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Serraview Partners with Current, powered by GE to Enable Smarter Buildings

SUMMARY: Serraview, leading workplace management solutions provider, and Current, powered by GE, announce a technology partnership and will demonstrate their new integration this week at the 2016 LIGHTFAIR International conference in San Diego, CA.

NEW YORK, NY—April 26, 2016—Serraview, a leading provider of workplace management and utilization solutions, today announced a partnership with GE’s energy startup, Current, powered by GE, to enable smarter buildings.

As part of the collaboration, near real-time occupancy data from Current’s lighting sensors and intelligent LEDs are paired with data from Serraview’s cloud-based workplace management platform to help businesses better visualize their space utilization and make smarter decisions on real estate needs. The collaboration also saves employees time navigating a building by turning on real-time wayfinding tools.

How It Works

Sensors in Current’s intelligent LEDs scan building spaces and send real-time insights on what rooms and offices are being used to the Serraview workplace management system. Serraview’s kiosk and mobile apps then use this data to provide just-in-time wayfinding tools for employees, helping them find available desks and conference rooms.

The same data pairing and analytics will be used to help real estate departments understand and visualize space utilization to make better space-management decisions.

Serraview’s business analytics tools, including high-quality visualization tools such as charts and heat-map floor plans, allow corporate property teams to compare space allocations to measured workplace utilization. Interactive workplace management tools allow for quick right-sizing of space allocations and detailed relocation plans to support space optimization as well as the move to agile working environments.

Today, intelligent LED infrastructure can be a gateway to tremendous energy savings and the conduit to better space utilization. This collaboration solidifies that, allowing businesses to make intelligent, data-informed decisions on their real estate needs and enhancing employee productivity at the same time.

John Gordon, Chief Digital Officer, Current powered by GE – LinkedIn

Serraview’s mission is making buildings work for people. Integrating with the technology from Current, powered by GE, supports that mission by enhancing our ability to accurately measure space utilization. Lighting technology from Current combined with Serraview’s interactive workplace management tools, becomes the built-in toolkit for saving real estate spend, providing a modern employee experience and supporting an agile work environment that leverages best-of-breed technology.

Ian Morley, Chief Evangelist, Serraview

The two companies will demonstrate their new integration for the first time at 2016 LIGHTFAIR International, the world’s largest architectural and commercial lighting trade show and conference, April 26 – 28 in San Diego, CA.

About GE
GE (NYSE:GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the “GE Store,” through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com

Interested in becoming a partner? Learn more.

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Case Study: Automation Helps Optimise Workplace Space Utilisation

Are you under the gun to improve workplace space utilisation and reduce your footprint? Just about every large organisation is facing this challenge today. If you are looking for solutions to this problem, you might be surprised to hear that you can learn a thing or two from the Australian government.

In 2009, the Australian government began reviewing its property footprint with the goal of saving money by reducing space. The result was a new process called PRODAC, which requires departments to report their space utilisation every year, and to work toward meeting progressively shrinking targets for vacancy and occupational density. They must also meet a yearly efficiency dividend by reducing operational costs.

If you think you’re under a lot of pressure to reduce your space utilisation, imagine being mandated by law to do so! That’s the burden on the Australian public sector. Let us tell you a story about one department, which we can’t name for security reasons, and how they have made significant strides in reducing the space they hold. At one point they reduced vacancy from 18% down to 10% in a short period, even with severe restrictions due to security and employee conditions.

How did they do it? By automating space utilisation management, and learning some important lessons about managing change along the way.

What can you do when you’re mandated to reduce space utilisation?

When the PRODAC regulations were announced, Australian public sector departments and agencies were suddenly faced with a huge burden: carrying out a time-consuming reporting process each year, and figuring out how to go about reducing their space utilisation.

One government department, who became a Serraview client, realized early on that this was their opportunity to explore automating their space management processes. Their property team consisted of a group of smart individuals who had seen what technology could accomplish, and they had a vision of how they could do better with space utilisation.

Challenges to automating space utilisation management

Now, as you’re probably aware, implementing new technology can pose challenges, even when everyone’s on board about the need for the change. However, the public sector face even more difficult hurdles to implementing new technology than most:

  • Strict security requirements. Any new software must treat data with the same level of security as the government does. Although the data being stored is classified at the lower end of the risk spectrum (as it doesn’t include any financial data, health data information about the public, or top secret classified data), it still requires stringent controls to be put in place to protect personal data about employees and their locations. Any new system would need to pass extensive, time-consuming security accreditation in line with the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) published by the Department of Defence.
  • Enterprise Bargaining Agreements. Due to strict employment conditions negotiated for government employees, the property team had restrictions on their ability to transition people to best-practice workplaces, such as agile working. Any changes would have to be negotiated and implemented slowly.

The property team realized that getting security clearance to put detailed data into the system, as well as the IT support to implement advanced utilisation technologies like Serraview Live, was going to take some time. However, they knew they couldn’t wait that long to get started taking control of their space utilisation. So they devised an implementation plan in stages to help them reap the benefits as quickly as possible.

Implementing space utilisation technology in 3 stages

STAGE ONE: Taking control of business space allocation

When the property team first implemented Serraview’s space utilisation management technology, the only data they were allowed to put into the system was information about business units and their space assignments. So that’s where the team started. Serraview took care of importing all their floor plans, then they were able to overlay allocation data and easily view color-coded plans showing where teams were located.

While the team couldn’t yet track seat assignments and employee data at this stage, having those graphical floor plans helped the team to drive conversations with business units about space requests and even relocations. The ability to create scenario plans and show a group their new space went a long way toward easing people’s concerns about moving.

Related article: Property Teams: How to Drive Space Utilization Planning Conversations

STAGE TWO: Adding employee data

Additional security hurdles were cleared when Serraview achieved ISM certification, allowing the team to begin tracking employee data in the system. Now they were ready to get a better handle on occupancy and achieve their space utilisation targets. When business units submitted requests for additional space, having those graphical floor plans that showed exactly who sits where really changed the conversation. Groups could no longer “hide” space that they didn’t really need.

At this stage, the property team could actually see the pockets of available space and fill them when new requests came in, rather than having to increase footprint. They could also easily restack and consolidate available space, and reduce their footprint by subleasing that space out to another government department. That new strategy saved significant cost instead of waiting out a 10 year lease with under-utilised space.

STAGE THREE: Implementing utilisation tracking technology

Today, this government department is in the process of implementing utilisation tracking technologies, such as badge swipe/speed gate data, and moving toward collecting utilization data through their IP network using Serraview Live. With that system in place, utilisation information will be automatically maintained with no need for staff intervention.

