5 Essential Space Management Tools Your Company Needs In 2020

by James McDonald on September 10, 2019
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The space management tools you used even five years ago may not be enough to meet your needs today.

The workplace has changed dramatically and continues to evolve, with trends like activity-based working and the gig economy impacting the way employees interact with your space.

How space is managed in your workplace has a direct impact on real estate costs and the employee experience. Here are five vital space management tools you need to invest in if you haven’t already.

5 Essential Space Management Tools

1. Space Management Software

Space management software gives you instant access to accurate, objective figures about space utilization and occupancy. It provides insight into important metrics about your company’s spaces, including total square footage, total building capacity, and actual utilization. Along with these broader measurements, space management software allows you to see more specific details about the workplace, including:

  • Square footage by building and floor
  • Space allocation by department
  • Price per square foot per person

With space management software, you can more easily visualize the locations, sizes and types of available space and use accurate, objective data to determine what changes need to be made — for example, where additional workspaces need to be added and where the number of workspaces can be reduced. The software also enables you to forecast your company’s future space needs. It provides historical data you can use to measure your organization’s past growth and calculate what your company will need as it scales.

2. Move Management Software

Once you’ve determined the best way to utilize your space, you’ll need to rearrange and relocate employees, furniture and assets. Trying to coordinate even a medium-sized move can be exceptionally difficult without move management software. And if you’re moving assets and people to an entirely different location, it’s even more challenging.

Move management software gives you the power to visualize new space scenarios before rearranging a single asset and helps you coordinate the move as it happens.

You can see where employees and assets are and test different scenarios to find the best way to arrange everything and everyone in the most efficient way. Move management software enables you to take care of everything from migrating one team across the office to moving an entire enterprise to a brand new location with the least amount of disruption.

3. Internet of Things (IoT) Sensors

Internet of Things (IoT) sensors are tiny beacons that can be placed in doorways or under seats to detect movement. They passively collect data about your workplace and how employees engage with it. This includes information like space utilization, traffic patterns, and occupancy levels.

IoT sensors provide objective insight into employee behavior and how the workplace is being used throughout the day, helping you identify which spaces are in high demand and which are rarely occupied. You can use this valuable data to redesign your workplace to improve space utilization and enhance the employee experience.

IoT sensors can also help you address one of the most common workplace grievances—a lack of available conference rooms. While you may genuinely need additional meeting spaces, the more likely scenario is your company isn’t using the existing space efficiently. Using IoT sensors along with room reservation software gives you insight into true meeting room utilization. It also helps eliminate “ghost” bookings by allowing reserved rooms to be made available again if no activity is detected after a certain period of time.

4. A Space Planning App

To be effective, your approach to space management must be agile. You’re rarely in one place, so you need to be able to access critical space data anywhere. That’s why you need a mobile space planning app.

A space planning app gives you access to real-time space utilization and occupancy rates plus on-demand visibility into floor plans and office layout for your entire real estate portfolio — all from your smartphone or tablet. In addition to the type, capacity and size of each space, you can see which spaces are vacant, occupied, overcapacity under capacity, reservable or non-occupiable.

A space planning app also allows you to search for the location of private offices and workspaces as well as the location of specific assets. Rather than having to take notes and make changes based on your observations later, you can update space attributes and asset profiles immediately.

5. Employee Experience App

Traditionally, the only employees who used space management tools were members of the facilities team. This made sense when the majority of the workforce tended to stay in one part of the office and the ways in which employees could engage with the workplace were limited.

But as the modern workforce has become increasingly mobile and flexible work arrangements have become the norm, the need for an employee experience app has skyrocketed.

An employee experience (EX) app combines all of the tools employees need to effectively interact with the workplace into a single interface. With an EX app, employees can find and reserve an available meeting room, find a colleague or submit a service request from anywhere. This technology empowers every member of the workforce to get the most out of their workplace.

Space Management For The Modern Workplace

Considering real estate is your company’s second-largest expense, it’s in your best interest to make sure your workplace is being used in the most cost-effective way. If you invest in these five space management tools, you’ll have the data and resources you need to make confident decisions about how to maximize utilization and decrease wasted space.

Are you ready to see how all these tools work together to create an amazing workplace? Request a demo today!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James McDonald

James McDonald is a sports enthusiast, brother in Christ and once swam in a tank with the infamous TV sharks.

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