Smarter Space Planning Starts With This New Feature

Today’s corporate real estate leaders face unprecedented challenges.

They are struggling to reconfigure their offices to reduce density and increase physical distance. They’re updating visitor management policies to include health screenings and contact tracing. They’re trying to right-size their real estate and plan for the future, while at the same time confronting the reality that a significant portion of their workforce plans to continue working remotely more often following the coronavirus pandemic.

Unprecedented challenges demand innovative solutions.

That’s why we’re so excited to introduce space planning software that makes solving those challenges as easy as flipping a switch.

Thanks to our relationship with parent company, iOFFICE, a leading provider of enterprise workplace management solutions, Teem customers can take advantage of first-to-market innovations like these.

Here’s a closer look at how this new feature helps real estate leaders plan ahead.

What Is The Space-Right™ Space Planning Feature?

iOFFICE’s space and move software helps enterprise leaders visualize their entire real estate portfolio, measure important metrics like occupancy and costs, and manage their space in real time.

The Space-Right™ safe distancing feature is a new addition to this already powerful software suite.

Using this feature, workplace leaders can:

• Set parameters for the amount of space they want between workspaces
• Automatically generate new floor plans based on that distance
• Identify spaces that fall outside of the safe distancing range (such as small conference rooms or common areas) and reconfigure them as needed
• Reassign seats based on employee location or assigned shifts
• Create move tickets to implement these changes

Leaders can adjust the distance at any time, easing restrictions or tightening them as needed.

And the Space-Right functionality goes beyond enabling a faster return to work or protecting employees during the next flu season.

Let’s say you’re hiring more people a few months from now and trying to decide whether you need to lease new office space.

At the same time, you realize the number of people in the office varies widely from one day to the next. Some days, it seems every seat is occupied, and no one can find an available room. On other days, the office seems mostly empty.

Using Space-Right, workplace leaders can assign employees to alternating groups that work from home every other day. And the employees in the office—the veterans and the new hires—can be appropriately seated to ensure safe distancing.

Why Teem Is Stronger As An iOFFICE Company

From the beginning, one of Teem’s greatest strengths has been our ability to develop innovative, user-friendly workplace solutions. Our room scheduling software has helped companies recapture productivity and space by allowing companies to get more meetings out of every room. Meanwhile, our workplace analytics have given business leaders the real-time and historical data they need to plan ahead. Right now, Teem customers can see exactly how their workforce is using every conference room. They can see average meeting size, average meeting length and which rooms are reserved but unoccupied.

This in itself is incredibly valuable. But growing enterprises trying to decide between leasing more office space or finding smarter ways to maximize their existing spaces need more insight. They may be considering moving away from assigned seats and transitioning to desk hoteling, allowing employees to reserve workspaces as needed. To make this truly successful, however, they need real-time space utilization data for every part of their workplace—including desks and common areas.

They need to see that data displayed on interactive floor plans and see metrics by building, by floor and by department.

And they need to be able to act on it immediately.

They need to be able to create a plan for moving a group of employees and assigning the tasks needed to set it in motion, as quickly and painlessly as possible. That likely includes moving and managing expensive assets, too.

They need to be able to use sensor data to schedule the right time to clean and sanitize their offices based on actual utilization, rather than arbitrary schedules that are far less efficient and cost-effective.

They may need to use that same data for contact tracing in the workplace if they learn of a potential COVID-19 exposure.

And they need to be able to relay important information to employees at a moment’s notice through a mobile app that directly integrates with their workplace management system.

As a leading technology company connecting data, people and things, iOFFICE is uniquely equipped to handle the needs of growing enterprises.

iOFFICE and Teem combine best-in-class technology for your workforce with the insights your workplace leaders need to plan ahead.

What This Means For Teem Customers Now And In the Near Future

You may have heard we recently took the first step in integrating our technologies by connecting Teem’s room scheduling, wayfinding and visitor management solutions (EventBoard, Finder and LobbyConnect) to the iOFFICE Hummingbird mobile app.

Using the Hummingbird app, employees can find their colleagues, navigate their environment with more accessible maps and easily reserve rooms or workspaces. Because the app is connected to iOFFICE’s space and workplace management software, real estate leaders also receive important insights about how employees are using the space.

The integration also creates a better experience for visitors by enabling touchless check-in. Employees can pre-register guests and send confirmation emails with QR codes they can simply scan upon arrival, which triggers a Slack or text notification to their host.

This is an exciting step toward creating an intelligent, frictionless office environment, but we have even bigger plans on the horizon.

In the near future, we’ll be introducing self-service technology, including the ability for executive administrators to manage multiple bookings at once and a personal digital assistant to make room booking even easier.

In addition to its core offerings that help workplace leaders manage space, assets and maintenance, iOFFICE also brings a wide array of marketplace partners that enrich its platform. That includes integrations with IoT sensors, lease administration software, and energy management software.

As a cloud-based software solution like Teem, iOFFICE can easily integrate with other emerging technologies you may not even have considered yet. For example, a few years from now, you could be using augmented reality to make virtual meetings feel more like in-person ones. That’s the type of innovation Teem and iOFFICE is committed to creating—with the input of workplace leaders like you.

The future is full of possibilities, but so is your workday today. Be prepared to advance your modern, agile workplace strategy with the power of integrated solutions that scale up to meet your growth trajectory.

Ready to see a closer look at Space-Right? Request a live demo today.