Tracking utilisation tells you how and when space is actually being used, not just who it’s assigned to. As a starting point, the property team is finding the data useful as proof to gain approval for their strategic plans, and they continue to find more ways that data can help drive down space utilisation.

One idea in the planning stages is a move to an agile working environment, as opposed to the current assigned-seating model. One successful pilot has already been completed and a second is slated to begin later this year. These modern workspaces not only reduce footprint significantly, but also help attract top talent and even promote a culture of collaboration and innovation within an organisation.

Related article: What Does the Agile Work Environment Look Like?

What results can you expect from automating space utilisation planning?

Here’s what this Australian government department has achieved and some of the lessons they learned along the way:

Space utilisation targets achieved: twice!
It takes resiliency along with the right automated tools to reduce space utilisation and achieve the aggressive targets required from the Australian public sector. This particular team had to do it twice! They managed to reduce their vacancy rate from 18 percent down to 10 percent, and they were also able to meet their density target (at that time) of 16 square meters per person. Then in 2014, the government imposed significant staffing reductions, which shot their vacancy back up to 23 percent! At the same time their density target was reduced as well.

Talk about taking the wind out of your sails! It was back to the drawing board for the property team, but now they knew they had the tools and the skills to accomplish their goals. Within a year, they managed to get their vacancy back down, reduce their total real estate footprint by 25%, and are on target to meet the new density requirements.

Proactively managing change
This Australian government property team have learned more than they bargained for in the process of automating their space utilisation management. Not just about how to best use the new tools to reduce their footprint, but about managing change and how others react to that change.

The team found that the visual nature of their new system was a great help in changing people’s mindsets and reducing conflict. For example, previously their business units were focused on their own interests and not very concerned about impacts of change on other groups. As a result, it was difficult for them to accept a scenario that was best overall. That all changed when they were able to see visual move scenarios and the impact their “wants” would have on other groups. Seeing is believing!

The accommodation staff also benefited from being able to see both the current state of their space utilisation and the potential results of their strategic plans. It helped settle differences between team members about how to tackle space planning issues.

Furthermore, the data also allowed the property team to make excess space available to other government departments and agencies. Thus they could decrease their own space holding and apply the cost savings to their efficiency dividend, the annual reduction in operational expenses imposed on the Australian public sector.

Related article: Using Business Intelligence Analytics to Drive Better CRE Decisions

What space utilisation challenges are you facing?

Today’s large organisations, whether public or private sector, are facing the need to reduce their space footprint. Organisations are waking up to the fact that as much as 50 percent or more of their space sits vacant each day due to increasingly mobile workforces, and those wasted costs can be reduced.

To do so, you need to improve space utilisation using the right automated tools. The trick is choosing the one that will bring the best and fastest results.

Here’s a helpful resource that can help jump-start your search for the right workplace management software: 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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4 Steps to Easier PRODAC Compliance

What’s your least favorite month of the year? If you’re part of a property team for an Australian government agency or department, it’s probably September. That’s PRODAC reporting time.

How much time and expense could you save if you had an automated system that contained accurate data about all your workpoints, including actual occupancy information? And you could use that system to collect data and output your PRODAC report every year?

Did you know you can have that system today?

PRODAC reporting the old way

Everyone on your team probably dreads the last week of September, when you have to produce the time consuming and labor-intensive manual report about all your agency’s leased and owned workspace. You’d better get your trainers ready because you’ll be spending days walking the floors. And while you’re busy doing that, nothing else gets done. So once you’re finished with the exhaustive PRODAC process, you’ll have to work even longer hours to catch up on the pile of work you had to put off. Guess you won’t be seeing much of your family for a couple of weeks.

Related article: Fast-Track Corporate Space Planning: Technology Can Shorten Your Day

Here’s how the PRODAC process typically goes. First of all, you need to know exactly how many workpoints you have in your space. And then you need to figure out which ones are really being used.

Sounds simple in theory. After all, HR should have all that information, right? Not exactly. While they know who is employed, they may not know about contractors. And they certainly don’t know where all those people are. How many work off-site? How many spend most of their time traveling and don’t need office space? Are there part time workers sharing space? It’s unlikely that anyone can give you the answers to those questions.

As things stand now, the only way for you to count your workpoints, and determine which ones are occupied, is to walk around with a clipboard and physically count them. Presumably, that’s why the PRODAC process requires you to do a walk through. While time consuming, it’s easy enough to count workpoints, defined as “a desk, enclosed office or a counter where it would be reasonable to expect a person to carry out office work on an ongoing basis.”

On the other hand, figuring out which work points are actually occupied can be a challenge. The PRODAC regulations tell you to look for “signs of life” including name plates, papers or folders on desks, or even personal items that mean you can’t reallocate the space. But what if someone who’s off traveling, and likes to leave her desk neat? It may look like the space is not occupied. Or, what if a team is trying to hold onto vacant space, and someone goes around leaving coffee cups and files on unused desks? How will you be the wiser?

Once your team has done their best to count all those workpoints and figure out which ones are occupied, you have another tedious task to complete: the actual PRODAC report. Since you have captured all your data manually, now you need to compile and aggregate all that data into a single spreadsheet. That process can take just as long as walking the floors!

Especially for large departments, the expense of all that work is the most unfortunate part. You can probably think of many ways you could put that part of your budget to better use. How about applying it to strategic planning activities to identify ways right-size your portfolio and achieve your yearly efficiency dividend?

Related article: Property Team: How to Drive Space Planning Utilization Conversations

The good news is, there is a faster and easier way to complete your PRODAC reporting.

Here’s how it works.

STEP 1: Automate occupancy data gathering

The right workplace management software serves as a repository of accurate, trusted data about your work spaces, including floor plans showing allocations to different teams and exactly who sits where. You can be sure the data is accurate when your teams have the ability to update and validate their data monthly. You can also automatically capture accurate utilisation information from badge swipe data, network data, or other types of occupancy sensors.

Want to learn more about technologies for collecting utilisation data? Grab a copy of this free resource that explains the pros and cons of each: Measuring Workplace Utilization. 

Although the PRODAC regulations still require you to walk the floor to verify your occupancy data, that exercise is faster and easier when you only need to validate the information you already have in your automated system. Perhaps the day is not too far off when the regulations will allow you to use the data in your system and skip the manual audit altogether.

STEP 2: Access your floor plans to facilitate PRODAC auditing

How much easier is to do your walk-through when you can reference accurate floor plans showing all your workpoints (and who sits where) on a tablet, confirming occupancy data as you go?

