abw – simple.space

3 reasons why sensors are your most valuable space utilization tool

Raf Gouel — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 14:14:53 +0000

3 reasons why sensors are your most valuable space utilization tool

The major metric most organisations are seeking is space utilization – how much a space is being used and when it is being used. Of course, we’re also interested in agility ratios, occupant data and cost centre chargeback, but at its core, we believe space management is driven by understanding utilization and allocation.

Currently, most space utilization studies are focused on tracking people – not spaces. simple.space flips this paradigm around because we’re interested in understanding and leveraging value from the office space itself, not the people.

This change removes many of the barriers around employee privacy, data security – and reduces the cost of implementing space utilization reporting significantly.

simple.space uses sensors to collect real time space utilization data for our client’s office space to provide the most accurate measurement and understanding of space. The ongoing utilization reporting provided, also gives a better understanding of workplace behaviours.

1. Sensors are excellent value for money

Sensors provide 24/7/365 coverage of your space. When compared to survey studies, where people are employed to eyeball a space for a period of time (something like 2 weeks), the value for money per unit for a sensor is absolutely unbeatable.

Our clients tend to have a particular problem they need to solve for a certain area; we will set up the sensors for a period in one space, then move them to another area to tackle the next issue.

This is an incredibly cost effective and manageable way to use sensors to undertake space utilization tracking. We can set up as little as 50 sensors to run a pilot, up to a whole building or portfolio rollout.

2. Sensors provide deep data-driven insights

Sensors can provide game changing insight, by producing repeated observations of the same space over long periods of time. Compared to a manual survey, which might capture the workplace over a period of 2 weeks, sensors are taking observations every second of every day.

This allows you to make real, evidence-based decisions with greater confidence because you know what’s really going on in your space.

The depth of reporting and understanding you’ll get is almost incomparable to the shallow reach of a survey. Sensors provide instant real time feedback.

Our clients have identified and fixed issues they didn’t previously have visibility on and are able to check things like cleaning schedules are being met simply through the data produced by the sensors.

3. Sensors are accurate

When we compared a manual people counting study for a particular building to the simple.space sensors, we found that the actual workplace occupancy rate was lower than the manual observation survey reported.

This is due to accuracy issues with manual surveys – they are often completed over a brief time frame which can give an incomplete view; they perform perhaps one or two observations an hour for each space as compared to each second using a sensor; they can’t account for staff being in meetings, out for coffee or at the printer.

Sensors give a depth of data that provides much greater accuracy that a manual survey.

Each sensor takes an observation every second of the day. 20 sensors in a team space will produce over 800,000 recorded minutes of data in a 4-week period.

Reporting is then provided for each sensor for each day as well as aggregated data to provide an overview and give you key insights into how and when the space is being used. Reporting is provided for each sensor and aggregated to provide an overview of how and when of the workplace occupancy profile.

simple.space uses a research-standard data methodology designed to give you the most sensible results.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to find out more about how sensors can support your workplace space management, please get in touch with Raf Gouel via LinkedIn or email info@simple.space.

Or, download our brochure Sensor Based Space Utilisation as a Service.

5 tasks crippling our workplace managers

Raf Gouel — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 17:36:15 +0000

5 Tasks crippling our workplace managers

Workplace culture, location, design, flexibility…

Employers are now more than ever competing with what they have on offer to the big pool of talent.

Almost as much as the talent pool is circling, waiting to pounce on an amazing workplace.

So what is the proverbial Achilles Heel of employers?
Why do so many struggle to retain staff or transition to a better work culture?

To answer this, we have to look at how our office and workplace managers gather data, analyze it and carry out simple routine functions.

Paper Floorplans

Most workplace managers continue to use paper floorplans as the go-to solution for managing office space, this includes:

⇒ plan where teams are and any relocations

⇒ determine how much space teams occupy

⇒ plan scenarios of staff moves

⇒ play with relocations of teams, staff or area (breakout, meeting rooms etc)

So what happens when these plans need to be shared, reviewed and amended?

