Tip #5 Final Challenge – 5 Tips on cost effective Activity Based Working and Flexi-Desking solutions

There’s a big elephant in the room, it’s been around for a while but creeps into our workplaces disguised as an emergent new threat.

Resistance to change

When it comes to Hot Desking, ABW and Flexible environments, this can play a major role within an organisation… so where does it stem from?

Let’s clear the air on the biggest challenges a flexible environment transition is likely to face:

• Technologies must be put in place to achieve a transition
• Workplace culture must be at a level allowing the transition
• A workplace manager (or admin, IT, HR) must spearhead office space management
• Workplace activities “how we work” must change

It’s no secret that most businesses are resistant to change from small and mediums to government and corporate departments.
Does this really have to be such a painful experience?

As with any project, we must introduce changes in phases albeit one (small) positive step at a time!

Barriers to ABW and Hot Desking

In a recent study conducted by Samsung, we saw some very notable barriers to activity-based working in workplaces:

• Staff prefer role-based working and their own desk
• Company culture, hierarchy
• Security concerns
• Requires Business Unit Managers approvals
• Skills to implement
• Network to support (technological)

Some of our earlier suggestions regarding more cost effective activity-based working solutions may alleviate some of the above but not entirely circumvent them.

The golden ticket to dealing with these challenges can be found in your very own workplace and it all starts with a culture shift!

Workplace Culture and Adaptation

The dramatic shift in workplace culture due to flexi-environments alone can be an overwhelming concept for most businesses.

The workplace is becoming a more critical point of failure for many businesses with the rise of tech giants leading the way in new, innovative, appealing and creative work environments. A silent war exists to gain favour of the more experienced and skilled staff who seek more attractive workplaces and offerings (with an emphasis on culture).

The Keys to Transitioning

Simply put, your employees are the keys to a successful transition.
Regardless of how or what you choose to do, engaging with your staff is KEY.

To achieve this, you’ll need to:

• Plan your transition(s)
• Break down the project into manageable parts
• Produce a schedule for the transition
• Know your space! (The first thing we mentioned in our initial article Tip #1)
• And most importantly, make sure all changes are introduced in phases

For example, if you plan on introducing a new telephone system, locker system and eDocument management system as part of a new initiative for moving to a new office, introduce these elements for some time prior to moving office.

Identify the staff encountering the most difficulty dealing with the new systems and hold short sessions to discuss and work through it.

A phased approach and staff engagement will ensure the only thing that happens after a physical office relocation is the move itself so staff are not experiencing a new office, new way to work, new phones (and so on) in the one hit. This would be overwhelming and in many cases, businesses see a significant rise in resignations as people leave this ‘unfamiliar’ workplace.

Final Touches

We’ve discussed affordable means to achieve flexible work environments and suggested a wide range of ways to deal with challenges.

Contact us if you want a free consultation on flexible environments, moving offices or managing your existing workspace better!
Sometimes all you need is someone to point you in the right direction. If the #5 tips are insufficient, don’t hesitate to seek assistance from an external source.

4 reasons to use a space management tool

Carefully colour coded floorplans covered in handwritten scrawl sit overflowing on your desk, painstakingly re-drawn every time you need to move team to a new location or squeeze a new part time employee into the IT team’s area.  You scroll through tab after tab of excel spreadsheet data until your eyes bleed when a new staff member is brought on board and no one can remember where the free desk is. You’re tasked with implementing “activity based working” and left to ponder all that entails.

 

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In today’s rapidly evolving workplaces we grapple daily with how to effectively manage issues that impact on our ability to manage our work spaces and our staff – like high staff turnover, increasingly flexible work patterns and accelerating technological advances that are altering the way we work  – as well as new theories of management that are moving us beyond open plan and into the brave new world of flexi desking, ABW and shared spaces.

 

Overwhelmed?  Absolutely. From this fray the concept of “space management” has evolved, transitioning beyond traditional facilities or property management to become something of an HR sub-discipline, concerned with managing the human side of changing work spaces as much as the desks within them.

 

Four things to know about space management

1. You’re already doing it

If the scene we described above of colourful floorplans cluttering your desk and causing mild panic to rise when you need to map out yet another scenario for a desk move rings a bell – congratulations, you’re already engaging in space management. If you’re talking at a high level about needing to get staff to flexi desk, or have more staff than space and aren’t sure how to manage it effectively, you’re joining the thousands of businesses are also grappling with these common space management issues.

2. Space management is about people

It’s not all desks, chairs and computer monitors. At its core, space management is about managing rapid and unrelenting change your organisation and staff are trying to cope with –  and helping your business keep up with the changing demands of its employees. Human capital is likely the largest investment and asset your business owns. Effective space management helps you manage their time and space more effectively and helps them do their jobs.

3. (simple) data is king

How often do your staff actually use their desks? How much does each space cost you? Are there more effective uses of the space? How much data do you actually need to make a good decision? Many facilities and property managment software packages offer a wealth of data wrapped in an overwhelming sea of complexity. Space management tools allows you to make an informed, evidence based decision about your staff space needs quickly and simply.

4. Excel is dead

Now we have a lot of respect for Microsoft. But when it comes to space management, we’re more on the side of Apple. Space management needs to be simple, intuitive and quick to use if your business is going to grow and gain from the process. Spending hours combing through spreadsheets is not the key to the promised land of greater efficiency.

 

If you’re interested in finding out more about space management tools, we’d love to have a chat – you can contact us on info@simple.space or tweet us.