New ways of working have emerged in organizations in recent years: remote teams, mobile workers, teleworking, coworking etc… How to adapt your premises to these new working habits and offer spaces and services adapted to your employees ? Hxperience explains how our Smart Building solution addresses the challenges of usage analysis and shared spaces optimization.
How to adapt your offices based on your employees’ new working methods
Teleworking : the future of companies ?
Still not widespread in France until a few years ago, teleworking inevitably gains ground. Facilitated by new nomadic technologies, it is no longer reserved for certain areas. The French General Commission for Territories Equality publishes teleworking figures in 2016 :
– 16.7% of the working population telework more than one day a week,
– 96% of respondents in this survey believe that this way of working improves the well-being of the employees concerned.
This phenomenon is relatively recent and has not yet generalized, but its positive effects are proven: teleworking is beneficial for both the employee and the employer :
– Gain in efficiency and productivity,
– Reduced absenteeism,
– Improvement in the employees’ quality of life (less time spent in commuting, working schedule flexibility which favors the employees work life balance …).
More and more companies are implementing teleworking facilities in order to attract the best talents (who are sensitive to this work advantage) and are measuring the positive impact on the employer brand and on employee retention.
Telework, however, requires rethinking the company organization, including its premises. The different remote collaboration practices lead, on the one hand, to the office gradual “desertification” and they also require to provide spaces and tools to ensure the remote workers’ effective collaboration.
Rethinking company offices to successfully integrate new ways of working
Premises must adapt to the staff new working methods who still need to meet and exchange. Shared spaces or coworking spaces (meeting rooms, user-friendly workspaces such as an equipped cafeteria) tend to replace closed individual offices. These new workspaces promote a relaxed atmosphere for quality exchanges and increased productivity, while improving the overall office occupancy rate.
Where possible, unused offices can be released, resulting in substantial savings in urban centers where the cost per square meter is very high. Additional reduction in operating expenses such as electricity, heating (which are related to the premises size) can be reached.
Some companies also offer to share spaces such as catering, conference rooms, fitness rooms, or guest workstations ..) with other companies occupying the building, which enables employer to provide more services to their employees while pooling costs.
Data analysis for adapted office redevelopment solutions
To analyze the impact of new work habits on their premises occupancy and prepare for their redevelopment, office managers and operators can rely on various technical solutions that measure space presence or attendance (meeting room, flex offices..). The sensors selection and data to be analyzed will be different depending on the objective sought, the number of spaces involved and the resulting economic equation.
The collected and analyzed presence data can also be used to automatically update room reservations status (cancelling room reservation if no presence at the reserved time for example).
In addition, correlation presence data with other elements related to the workspace environment (temperature, humidity, brightness, air quality, sound level) can help identify areas of little use by employees for discomfort reasons.
Lastly it will be possible to reduce the temperature or brightness in an unoccupied space from a certain time in order to save energy costs.
The analysis and the crossing of different data sources is what makes it possible to really understand the spaces usage, to rearrange them in consequence and to offer new services to the occupants.
SMATI for Space Management
At Hxperience we have a complete expertise in smart building solutions for office buildings and can assist you in your office space management project from sensors selection up to the implementation of our SMATI application for the simple, connected management to your shared spaces:
- Analysis of spaces attendance
- Automatic update of room reservations,
- Contextual information (affluence to the catering area..)
Coupled with the building energy management features also available in SMATI, Hxperience offers a complete solution to address all the challenges which office buildings’ manager and operators are facing.
Do not hesitate to contact our teams to assist you in your project.