Draw, Scan & Email Thread

With paper floorplans to manage the office space, there’s only one avenue for engaging stakeholders.

After the necessary meetings, drawing on the paper plans is the most commonly used resort whilst scanning and using Microsoft Paint closely follows.

Whilst stakeholders discuss approved and rejected changes to the staff or team relocations or point out any discrepancies with the data, email threads begin to grow.

In some cases, it is not uncommon to see email threads upwards of 70-100 replies when a big staff move or office relocation is required.

We are only up to our 2nd crippling task but there is an undeniable sense of…

“sounds like something we did 20-30 years ago, pre-tech era, surely we’ve moved on now?”

You’d be right in thinking this but wrong in assuming we’ve moved on, we will discuss why in our “Why aren’t we fixing all this?” section further down.

Spreadsheets

We are witnessing the rise of spectacular info-graphics, visual aids, analytics and amazing user interfaces through so many apps, websites and software solutions.

Our workplaces managers have Spreadsheets to turn to for data gathering, input and analysis.

There’s no doubt, spreadsheets can be quite powerful, just ask any financial department, but is this really where we want to see them used?

Take Space Usage data for example, hiring temps to roam office floors counting heads is still the preferred method amongst many workplace managers on a tight budget.

To gather this utilization of floor space data, having spreadsheets as your end result is quite limiting when trying to dig deep into the room of a problem or visualize where the problems are!

Highlighters

Highlighters are a workplace managers best friend.

Sure we all love to use them from time to time but we are not referring to highlighting text in an electronic document, we mean the real physical highlighter pen.

Without them, we can’t highlight team spaces on paper floorplans.
We can’t color code or make sense of any other spaces when engaging stakeholders.

So reliant on highlighters to carry a scenario and tell a story, it’s easy to get caught up in “that’s not so bad?”

The missing piece of the puzzle is what we’d call a modern Activity Stream.

No way, no method, no possible outcome other than the aforementioned long email threads to evaluate the ‘before and after’ state of an office scenario—

It’s easy much easier to grasp now why it’s remarkably important to move to a digital playing field.

Stakeholder Engagement

The crux of any workplace management role, engage the stakeholders.

To achieve some consensus, approval, rejections or any kind of discussion and agreement, stakeholders are mostly emailed all plans and details which build up as per the aforementioned, giant email threads! (no doubt some face-to-face meetings are held first).

Ultimately resorting to email thread stakeholder engagement, the picture gets blurrier and blurrier whilst goals slide away slowly, becoming harder to maintain or achieve.

What does this all mean?

With workplace managers struggling to stay on top of remedial tasks, we clearly understand why the problems begin to trickle down into the office space, workplace culture, staff retention, productivity and ultimately the bottom line!

Why aren’t we fixing all this?

There’s a remarkably pure and simple answer to this.

Few Solutions
Very few solutions exist out there for workplaces experiencing all these issues (yet!)
Complexity and Cost
Solutions that exist are far from affordable and rank relatively high on setup time, cost and a steep learning curve for all those involved
Visibility and Responsibility
Not all workplaces recognize that someone should be in charge of the office space.
If they do, they tend to have little resources and authority to make changes

With few tools, analytics and assistance, the matter of improving productivity, culture and optimizing space becomes much less visible to senior staff and ultimately C-Level.

Property costs are the 2nd (sometimes 3rd) highest cost for any business, it’s a rather strange phenomenon these issues are not being tackled head on.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though.

More workplaces are learning of Activity Based Working, Agile Working, Hot desking and other flexible work environments.

We are even experiencing how this affects other elements of our workplaces, including culture, productivity and ultimately, the bottom line!

To learn more about how simple.space can help alleviate all these crippling tasks, stop gaps and help your business be on it's way towards a more modern way of managing the workplace, send us a quick email!

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Tip #4 The IT Crowd – 5 Tips on cost effective Activity Based Working and Flexi-Desking solutions

Raf Gouel — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:44:34 +0000

Tip #4 – The IT Crowd

How IT affects office seating arrangements

With many of us spending more time watching the “IT Crowd” than dealing with our IT department, it’s hard to know how IT really operates and what hurdles to expect.