STEP 3: Enter your audit data

Get ready to retire your trusty clipboard. With an automated system, you can use a tablet to enter data as you walk the floor.

STEP 4: Run the report

As of now, here’s the part where you save the most time and effort. With an automated system capturing your PRODAC audit information, you no longer need to compile all that data manually. Simply export your data into a report that’s already in the required PRODAC format. Couldn’t be easier!

Are you ready to move to a simpler process for PRODAC compliance? The good news is, you can have Serraview’s workplace management software up and running in a few months, so there’s still time to get everything in place before the next PRODAC reporting period. Get started by scheduling a demo now!

Download a guide to measuring workplace utilization.

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5 Ways to Smooth Relocation After Machinery of Government Changes

For public sector employees, machinery of government changes can be a source of a great deal of anxiety about changes in job responsibilities, reporting structure, and (possibly worst of all) having to relocate to a new workspace.

For property teams within government departments, machinery of government changes can be even more stressful. That’s because you not only have to worry about your own job, but you’re suddenly facing a great deal more work: managing relocations of the shifting workforce and finding new space for any new departments and agencies. It’s a monumental task, and one that needs to be accomplished at lightning speed.

In large corporations, churn is also a way of life and property teams are tasked with moving them around while minimising work disruption. But in the public sector, you regularly face an even more difficult challenge: moving large numbers of people at the drop of a hat. With machinery of government changes, you often won’t know what’s coming until the change is publicly announced.

In addition to moves resulting from machinery of government, public sector departments are expected to help each other out with their space needs, such as subleasing available space to each other. It’s not unheard of for departments to swap space when one is growing and the other getting smaller. That means even more relocations.

In the process of working with Australian government departments for a decade, Serraview has learned a thing or two about making these transitions faster and easier. Here’s some advice we think will help, as well as specific steps for smoothing and speeding the process of relocating groups after a machinery of government change.

Technology is the key to smoothing churn after machinery of government changes

This advice is probably not a surprise to you: technology always seems to be the way to make things faster and easier. For government agencies in particular, getting new technology implemented can be a challenge. We’re here to tell you—not just because we develop this technology, but because we’ve seen the results time and time again—that it’s well worth the effort. Here’s how to make it happen.

 

STEP 1: Implement technology to get your house in order

You’ve probably heard the old adage: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Whomever coined that phrase probably never imagined it would be used to describe technology. But it’s true: implementing the right technology helps you be prepared for machinery of government changes. And that preparation can make a world of difference in speeding and managing the process when you have to implement those massive relocations.

Since you’re not likely get much warning about machinery of government changes, the key to reacting quickly is having an accurate picture of your current occupancy. If you don’t have this information today, it will take you much longer to figure out how to accommodate potentially thousands of new people. Now is the time to get your house in order with a workplace management tool that provides you with a trustworthy source of record for occupancy data. You’ll be in the best position to handle whatever comes when you know where your people are and how much vacancy currently exists.

Here are some tips about features to look for:

Self-service portal: Speed data collection by providing an easy way for departments to enter, update and validate their data. They will WANT to do it when they see the reports you can provide them in return.

Utilisation tracking: If you’re facing restrictions on getting some teams to enter data, you can import badge swipe data or implement computer network monitoring software to collect utilisation data automatically.

Related article: What’s New in Smart Building Technology: Occupancy Sensors

Scenario modeling: If you’re getting wind that changes are coming, you want access to tools that help you prepare multiple possible scenarios for accommodating machinery of government changes.

STEP 2: Gather new data

When the word comes down about changes impacting your department, you won’t have to panic since you have your workplace management system and your occupancy data in place. So what comes next?

Now is the time to gather new information: both the digital kind and the human kind. If you’re lucky, your workplace management software company might help you with the digital part (gathering and importing the data about the new teams you need to accommodate). That’s how you’ll find out about the numbers of people and how their teams are currently structured.

Here’s some important advice: don’t stop there. Get in touch with leaders, representatives and space champions for the new teams affected by the machinery of government changes. That often means EAs and PAs, who you want to make your new best friends. They can tell you about important things to know about the teams being moved, such as which teams would benefit from being aligned, which can’t sit together, and what important goals and initiatives they are working on that might impact the relocation.

STEP 3: Create a relocation plan

Once you know for certain how much vacancy you have, as well as the numbers and needs of those you need to accommodate, it’s time to create a plan for the relocation.

Spend some time (but not too much time, you’ll be under pressure to get started) modeling a few scenarios to see which option provides the best balance of cost effectiveness and time to implement. You will be able to see where your existing vacancy can accommodate the new changes. Your workplace management software will come in handy now, when you can easily restack your floors to create a contiguous space for the new group. Don’t forget to take into account the intelligence info you learned from your space champions when creating seating plans and move schedules.

Another option to consider when working through possible solutions for machinery of government changes, especially when it looks like you don’t have enough space, is a move to agile working. Moving from an assigned seating model to a free address space might be the solution you need to accommodate a new department without adding footprint.

 

To learn more about moving to agile working, read this related article:
10 Keys to Success with the Agile Work Environment

For more tips about creating relocation plans, read this related article:
Office Relocation Planning: Keeping Your Move On Track, Part 1

STEP 4: Communicate

Moving makes employees anxious, and machinery of government changes make the whole situation even more stressful. When entire departments are moving and restructuring, there’s a great deal of change management that needs to take place. Communication can smooth the transition by helping people be prepared for what’s coming and easing their fears.

You really can’t communicate too much in preparation for a relocation. There are give and take aspects to this communication: listening and gathering intelligence, and proactively providing helpful information to affected employees. We previously mentioned the “take” part: making friends with representatives of the new departments to learn about their needs. Now it’s time for giving back. One of the most efficient and effective ways to do this is by setting up automated email communications for everyone involved in the relocation.

Technology can make this task vastly simpler. Just set up different templates providing need-to-know information for each affected group, and schedule them to go out at the right time according to the relocation plan.

 You’ll also need to communicate information to other parties involved in implementing the relocation, such as removalists. Technology can make this step simple as well, when you can easily generate reports with all the information they need.

STEP 5: Provide move day support

Even with the best relocation plan, you’re bound to hit a few snags on move day. This is especially true for moves caused by machinery of government changes, since you’re moving so many with so little time to get ready. Once again, the trick is to be prepared and provide support for dealing with issues.

