13 Oct 5 ways an automated desk booking platform can help you keep your best employees and attract new ones

October 13, 2021

According to a McKinsey survey in September 2021, published under the article “Great Attrition” or “Great Attraction”? The choice is yours, there is a big shift in the expectations of the employees, which the employers do not fully meet yet.  Over the past 6 months, more than 15 million workers have quit their jobs in USA alone. This extreme number is expected to keep rising, as “40% of the employees in our survey said they are at least somewhat likely to quit in the next three to six months” due to their preference in more flexible and “location agnostic” working styles.

The same findings are supported by similar research, like the one from Flex Jobs survey:

• 49% of employees are worried about the COVID-19 exposure or infection
• 46% are troubled by having less work flexibility
• 43% complain about their lack of work-life balance

and Growmotely:

• 97% of workers prefer some degree of flexibility between working remotely and working in an office.
• 74% of employees expect remote work to become standard

What also seems to be a common conclusion is that positions with no remote work possibility are becoming highly undesirable.

So, what options do the organizations have, in order to retain their most skillful employees and attract the best talent around? Based on the above surveys, one of the much-needed changes is adopting a hybrid model of work. But how can the employers achieve this without overcomplicating things or being lost in the transition? How can a company answer the need for a flexible working environment and provide the situational, in-office employees with all the means to be highly productive, while remaining safe and healthy?

Although many of the new ways of working were imposed by the pandemic of COVID-19, the truth is that the most open-minded companies had already started to apply hybrid working methods. Their goal had been to meet their rapidly growing needs for indoor and outdoor workplaces, improve the productivity of their staff, take advantage of the cloud-based systems that reduce the operating cost, enable collaboration and guarantee security and business continuity.

It looks like that the changes imposed by COVID-19 had already been planned and the pandemic just accelerated their deployment and extended the list of ”whys” that companies should consider for their decision to invest in that.

One of the available tools to support the transition of the companies to a hybrid way of working are the modern desk booking management systems. They have been around for a while now, either as a single product or part of advanced, cloud-based space management platforms and can provide the office administrators with a series of useful functionalities:

• Dynamic workspace allocation
• Interactive booking confirmation process
• Rule entry for specific desk groups
• Assignment of specific user rights
• Real-time desk occupancy monitoring
• Floor-level advanced analytics and historical data
• Modular report generation
• Cloud-based, remote monitoring and intervention

However, how can the above features contribute to a higher employee satisfaction in parallel with operating cost savings for organizations? Here are 5 ways a thoughtful employer should consider:

1.Cleaning optimization

As we already stated above, almost half of the employees are deeply concerned about COVID-19 and returning healthy back to their homes. Moreover, the pandemic changed the facility cleaning policies, which became much stricter. A desk booking system must provide a real-time view of the occupied/unoccupied desks and meeting rooms, so that proper cleaning is followed through only to the space that has been used in daily or even hourly basis. This cleaning optimization process results in both less expenses for the building owner and less insecurity about health issues for everyone.

2.COVID-19 infection tracking

In the unfortunate case of a late identification of COVID-19 infected employees, a detailed tracking procedure is key to lowering the transmission risk and the immediate contacts to be identified and notified. With the use of an elaborate desk booking platform, all critical information (desk used by COVID-19 infected employee, names of immediate contacts and employees operating at neighboring desks, all visitors present in the building during the same time period etc.) will already have been logged-in and the Health & Safety personnel will be able to immediately inform the people involved and implement the rest of the reactive and preventive processes effectively.

3.Efficient working space allocation

When a remote worker comes for work in the office after some time, it is only normal that their old space will not be reserved for them any more. It is also normal that he/she expects to be allocated an appropriate desk where he/she can be most productive. By having an on-line, real-time desk occupancy plan, with stored-in information on facilities available, will eliminate space concerns, will save frustration from back-and-forth communication with secretaries and guarantee that employees will make the most of their time in the office.

4.Building a pleasant, high-performance working environment

Some workplaces work, some others don’t. Prior to pandemic, office administrators usually had problems fitting all workers in the same building, at the same time. Working positions optimization couldn’t be a priority and quite frequently, real-life information on best working arrangements wasn’t recorded. Today, with the available tools and the vast amount of stored data on location, exact position in a building, rate of desk occupancy, an analysis can take place to identify the preferred workspace patterns. Hence, an eager employer can better optimize the working environment, which will result in their employees feeling more appreciated and performing much better.

5.Easy-to-use desk booking procedure

The modern, cloud-based space management platforms can be fully customized to create a booking procedure that best fits each enterprise’s employees. For example, all may be safely arranged via a dedicated desk booking mobile application and followed by a confirmation e-mail that will contain a unique barcode for identification purposes. Booking identification at place via barcode scanning will also save time to both workers and receptionists, to complete this user-friendly experience.

From all the above, it becomes evident that organizations have no option; either they understand the current needs of employees and act accordingly to satisfy them, or they watch them leave to competitors.

At Yodiwo, we have relevant conversations with our clients on how to best utilize the multiple features of YodiFEM Desk Booking Management platform, a fully-customizable module of our Integrated Workplace Management System. We have identified even more benefits for employees and companies that use YodiFEM Desk Booking Management systems, such as helping them optimize the use of outdoor space like parking areas or the occupancy of common areas such as the restaurant area.

Should you need ideas on how to build a thriving, hybrid working environment that will help you retain your best employees, while building a better name for your brand and attracting other high-performers, we would be happy to share our expertise with you. You can schedule a call with us at your convenience here