It’s no secret IT will need to be involved and help you through transitions but the level of involvement will be influenced by your workplace environment (i.e. call center vs law firm vs tech company) and the size of your business.

Having worked through helpdesk to infrastructure engineer and managing an IT Team for the better part of a decade, here is some information that will unquestionably be useful when attempting to transition to a non-traditional work environment.

The early approach

IT departments are in a continuous state of change but really, they’re just like any other business unit.

Budget, procurement, licensing, processes and limited resources… what we tend to forget is that like any other stakeholders, they need to be informed of upcoming changes well ahead of time.

Think of this situation which we’ve all come across. You walk into a meeting room for an important meeting with a client but the tech isn’t working, projector unplugged, HDMI cables plugged into the wrong device. Someone was in there a few hours ago and left matters in a dysfunctional state. You run to IT who tend to panic and drop everything to ensure your meeting starts as soon as possible, unhinged.

Our expectation is to have our technology ready to be used at the drop of a hat but this is difficult with limited resources, processes and a dynamic workplace unless you account for every conceivable scenario.

The IT department is there to support clients, usually the business (staff) so let them know your plans and intentions by including them from the start.

IT and Flexible Environments

To the IT department, there is no distinction between ABW, hot desking, pair working focus groups, remote working or any other non-traditional work arrangements, these all demand the same result…

“Work from anywhere” – IT Teams

This calls on a wide range of tools, applications, connectivity, networking, the list goes on. Don’t re-invent the wheel by falling into new laptops, docking stations or special WiFi gear.

To minimize dependence on IT for the move or to simply begin testing a sample of staff in a flexi-environment, we need to focus on the ability to use any machine or use our own machine from anywhere.

In both situations, it all boils down to available software.

Licensing 101

“But we don’t have Microsoft Office installed on those computers!”

The concept is simple.

Know which existing pieces of technology will allow you to begin an immediate transition to flexible working and you guarantee a smooth transition!

IT have to keep track of software licensing, where they’re distributed and installation numbers. It’s likely they already have your answer, so what do you ask them for?

Let us help you with 3 simple and practical questions for IT:

Do we have any universal pieces of software like microsoft excel or chrome installed on all our machines?
(known to IT as the Standard Operating Environment)

Are you aware of any teams that need only this software to do their work? Teams like customer service, legal or finance?
Any reasons why these teams would be unable to hot desk?
(no wifi or network access in the proposed area etc)

As per Tip #2 Finding your solution, identify common teams such as contractors, customer support, communications, sales or legal staff as these teams/departments have a tendency to use very similar software suites.

This verification from IT will solidify, simplify and prepare you for implementing and testing your solution.

Your very own business case

One of our most common discussions and feedback is the struggle to build a business case to help fund the transition (if needed). Here’s the best business case we’ve identified but you can certainly get in touch with us to discuss and identify other unique scenarios.

You will find the most frequent scenarios is when a handful of staff are missing a critical piece of software. Perhaps a contractor or a temp staff member, all the more reason to transition to a flexi environment.

Purchasing Microsoft Office for the 3 people desperately needing it installed is a much more affordable solution than trying to source work space when the average desk in the CBD can cost in excess of $10,000p.a.

If all else fails, contractors or temps can start using opensource or free app alternatives (i.e. Google Apps) to assist.

IT & cool, innovative tech

It’s a cool new tool!

Most IT Departments, can’t wait to get their hands on new tools (and gadgets), there’s no doubt IT teams love their tech.

So inviting them to the simple.space solution will give them visibility on your plans and a sense of involvement.

It can also assist in future audits, finding the “where from” and “where to” when moving staff equipment (this is usually a task for helpdesk) and help with transitions when it’s time to move users around the office whilst providing a more connected workplace.

Come back to see our final article in our 5 Tips on cost effective Activity Based Working and Flex-Desking solutions, when we highlight the final steps and scaling up.

