Here’s some food for thought: is there really any point in your workplace these days?
You might say: of course – but are you still thinking in outdated ways that could cost your business dearly?
Until about 10 years ago, workplaces jogged along much the way they’d done forever. 9 to 5, in the office, sitting at your desk, sitting in meeting rooms…
Not any more. Today, with the increasing popularity of agile working, work is more about activity than location and increasingly, you can do it anywhere.
So it’s time to rethink what your workplace is REALLY for – and how you can get maximum value our of it for your business and your staff.
The number one question to ask yourself is:
What does my workplace actually bring to the party?
What businesses need most from a modern-day, flexible workplace is the creation of a great working environment where staff can tackle their work easily and enjoy it.
Get it right, and it boosts your productivity and collaboration among your staff and improves how much they can contribute to your business. That requires three things:
- Ideal workspaces readily available
- Perfect meetings with no delays
- Excellent worker buy-in to technology.
Ideal workspaces
With the rise in agile working, many companies (maybe yours?) have been downsizing space because their staff are likely to work outside the office at least some of the time.
Many businesses are reconfiguring the space they have left by adding more drop-in desks and creating new informal or multi-purpose meeting spaces.
Organising your company’s entire way of working across agile spaces requires a flexible workplace management system – one that uses meeting scheduling technology to help workers find and book the workspace they need.
We gather input from our many corporate customers worldwide that enable us to evolve our Rendezvous workspace management system – a market leader – constantly.
Our meeting scheduling technology is designed to provide agile workers with a simple way to find and book the meeting space or desk they need, even putting in details such as finding a quiet place.
Workers on the move can set up an app on their smartphone that gives total access to Rendezvous’ mobile platform, linked to Outlook.
Perfect meetings
Too many workplaces still set up their meetings with the focus on people sitting in a room, whereas these days guests are more than likely to join remotely.
Organising a meeting using meeting scheduling technology makes sure the meeting goes well every time.
Rendezvous makes it simple to book your meeting even across multiple locations or time zones effortlessly, ensuring worker buy-in.
You can add in the facilities and equipment you need for your meeting such as AV, video conferencing or even catering in a single transaction.
Everyone involved is notified automatically of the details – even the caterers – and changes are passed on automatically too, reducing no-shows dramatically.
Rendezvous meeting scheduling technology also integrates with occupancy sensors and can even detect if the room is not being used as booked, releasing it back into availability.
It all adds up to perfect meetings – the space is available exactly when required, with equipment ready to go and all guests in place bang on time.
Excellent worker buy-in
Businesses often invest heavily in collaborative technology such as video conferencing and AV to make life easier for agile workers and reduce travel.
But it it’s too complicated to organise, people don’t use it. Meeting scheduling technology, though, takes away the strain and makes staff keen to use it – a result all round.
Rendezvous meeting scheduling technology is available as a cloud option to keep deployment costs down. It provides utilisation metrics in the form of comprehensive reports that support good decision-making.
We’ll be keeping our eye on how workspace trends keep on developing right across the world in 2019, and way beyond.
So watch this space – we’ll keep you up to date on how Rendezvous meeting scheduling technology continues to evolve to cater for the changes that matter to you and your workforce.
- What’s trending in workspace management? Check out a podcast interview which I contributed to
