management

What is Desk Management?

desks

What to expect from Desk Management

Saving costs

Improved Collaboration

Enhanced productivity

Permission controls

Why is Desk Management important?

Saving costs

Employee wellbeing

Return on Investment with Desk Management

Read about other Solutions

Desk Booking System

Room Management

Hybrid Working

Discover how other companies optimised their workflow with GoBright Desk Management

Desk Booking for managing the office's occupancy

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Optimising office space with practical and simple software solutions

Find your answer

Read our latest Desk Management resources

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Desk Management

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What is Desk Management?

desks

What to expect from Desk Management

Saving costs

Improved Collaboration

Enhanced productivity

Permission controls

Why is Desk Management important?

Saving costs

Employee wellbeing

Return on Investment with Desk Management

Read about other Solutions

Discover how other companies optimised their workflow with GoBright Desk Management

Desk Booking for managing the office's occupancy

Hosting meetings in a modern, new town hall

Optimising office space with practical and simple software solutions

Find your answer

Read our latest Desk Management resources

Ready for more?

Request a demo

Request a trial

Ask us anything! Find the answers to the most frequently asked questions here.

A goldmine for all IT and Facility Managers. Dive into the technical stuff concerning our products and solutions.

Wanna stay informed of all developments within the smart office and our new features? Subscribe now.