How Does the Workplace of the Future Affect Move Management?

by James McDonald on June 9, 2016
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According to Gartner Group, move management for just one employee costs your organization around $9,000 a year. Multiply that by your total staff, and the value becomes a little stifling. Your workforce is your greatest investment—are you handling it with the care it deserves?

Historically, the thought of moving employees and assets was enough to put workplace managers into a tailspin. Sure, they had computers and spreadsheets to help keep track of the progression of things. But the more employees, assets and space added to the equation, the higher the risk of human error. And what about prospective downtime? How will the disruption impact employee productivity? And what about the multitude of people who need to be kept in the loop?

Even if facilities managers were remarkably organized with a well-planned roadmap in hand, employee and asset moves were a complete nightmare—until recently.

Today, we’ll take a look at how the workplace of the future is changing move management.

What’s Changed?

Unfortunately, the challenges are still the same. But the demand for greater flexibility and the need for better move management has changed drastically over the last several decades. Never have organizations needed to be more adaptable.

The economy is largely unpredictable and the marketplace is now global, which has launched businesses of all sizes into a fiercely competitive climate. Workforce trends are cropping up on a near-monthly basis to keep up with advancing technology. And in lieu of it all, organizations must be capable of expanding, downsizing or reorganizing at the drop of a hat.

Luckily, this is precisely the chaotic excitement modern technology aims to wrangle and simplify. Here’s how the workplace of the future is affecting move management in particular.

Management Software

We now have an entire catalog of computer software packages that help streamline large, complex projects and tasks (like moving or reorganizing your business). Best of all, software is becoming increasingly sophisticated, saving facilities managers time and money by reducing operational downtime, automating responsibilities and organizing information in a way that’s fast and easy to access for on-the-spot decisions. When applied to an employee or asset move, software like this is life-changing.

Move Management Software iStock_000038690554_Medium.jpg

No matter the size of the operation, move management software offers an intuitive and highly visual way for facilities managers to accommodate moving employees and assets. Among its key features, move management software centralizes your request queue and consolidates move requests submitted by end-users or the space module.

The software also allows for dynamic move requests that can be created for multiple occupants or assets, and searched and viewed online against a floor plan for graphical visibility. Move managers also can review an online archive of requests, employee history, asset changes and other profile information—all in one location.

These features help move management leaders seamlessly and effortlessly coordinate employee or asset moves, add-ons or eliminations with little to no disruption to daily operations. They can organize multiple tasks across their entire enterprise, and automatically provide real-time updates for all parties involved in the move.

Space Management Software & Asset Tracking Software

Equally valuable to a facilities manager who is orchestrating a big move is space management and asset tracking. Space management software allows leaders to visualize floor plans online and manage the spatial needs of multiple locations. This software can be integrated with asset tracking software, which follows the location, contract terms and information about ongoing maintenance of tangible assets in real time.

Combined, these software packages enable facilities managers to align their existing employees and assets with new floor plans. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping assets from a list onto new move scenarios. The floor plan automatically updates for all users, and a link to the floor map is accessible via the asset profile.

Interfacing

As you might have already guessed, the workplace of the future relies heavily on the ability to integrate technologies, and move management is no exception. Not only does the right software work seamlessly together (for example, move management and space management software), but they also are capable of interfacing with other systems.

An interface is when two separate components (be it software, hardware or peripheral devices) of a computer system are set up to exchange information.

With interfacing, you can create a connection between move management software and your HR system to automate profile updates and make onboarding and offboarding employees a cinch.

Management software can also be interfaced with your IT Help Desk System to allow employees to submit move requests through the Help Desk while you manage and process requests and auto-update floor plans via your management software.

Forecasting

With so much data being collected and organized by specialized software and interfacing, the workplace of the future is making it possible to track and monitor trends, and evaluate spatial and asset needs presently and long-term. Never have facilities managers been able to forecast so accurately.

Not so long ago, these moves relied heavily on assumptions. Today, increased visibility empowers facilities managers to plan a transparent, objective, matter-of-fact move with little to no downtime or interruption to employee productivity.

As these technologies continue to advance we can expect to see more visibility into how our employees use workspace and assets, and a greater level of automation. This is particularly interesting as it relates to the Internet of Things (IoT), which enables any type of “smart” device to automatically communicate with other smart devices to perform a function (or functions).

Greater visibility and automation means less human error, and more efficiency—all of which contributes to less waste, more cost savings and healthier bottom lines.

Move management is just one element that’s changing with the new workplace. Discover even more ways to stay ahead of the competition in our free guide, 4 Ways Innovative Leaders Stay Ahead of the Technology Curve.

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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