By now, you should have a solution in mind (possibly hot desking to start with), some staff (or team) to transition, discussed with relevant stakeholders (IT and the staff in question for the test case) and you’re ready to implement the changes and review.

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Tip #2 Finding your solution – 5 Tips on cost effective Activity Based Working and Flexi-Desking solutions

Raf Gouel — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 16:48:10 +0000

Tip #2 – Finding your solution

5 Tips on cost effective Activity Based Working and Flexi-Desking solutions

Welcome to our series of tips on how to move your workplace to flexi-desking or activity based working (ABW). Tip #1 explained why its important to know your space before you start your move.

Tip #2 is about how to find the right solution to assist you in moving towards ABW.

There’s no such thing as the ‘standard’ business with a ‘standard’ office. With such a wide range of businesses operating through varied office locations of all shapes and work styles, your needs are unique. Some staff stay at their desks all day. Some staff are on the road. And some are in meetings, working with clients or get in and leave early each day to pick up the kids.

Your business may be experiencing dynamic and rapid growth or perhaps it’s more sustainable and static in nature. You may have a budget and mandate from the Executive to cut costs, improve office culture and ultimately productivity through a better work environment. But after trying a few Google searches, looking for guidance on the best way to move forward – you come up short.

One thing is certain, you are already involved in the space management cycle. Moving desks, running out of space, trying to move or wanting others to move is now definitely part of business as usual (BAU). Managing this cycle in a simple, quick and effective way is the real challenge.

There is no established solution to help us transition to a flex-environment. This is due to the varying requirements from different business. But we can offer you some tried and tested guidance on the key things to take into account.

Set up a trial

The next step, once you understand your space, is to set up a flexi-desking trial. Moving to flexi-desking is the first step to moving to ABW. And starting with a trial is the best way to start the cultural transition towards wide-spread flexi-desking.

Before you set up the trial, we want to stress how important it is to know what and who makes up the workspace – you need to know the desks and spaces you have to work with, which staff won’t be suitable (for example, those with unique needs or workstation set ups) and so on.

Use the 70 / 30 Rule to support your trial justification

Sick leave, Annual Leave, Personal Leave, Carers Leave, Working out of office, Working from home, Offsite meetings, Part time, Casuals, Contractors… the list goes on!

Recognise is the 70 / 30 rule: For most businesses with a headcount around 100 and up, a general rule of thumb is that at a minimum, 70% of your staff will be in the office and that means only 70% of your work space will be used on any given day.

The outtake is that in most cases, 30% of your space is not used. This gives comfort that when you set up a trial and when you move to full blown flexi-desking, you will have the desks and space available to do so and no staff will be wandering around desk-less!

Create a stepping stone

To gain traction for your trial space, while long term you can set your sights to 70% desk utilisation, you can start to journey small at 90% desk utilisation (or 95% if you have to!). This means if you have 100 staff, you want to find 5-10 desks that will be used for flexi-desking only.

A stepping-stone of 90% desk utilisation would be a milestone and creates sufficient breathing room to transition into more flexible environments. If you have already achieved this, well done – it’s time to work your way towards 70%, again in small increments following the same guidelines set our in this article.

If you’ve read and followed our first article, you should have sufficient knowledge of your work spaces. You can now find 5-10 candidates for a sample trial of flexi-desking. It won’t be easy and you may find yourself with only 5 candidates – but this is still a better option than none. We recommend no less than 5.

What to look for in candidates

It’s hard to know where to start, so here’s a some help to get you underway.

You will want to look for staff that:

1. Don’t have special software on workstations

Any staff requiring unique software to be installed on their workstation are not the most suited candidates for a small trial. These are usually tech staff like IT and developers or creative staff like designers and artists.

Who to look for: sales, marketing, customer support, legal, comms, management staff who don’t have to be at a particular desk.

2. Work offsite or aren’t full time staff

Staff continuously away from their desks will be prove to be the best candidates for hot desking

Who to look for: contractors, temps, casuals, part-timers

Once you find your candidates then stay tuned for our next article where we will highlight the exact steps and checklists to help you get started in moving to a better environment

Next week – Tip #3 One step at a time

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