Establish support points-of-contact for different types of issues in advance, such as IT issues or finding lost items. Then communicate that information to everyone (using one of your email templates!) prior to move day. On the day itself, people may not have comm set up so you’ll need support staff walking the floors to help people out.

Your goal should be to minimise work disruption as much as possible. Postpone problems that are not business-critical, and focus on getting people back to work.

Related article: Office Relocation Checklist for Successfully Executing Your Move

Implementing workplace technology: How long does it take?

Here’s the good news: you still have time to be ready for the next general election and the resulting machinery of government changes. Today’s best in class workplace management software can be up and running in months, rather than years like some older IWMS systems you might be considering.

Time to implement and achieve value is just one of the critical features you must consider when evaluating workplace management tools.

Learn more about what you might be missing from our informative guide to 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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The 8 Superpowers You Need for Office Space Management

It’s amazing the kind of super powers people expect from corporate space planners when it comes to office space management. Here are some examples:

  • TELEPATHY so you’ll know if that space champion is telling the truth when they say they have no vacant space.
  • INVISIBILITY to catch sneaky teams leaving coats and coffee cups on vacant desks in an effort to fool you into thinking their space is fully occupied.
  • OMNISCIENCE about who’s moving around without going through official channels.
  • OMNIPRESENCE so you can be anywhere and everywhere simultaneously, capturing occupancy data in dozens of buildings and countless floors of office space.
  • TELESCOPIC VISION to look across multiple floors of a building to find vacant pockets of space.
  • PRECOGNITION so you can predict how your company’s need for space will change over time.
  • TELEKINETIC POWER so you can move a bunch of desks three floors down overnight.
  • PROBABILITY MANIPULATION so you can cause unlikely things to happen (such as 20 vacancies to suddenly materialize when you need them) and likely things to NOT happen (requests for a bunch of new seats right after you consolidated space).

You can probably think of a few more! Bet you never considered putting “superhero” in your job description or on your resume, but in many ways you are.

The point is, office space management is a tough job, and you can’t do it alone. Or to be more accurate, you could do a much better job if you had some help from the people who are actually using the space you’re managing.

Here’s some advice about how to get it.

Get Help With Office Space Management by Knowing How to Sell It

Your business units probably don’t know it yet, but it’s actually in their best interest to take ownership of their occupancy data and to keep it accurate. If you want help from them with collecting data for office space management, it’s your job to demonstrate what’s in it for them.

1. Get your timing right

Like getting so many other things we want, knowing when to ask can significantly increase the likelihood of success. (Case in point: how likely are you to donate to a charity that calls you at 8 am on a Sunday?)

For example, when a building has a major restack coming up, there’s a built-in incentive for business units to give you the occupancy information you need: to make sure everyone in the group is accounted for in the relocation plan. So this is your opportunity to collect not only who sits where, but other information you’ll need for the move: equipment, phones, storage needs and more.

Surprisingly, though, immediately after a move has been completed can also be a good time to ask for the data you need for office space management. This is when you can get people to confirm that your data is correct. Position the request as a way to catch small changes that happened during the move process, so your baseline is correct moving forward. This is a great opportunity for the business units to take advantage of your validated data, so they’ll have their house in order with updated floor plans and who-sits-where readily available.

Related article: 8 Tips for Optimizing Churn Management

2. Aim for top-down buy in

Knowing WHO to ask can be just as important as knowing WHEN to ask. Seek an audience with those who stand to gain the most from what you’re trying to accomplish with your office space management plans: the financial community. Explain the big-picture story about how you use the data you’re collecting, how it drives workplace strategy and ultimately impacts broader company goals. Don’t forget to mention exactly how much cost savings can be realized with the successful completion of your office space management plans.

While it’s always important to talk about cost, remember that company leaders have more than the bottom line on their minds. They are often tasked with moving the corporate culture in a new direction to secure the future of the business, and they’re trying to figure out how to make that happen. Let those leaders know how your office space management initiatives can co-locate teams for better collaboration and provide new types of work spaces that support innovation.

Related article: What Does the Agile Work Environment Look Like?

3. Avoid “set and forget” for property costs

When you’re approaching business unit leaders, be sure to point out the financial incentive of potentially reducing chargeback costs for their space. Collecting and providing the data you need for office space management gives business units the ability to avoid being charged for space they don’t have or no longer need. Encourage them to keep you up to date with more frequent reconciliation as their space usage changes.

4. Make it easy

You need to make it as easy as humanly (even super-humanly!) possible for your business units to keep their occupancy information updated.

Once you have a process established and a baseline of data, all the business units should have to do is confirm the accuracy of your information regularly, ideally once a month. If you keep going back to them time and time again asking for the same raw data, you lose their trust and willingness to participate. If it’s time consuming and cumbersome to enter data in your system, they will never do it reliably. And forget about manual methods of providing data.

Instead, it’s essential to provide an office space management tool that makes things easy for them AND shows off how much useful information you really have. When you have a smart system that’s integrated with your company’s HR data, you’ll automatically have the information about new hires and terminations. When the business units see that, you gain a whole lot of credibility since you can show that you know much more about them than they realized.

5. Give something back

Like any other negotiation, you’ve got to give something for everything you get. When you’re using the right office space management technology, you have a lot to offer the business units in return for their help.

Reports are a great way to gain cooperation. Create reports with floor plans and occupancy overlays that are useful to the business units and include their data, then make them readily available to save them the trouble of producing reports manually.

Another option is to use the data the business units provide to power wayfinding tools that are useful to everyone. Would they benefit from having a mobile app at their fingertips that can help them find a meeting room or a co-worker’s location in seconds? Let them know that this is only possible with the accurate and reliable data they provide.

Get More Help By Implementing the Right Office Space Management Tools

Using the right technology can help as much and even much more than gaining the assistance of your business teams for office space management. You don’t even have to tell anyone that this technology is the source of many of your super powers!

If you’re in the process of trying to evaluate software for office space management, check out this free resource that can help you ensure that you’re covering all the important bases: 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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You Should Be Getting More ROI From Your Office Space Planning Tool

Evaluating office space planning tools can be a tricky business. Whether you’re looking at implementing a full-blown IWMS or a more modern cloud-based tool that’s focused on workplace management, there are many options to consider with a wide range of features. And a wide range of price tags. That makes it complicated when you’re trying to build your business case for the purchase.

Or you may be in an even trickier situation: trying to replace an office space planning tool or augment an IWMS that’s not meeting your needs or delivering the promised return. In that case, it can be even harder to get approval and you need to build every benefit you can into your business case. The good news is, today’s best-in-class office space planning tools provide cost-saving benefits that you may not have considered in your ROI calculations. It’s a matter of knowing which features provide the most ROI, and understanding how these features reduce costs so you can build those numbers into your business case.

