The Most Exciting IWMS Software Updates This Year
The first few months of a new year is a time to push new initiatives forward at full speed. And this year, the initiative on most workplace leaders’ minds is improving the employee experience. More organizations are realizing just how much the employee experience impacts the bottom line. For instance, companies that invested heavily in this area were included nearly 12 times as often in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work, according to research by author Jacob Morgan.
A new emphasis on the employee experience, along with other facilities management trends, has resulted in more innovation in integrated workplace management systems (IWMS) software.
Here’s a look at three of the most exciting IWMS software updates workplace managers should have on their radar this year and why they’re so important.
Dynamic Floor Plans
Let’s say you’re planning for a big move and you’re trying to figure out which spaces to assign to which departments. You know you have at least 75 developers, or maybe it’s closer to 90. And you know the operations team has grown substantially over the past year, so they’re scattered between three different floors. Just figuring out how many people are in each department, where they are and how much space they’re using will take time. You could go floor by floor, taking head counts and hoping you factor in everyone.
Or you could use IWMS software that offers a dynamic floor plan, like iOFFICE’s.
Our IWMS integrates with AutoCAD floor plans and includes multiple layers, allowing you to see space utilization by department, by full-time versus part-time status and even by name. You can sort and change color schemes based on the information you need and also see what type of equipment each employee is using. You can create move
scenarios by department and create a ticket for all those people, rather than moving them one by one. The software
will populate a seating list based on what’s available, and you can make adjustments later if needed.
Our IWMS software also integrates with Active Directory or HR system so you can easily assign new employees to workstations and equipment as they are onboarded.
Having a dynamic floor plan makes it easier to visualize space utilization and enables real-time space planning.
Lease Management Capabilities
The new IASB and FASB lease accounting standards have presented challenges for corporate real estate leaders, who will soon be required to maintain detailed information about each lease with terms over 12 months.
Relying on Excel spreadsheets just won’t cut it anymore. Fortunately, more IWMS software solutions now have asset management capabilities. (Ours has been in place for years, but we’ve continually updated it to make it more robust and user-friendly.) This gives corporate real estate leaders the ability to track key information about each asset, such as location, contract details, images and product guides. Because it also integrates with space management software, it gives CREs a complete view of what properties they own or lease so they can ensure compliance with the new reporting standards and plan for the future. iOFFICE’s asset management software works along with our lease accounting software partner, Visual Lease, so CREs can stay on top of lease reporting requirements.
Employee Experience Apps
The “employee experience” refers to much more than happy hours and nice perks. It’s the sum of all interactions an employee has with their employer, including the physical workplace, workplace technology and an employer’s commitment to employee health and wellness.
While HR may have the most oversight over health and wellness programs, the physical workplace and its technology probably fall into the realm of workplace leaders. Workplace technology should enable employees to make the most of their physical workplace and use it in a way that helps them be as productive as possible. And employees expect that technology to be as mobile and user-friendly as the apps they use in their daily lives. That’s why the next evolution of IWMS software is making it employee-centric, allowing employees to use mobile apps or
kiosks to find places, people and information, as well as reserve rooms, submit work orders and receive visitors or mail.
They can even see what’s for lunch, find information and get announcements about events during and after work.
Finally, An Employee Experience Solution For Your IWMS
iOFFICE has always been on the forefront of innovation, but we’ve really outdone ourselves this year. We recently launched Hummingbird, a set of employee experience solutions for IWMS software that allows employees to work smarter, wherever they happen to be.
They can access the information they need through multiple touchpoints—including mobile apps and kiosks—as they go about their day. Because these touchpoints are connected to your IWMS software, you get real-time insights into how employees are actually using the workplace.
With the way we work and the workplace itself continually changing, workplace leaders need innovative solutions that go beyond facility management software. They need a software platform that integrates with other systems and has employee-facing solutions. Hummingbird is the first of its kind with these features. Want to see how it works?