Office space planning software features that maximize ROI

Quick implementation
Modern office space planning systems built on a SaaS model can be drastically faster to implement than a big, cumbersome IWMS. We’re talking a few months instead of years. If getting the most for your money and getting it fast is important to you, the cloud is the way to go.

Related article: 6 Ways Your IWMS Software Is Failing You

When it comes to speeding implementation, also look for a company that will do the integration with your internal systems. That minimizes the burden on your IT group, which can also reduce complexity and get you going much quicker.

Automated collection of occupancy data
Speaking of integrating with your systems, you want an office space planning tool that pulls employee and company structure data directly from your HR and Finance systems, then provides automation for collecting occupancy data. You’ll get the most cost-saving benefits from a system portal that allows business units to access, update and validate their own occupancy data.

Easy scenario planning
Technology for office space planning needs to be simple, intuitive and engaging. Otherwise, people just don’t use it and you won’t get the value you’re expecting from the tool. Look for a visual user interface that makes it quick and easy to complete tasks and get information. That’s especially important when your business space champions will be using it as well as the property team. Here’s one example: what if you could see a visual representation of a building and its floors, showing the business units and teams occupying each floor? And then create move scenario plans in minutes by dragging and dropping? That interface just saved you days of work.

Integration with multiple sources of utilization data
When your goal is to maximize space usage, you need to use every source of utilization information you have, such as data from badge swipes, sensors, wired and WiFi networks and more. Look for an office space planning tool that pulls in data intelligently from various utilization tracking technologies, allowing you to see how your space is used down to the day, hour or even minute.

Related article: What’s New In Smart Building Technology: Occupancy Sensors

Dashboards, analytics and business intelligence
Everyone has reports, but you need more than a bunch of canned spreadsheet reports to get the best return on your investment in an office space planning system. Visual dashboards and analytics let you drill down to see data at the level of detail you need. For example, get information sliced and diced by geography or by business unit, and even down to the team level. Even better: look for a custom report builder that lets you create the exact reports you want using your own terminology.

If you’re not getting these features with the tools you’re currently looking at, it may be worth rethinking your evaluation criteria. Here’s a resource that can help: 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

How these office space planning features impact your ROI

Occupancy savings
When 50 percent of your workpoints sit vacant on any given day, and each workpoint costs you $10,000 per year, it’s easy to see how optimizing your space can add up to massive savings. Focus on the features that help you get the data to reduce wasted space.

ROI Calculation 1

Time is money
How much money are you wasting when you have to wait a couple of years to reap the benefits of your office space planning tool? And remember that those benefits build year-upon year, so the longer you wait, the more money you waste.

Reduce audit costs
How much does it cost you to do manual audits for collecting occupancy data? Not only is it extremely time consuming (and therefore expensive) but the data you get is not accurate. Teams have been known to “game” the system by leaving coffee cups and other signs of life on vacant desks. Also, people move around more frequently than you can possibly keep up with. That means the information is out of date almost as soon as you’re done. In the end, nobody trusts the data and you just end up arguing over it.

The cost of collecting data is drastically reduced with the right office space planning tool, especially when you get a portal that lets you “crowd-source” your occupancy data from the people who know the space best (the business themselves) and you can pull in data automatically from utilization technology.

Reduce cost of relocations
The cost of manually collecting data for relocations is even higher, since there are so many more details to capture (and the stakes are even higher for getting it wrong). When your office space planning tool automates collection of this data, it not only reduces cost, but also speeds the process and provides for a smoother move experience for your employees.

Minimize asset leasing losses
There’s a fringe benefit to keeping all the equipment data that you collect to prepare for a relocation, including PCs, laptops, tablets, phones and more. Once that information is collected and stored in your office space planning database, you then know where all your key assets are located and who has what, helping you keep your asset leasing and write-off costs under control.

Productivity is a benefit that keeps on giving
When your property team no longer needs to spend so much time collecting and manipulating data, they can use some of that reclaimed time to plan new scenarios that improve space utilization. What could you accomplish if your planning time dropped by 90% to 95%? If you could create a half dozen alternative plans in a few hours? Imagine how much could you save by preventing unplanned leases, and even subleasing space you no longer need.

Reduce dependency on business continuity cold sites
Instead of maintaining expensive, vacant cold sites for disaster recovery purposes, the right office space planning tool can identify where there is existing vacancy within your portfolio that would meet your DR needs.

The most efficient building is the one you no longer need
The most effective way to reduce energy costs and environmental impact is by reducing your real estate footprint.

Energy Savings 1

Looking above and beyond ROI

All that being said, don’t forget to consider the benefits of a modern office space planning tool that are harder to quantify (for your own sake and for your employees’ if not for the business case).

Co-location productivity benefits
With an office space planning tool that makes it easy to do scenario planning, you can quickly visualize where your lines of business are located, and collocate them together to take advantage of business synergies.

Making your job easier and making you look good!
Have you imagined how your career prospects (and even your life!) could change with the right office space planning tool? You can impress your superiors by providing them with professional quality reports, and by pro-actively modeling scenarios that save the company millions. Best of all? You get out from under a pile of spreadsheets and accomplish more in far less time.

Want some help working out your ROI numbers? Call Serraview and we can walk you through our ROI calculator that can help pull it all together.

Download 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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Fast-Track Corporate Space Planning: Technology Can Shorten Your Day

Corporate space planning professionals: are you on the slow track?

If you can’t remember the last time you worked less than a 10 hour day, chances are you’re on the slow track to corporate space planning. Here’s what the slow track looks like:

  • Your property team is overworked and under-staffed.
  • You lack reliable data and a process for managing space requests.
  • Operating in react mode is the best you can do, since you don’t have the data to drive proactive conversations with business units.
  • Your work space utilization is inefficient, resulting in lots of wasted space (which you know from observation but can’t prove without data).
  • You live in fear of those embarrassing situations when you make the wrong call about renewing a lease or consolidating space.
  • You face never-ending pressure to reduce property costs.

Sound familiar? If so, here’s how you can get on the fast track to more effective corporate space planning that saves your company money and helps you get your time back.

How modern technology puts your corporate space planning on the fast track

Implementing new corporate space planning technology might seem daunting, because you suspect it will add MORE time to your already-overburdened schedule. In the past, that was true. But today’s new workplace management technology is faster and easier to get up and running than you might expect. Cloud-based technology requires less IT involvement and can be working in a few months, as opposed to years with older, cumbersome IWMS systems.

BONUS: Today’s workplace management software is also much less expensive than IWMS or even bespoke tools.

Related article: 6 Ways Your IWMS Software is Failing You

Here’s what you stand to gain by going with modern technology:

Modern tools provide corporate space planning value from day one:

  • Immediately begin to identify pockets of unused space to fill a need rather than being forced to add footprint.
  • Create reports identifying the business units sitting on the most under-utilized space.
  • Easily create restack scenarios for aligning business units to increase collaboration and productivity.

You can do better corporate space planning in less time:

  • Constantly juggling piles of spreadsheets is a thing of the past when data is just a few clicks away.
  • With real-time access to who-sits-where information, you can quickly find available space for new hires.
  • Relocation coming up? Skip the exhaustive manual audit process and get business teams to enter their own data in a central corporate space planning database.

Easy access to reliable reports helps you make better strategic decisions:

  • Lease coming up for renewal? Find out for sure if that space meets your future needs or if moving is a better option. Make corporate space planning decisions that won’t come back to bite you!
  • See how space utilization and property costs are trending by geography or by line of business.

You can save your company millions in property costs:

  • Even one small restack project that avoids increasing footprint saves hundreds of thousands of dollars per year at a minimum.
  • Significantly reduce the cost of relocations with more efficient planning and data gathering.
  • You’ll finally have the data to drive a move to agile working, which is where companies can realize the most significant savings (in the multi-millions per year).

BONUS: You look like a corporate space planning rock star!

Which technology features help you get your time back?

Even if you’re just beginning to look into modern software tools for corporate space planning, you may have already discovered that it’s difficult to compare apples to apples. There’s a wide variety of features and capabilities, so it’s important to hone in on the ones that provide the fastest gains in productivity and space optimization results.

Here are some essential features that help you get your time back and your corporate space planning house in order:

SaaS model
Cloud-based software is drastically faster and easier to implement, because your internal technology teams don’t need to buy hardware, install or integrate software, or perform any maintenance.

Graphical design and ease of use
This point seems obvious, but it’s often overlooked: if a tool is cumbersome and difficult to use, no one will use it. That means you won’t get accurate data that you can trust out of the system. Look for intuitive design that enables property teams accomplish corporate space planning tasks quickly, easily and without much training or hand-holding.

Tools to engage your business
This is not a secret: to be truly effective at corporate space planning, you need the business units on your side. The tricky part is figuring out how to accomplish that. Providing tools that are useful for them gives you a lot of leverage. How about the ability for each team to visualize their own space and utilization information? Or wayfinding tools powered by your occupancy data? To get these tools, they will be much more willing to spend a few minutes each month updating their occupancy data.

But how does this save you time? Your lines of business can self-service and see what space they actually have before they come to you to ask for more. Also, you won’t need to waste time defending the accuracy of your data, since the business units have validated it themselves. And imagine how much time you save avoiding those Not manual audits!

Integration with utilization technology
Modern utilization tracking technology helps you get the most useful, real-time occupancy data for corporate space planning. Chances are, your company may have multiple sources of utilization data, including badge swipes, RFID tags, sensors and wired or WiFi networks. Each of these technologies has its benefits and limitations. That’s why it’s essential to choose a software tool that integrates data from multiple sources and provides a true 360 degree view of workplace usage, as well as the tools to act on that information.

Related article: What’s New in Smart Building Technology: Occupancy Sensors

Professional reporting capabilities
Wading through spreadsheets and aggregating data to get the information you need is so yesterday! Look for dashboards, analytics and well-designed visual reports that provide true business intelligence for corporate space planning. You want to be able to slice and dice your data by geography and/or by lines of business, and drill down to the granular level of detail you need. Also, look for a custom report builder so you can tailor reports for your unique needs and your own terminology without having to pay extra.

Ready to shorten your day? Take the next step to smarter corporate space planning.

Learn more about the right way to evaluate workplace management software with this helpful guide to the 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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Property Team: How To Drive Space Utilization Planning Conversations

The need for space utilization planning is no secret to corporate space planners. You know you should be taking steps to proactively manage the use of your property. Taking control and optimizing your space would not only save your company millions, but do wonders for your career prospects as well. Imagine gaining the respect of your business peers and executive leaders when you can drive strategic change throughout your company.

Space Utilization Planning: How’s That Going?

How can your property team be proactive when you’re drowning in spreadsheets and floor plans, and just trying to stay afloat dealing with the constant barrage of space requests from the business? Like many property teams out there, you’re probably so overworked that you are forced to operate in react mode.

Even if you had the time to do space utilization planning, getting the data you need to make decisions is another major hurdle. To come up with scenarios that make more efficient use of your workplace, you need accurate data about who sits where as it stands now. Not only does it take a tremendous amount of time to collect all that information manually, but by the time you’re done people have moved around and the data is already out of date.

Without that data, you are driving blind when trying to do space utilization planning, and you can’t prove to the business what you know from observation: that your space is under-utilized. So you are forced to give in time and time again to those endless demands for more space. So how can you demonstrate the true occupancy story and drive those space utilization planning conversations with your business units?

First Things First: Win Friends and Influence People

You need data to prove your case for space utilization planning. How are you going to get that data without walking the halls with a clipboard and adding to your stacks of spreadsheets?

Here’s a surprisingly effective way to get started: by making friends with the people who know your space the best and making them into your space champions.

Every floor or business team has an executive assistant, personal assistant or other staff member who already knows everyone and where they sit. There’s a good chance this person already has a list or a floor plan on their desk showing where everyone sits. These people should be your new best friends as they can be a wealth of information. They can also be your eyes and ears on the ground to give you a heads up about the upcoming needs of the business. Best of all, they’ll be instrumental in helping you drive any changes that you’re planning.

However, this advice comes with a warning: if you don’t make friends with these people, they’re likely to be your biggest roadblocks for future space utilization planning initiatives. If they don’t trust you to offer value to the business, they won’t cooperate with your requests and your plans. Even worse, they will horde space that could be better utilized.

The question is, how can you get these potential space champions on your side and providing you with the data you need for space utilization planning? The answer lies in providing tools that make it easy and offer them value.

How Technology Can Help Your Space Utilization Planning Efforts

Workplace management tools

As you’re probably well aware, keeping track of people manually is a losing battle. Workplace management software can improve the situation in a hurry. Products with modern, cloud-based technology can be up and running in a few months.

Yet here is what you might not know: you’ll get the most space utilization planning benefits from choosing a software tool that allows your business teams to update and validate their own data. Here’s why:

1. They understand the benefits. Those space champions begin to be motivated to work with you when you give them access to their own data: up-to-date floor plans, staff lists integrated with your corporate directory, the ability to print their own reports and manage their own space requests.
2. You gain an undisputed source of truth. There are no more arguments about data accuracy. Now when you have a conversation with the business about their space usage, they can’t question your data since they validated it themselves.

Utilization tracking technology

After you’ve built your network of space champions, the next step is to look to utilization measurement technologies to augment your data and show where you have the opportunity to do better space utilization planning.

Some examples of utilization measurement technology include badge swipe, network tracking and sensor systems. Armed with the data these systems provide, you can now have a conversation with your business unit not only about their vacancy rates, but also their underutilization of the desks they have assigned to their staff.

Related articles:
What’s New In Smart Building Technology: Occupancy Sensors
The New Workplace Space Utilization Metrics You Need To Know About

Space Utilization Planning Tips That Help You Gain Trust and Drive Change

Once you’ve got the enabling technology in place, here’s how to prioritize your efforts to make the most impact with your space utilization planning.

  1. Train your space champions on your new workplace management system right away. Be sure to explain your process so they understand that you now have the ability to rapidly provide them with new space when needed. When they trust your ability to do this, they are much more likely to hand back space that’s not needed right now.
  2. Further encourage business units to give up space they don’t need by showing them the cost (or even the notional cost) of their vacant space. Especially in a chargeback situation, this information can be a powerful motivator to consolidate and cooperate with your space utilization planning initiatives.
  3. Implement a formal process for your space champions to spend 5 minutes at the start of each month updating their occupancy information. To make it easy for them, create visual reports showing who sits where on a floor plan.
  4. Start your space utilization planning with the low-hanging fruit. Produce a “top 10 offender” report that highlights business units who are sitting on large amounts of vacancy or under-utilized space, and focus your efforts on optimizing these areas.
  5. Finding small pockets of available space is a help, but you can do more with that space by restacking your floor(s) to consolidate all that vacancy into one contiguous area.
  6. Engage with your CFO or Financial Controller community early and often. They are ultimately the audience who will be most interested in your space utilization planning efforts as a way to save on property costs and reduce wasted spend. They also have the ability to provide the executive support you need and put the necessary weight behind your initiative.

Related article: 10 Steps That Drive Better Space Efficiency in the Workplace

To accomplish your space utilization planning goals, it’s essential to choose workplace management software that’s aligned with your needs.

Find out the most important points that you must not neglect in your evaluation process with this practical guide: 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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8 Tips for Optimizing Churn Management

What’s more anxiety-provoking than living through a move? If you work in corporate real estate planning relocations, you know the answer: workplace churn management.

When you’re involved in churn management on a daily basis, it can take its toll on your nerves, not to mention your reputation and prospects for growing in your career. There are so many details to manage and so much that can go wrong. Most of your company’s employees have probably lived through a relocation in the past, so they know all too well what can happen: delays, inconvenience, interruption in their work, and even lost possessions. That’s why people dread moving and business teams are not often on your side when you let them know that you’re planning to move them to a new floor or even to a new building.

The good news is, there are proven strategies to minimize problems with moves and optimize your churn management process, making employees happier with the move and increasing their trust in you and your team.

8 Tips for Improving Your Churn Management Results

Here are some tips for improving your churn management and making relocations happen faster, smoother and with less anxiety.

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #1: Start With Accurate Data

Have you ever accidentally tried to move a team into a space already occupied by another group? That’s what happens when you don’t have accurate occupancy data before you create your relocation plan. Or when you fail to keep it updated throughout the churn management process.

It’s essential that you know who sits where, what space your business units are currently assigned to, which groups need to sit near each other, and how much vacancy actually exists. Collecting this data manually will always be a flawed process, since it’s so time consuming that the information is outdated even before you finish collecting it. If you’re planning a major move, invest in a space planning tool that allows business units to own and validate their own occupancy data.

Related article: Using Business Intelligence Analytics to Drive Better CRE Decisions

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #2: Align Moves With Business Objectives

This churn management tip is the secret to getting business units on your side. Engage them in the process early and often. Ask them about their business objectives and plans: you’ll want to know if they are planning a major restructure or significant addition or reduction in staff. And work with them to schedule the move around any critical projects or deadlines they are facing. Assign client relationship managers from your team to work with business unit stakeholders to make sure everyone’s needs are met.

When you’re having these conversations with business stakeholders, use your data to take emotion out of the equation. When you can convincingly show how much vacancy actually exists, the LOB’s real space requirements, and how much the company stands to save with your plan, you’ll have a much easier time getting everyone on board.

Also, don’t forget to sell your business units on why the move is good for them: better facilities, amenities, locations, and opportunities to consolidate the team or sit near a team they work with closely. And how about the chance to reduce their chargeback cost if you are consolidating space?

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #3: Automate Communication To Ease Anxiety

Getting business stakeholders on your side is challenging enough, but to win over those 500 people who have to move to a new desk or a new building, you need to think bigger. The way to do that is with regular, helpful communication.

People have had bad experiences with moves, so to gain their trust you’ll need to set the expectation that this time will be different. Create a communication plan that details what everyone involved needs to know, and when. Then set up email templates that let different groups know what’s happening every step of the way, what to expect and who to contact with questions and concerns before the move and on Day 1. Make all that communication easier for you by choosing a tool that helps you automate sending emails to different teams.

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #4: Tackle Large Moves in Phases

Unless you want a nightmare on your hands, you can’t shut down 5,000 people at once. For a very large move, break the move into phases over a period of days or over several weekends.

Before taking on a significant move project like this, it’s essential to have the right space planning tool in place. When you have easy access to accurate data and up-to-date floor plans, you’ll be able to visualize the change at every stage of your move to assess the status and make any needed adjustments to the next phase of your churn management plan.

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #5: Freeze Small Moves Before the Big Move

It’s enormously helpful to draw a line in the sand after which you won’t implement any more churn in advance of the big move. This gives you a better chance of having all your data accurate on move day. However, it may be unrealistic to expect NO changes in that timeframe, so keep your ear to the ground and make sure any changes that DO happen are documented and your data updated.

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #6: Create a Detailed Logistics Plan

As far in advance as possible, create a detailed move schedule showing dependencies and sequence of move activities. Make sure everyone involved knows important milestones, such as:

  • Move-freeze date
  • When packing will be complete

Churn management happens more smoothly when everyone understands the entire picture and can plan their tasks according to the move schedule.

Using the right relocation planning tool can take much of the work out of creating & updating these detailed plans, and can even provide detailed floor plans for reference by both internal teams and outsourced service providers.

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #7: Early IT Involvement

Enlist the support of your IT group on the move planning team from the beginning to avoid expensive problems on move day. Make sure they are ready to manage changes to mainframe printers, telephony, call routing and diversions, system availability, firewall burns and domain availability.

Hundreds of people without network access for even a day costs the company a great deal of money. Not to mention adding to their frustration and destroying their trust in your CRE team.

CHURN MANAGEMENT TIP #8: Plan for Move Day Support

Establish a Real Estate Operations Center (ROC) to handle issues on the day of the move, such as:

  • Logistical questions: How do I move my chair? What to do with carts and boxes?
  • Maintenance: Address any needed repairs that are discovered during and after the move
  • Facilities instructions: How to adjust desk heights or use the tech features in new conference rooms
  • Location: Provide site tours as well as information about nearby amenities such as ATMs and shopping
  • IT issues: Including network access, printers and phones

If you are moving to a new free-address workspace, even more support will be required for employees who are expected to change the way they work every day. Plan training sessions that explain how to use each of the new spaces, as well as wayfinding tools for locating people and work spaces.

The Right Automated Tools Are Essential for Optimizing Churn Management

Workplace management software tools can save you time and headaches in your churn management process. They help you collect and validate your data, engage your business teams, visualize your current block and stack and available space, create relocation scenarios, provide dashboards and reports, and can even provide room availability and wayfinding features for agile work environments.

Yet with such a wide range of features and functionality in different systems, it can be difficult to compare apples to apples.

Here’s a resource that can help you hone in on the essential features that make the difference between a successful implementation and an expensive mistake: 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

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Office Relocation Checklist for Successfully Executing Your Move

If you’ve been following our blog over the past couple of weeks, you’ve already learned many useful strategies for planning your office relocation:

At this point, all you need is the following office relocation checklist to make sure everything happens with as little impact as possible on the business, and making sure people are supported for every type of issue that might come up during and after the move.

Your Office Relocation Checklist For Move Day

Use this office relocation checklist as a guide for the important tasks and actions you should have in place on move day.

SET UP YOUR RELOCATION SUPPORT TEAM

  • Open a Relocation Operation Center (ROC) as a central point of contact for questions and problems that may come up either during the move or in the days and weeks to come. Don’t forget to let everyone know how where your support team is located and how to contact them.
  • Make sure everyone knows your lead project manager or move coordinator who has overall responsibility for executing the move and handling any unexpected issues.
  • If people are without computer access for a little while on move day, they may not be able to find the information about who to contact with a question or concern. That’s why you need delivery reps at the move site, walking around and checking on progress, answering questions and handling problems. It’s helpful to assign delivery reps to a specific business unit, team or group of people.
  • Share this office relocation checklist and all contact information with everyone who has execution responsibility on move day.

PLAN YOUR PRE-ARRIVAL INSPECTIONS

  • Even for small moves, you will avoid frustration and downtime for your employees (and even for your own team) by implementing some level of checking on the move delivery before people arrive for work. You can identify issues and take proactive steps to fix things even before the problems get reported. You might even get lucky and be able to fix some problems before employees ever know anything went wrong. For minor churn, inspections can be made and signed off by the delivery team.
  • For major moves, you’ll want the lead PM or Move Add Change Coordinator (MAC) to personally inspect the execution of the move before employees begin to arrive. He or she has the best understanding of the requirements, schedule and dependencies, and is in the best position to identify and prioritize any critical issues that might be found.

HANDLING THE INEVITABLE ISSUES

It’s unlikely that you won’t experience any unexpected issues on move day; things are going to happen that you could not anticipate. Facilities problems may be discovered if the previous occupants didn’t tell you that something was broken. Network or equipment issues may arise and people will be unable to work. Items may be mislabeled and delivered to the wrong place. Or new hires are arriving that were not accounted for in the occupancy planning stage. There’s always going to be something! The trick is to be ready for the unexpected and have a plan for fixing it with minimal business disruption.

  • The best strategy for dealing with the problems that arise on move day is to focus on returning your employees to business as usual as quickly as possible. That is your mantra on move day! Make sure everyone on the team knows it.
  • With that strategy in mind, you’ll be able to guide the actions of your team in solving problems. For example: if a pod of desks has no power, temporarily move the occupants to a vacant space while you deal with the power issue so they can continue to work. Minimizing business disruptions is the name of the game.
  • On move day, postpone dealing with issues that are non-business critical. Once everyone is in place, prioritize your issues and tackle them strategically.

Your Post-Move Office Relocation Checklist

The good news is, the hardest part is over and most of the work is done! If you did a thorough job of planning, you probably don’t have too many problems to fix. Here’s your office relocation checklist for handling what comes up post-move and closing out your project.

PROVIDE GREAT SUPPORT AND TRACK ACTIVITY

  • Keep using those comms: make sure everyone knows who to contact if they are experiencing any problems
  • Triage issues in order of priority and business impact and assign to the appropriate party for resolution. Remember to mitigate business interruption in any way you can!
  • Track all support issues and record the resolutions. This information can come in handy when you’re planning your next move.
  • Manage employee expectations and stay on top of all logged issues to be sure everything is resolved with a reasonable timeframe.

UPDATE YOUR OCCUPANCY DATA

  • Now is the time to make sure all occupancy changes are updated in your workplace management system.
  • Especially when the move has gone very smoothly, it’s a great time to enlist your business champions to take ownership of their data. When they take over regularly validating their information, everyone gains an accurate book of record for occupancy information.

What if your space planning tool has no business portal and is not practical for your champions to use? It might be time to think about a better workplace management system. This feature is only one critical component that you might be missing. Find out more with this reference guide to 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.

MOVE PROJECT REVIEW and CLOSE OUT

  • Upon completion of your move, solicit feedback from all parties on move planning, execution and delivery.
    Specifically ask about how well you met expectations and how you might improve things for the next move.
  • Update your entire team on the issues that were experienced with the move project and how they were resolved. Record what you learned and close out the project.
  • Everyone worked hard to complete the move, so congratulate everyone and thank them for their participation.
  • Breathe a sigh of relief and get started on whatever is next!

We hope this office relocation checklist has proven insightful and informative, and guides you to make your next relocation a smooth and seamless transition for your business. Check our blog again next week for even more tips for optimizing churn management.

Download 5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software.