Hoteling an office space means that there are no longer any designated seating spaces and instead, employees will have to reserve a space before using it. This goes for work cubicles and meeting rooms. Office hoteling is a great option for integrated workspaces that are using physical and online work modes.
This remote working kind of system is becoming even more popular post-pandemic with people having realized it’s possible to still be productive at home. Workers will have the opportunity to control and customize their schedules while also making sure the hoteling office space is well used.
The process of reserving the space is through a standard application or space reservation system. Employees get to view the map space of the office and learn what seats are available for use. This way, a worker can choose a space that is most suitable for them. The rooms can be booked weeks in advance and have the employee check-in on the designated day.
Benefits Of Hoteling Office Spaces:
Reduced costs of spaces: the average cost for a good workstation is $7,735. Now that employees are moving into working more remotely, it would not be a financially feasible decision to make office spaces for all employees. These spaces will not be used as much as they used to be traditionally. With office hoteling, you can be able to have schedules around the entry days for employees so that the workstations are better used.
Employee flexibility: integrating office hoteling into the hybrid work model will help ease the transition from home to the office for employees. Employees can make their schedules along the days they will be needed to work in the office. There is also fair access to the available spaces.
Increased productivity and collaboration: knowing where they will be seated as soon as they arrive will avoid time wastage as compared to hot-desking where desks are given on a first come first serve basis. Employees can also sit close to the team members they will need for certain projects for easier collaboration.
Getting Started With Office Hoteling Spaces:
- Centralize the booking and management system: you are going to need good office hoteling software to make the system work. All aspects of the booking process need to be centralized. The software must have interactive floor plans so that the user can see open desks and seating arrangements. It should also integrate other communication platforms to outsource necessary and relevant information.
Lastly, the system should be easily accessible on the phone for on-the-go use. The system should not be too complicated for your employees to use. When it comes to managing the system, have only one person in charge to avoid confusion and chaos in the system. This way, everyone can know who to contact in the event of a malfunction.
- Have a booking process in place: the system should be straightforward, organized, and simple. For example, the flow of booking can be that workers who do not have a desk approach the system manager who checks for available desks and assigns them. Then when they leave, they check out with the manager: much like booking an actual hotel room.
Protocols for booking and usage should be clear and the instructions for the desk number of each worker should be sent to their email as soon as the booking is done.
- Have a clear and dependable wayfinding system: areas and desks should be clearly labeled so that employees can find their spaces of the day with ease. All desks should be named uniformly and the wayfinding instructions should be communicated clearly. The directory for the desks should populate and update as desks are checked in to avoid double booking.
- Create a variety of spaces in the office: it is great to have a variety of spaces from cozy seating areas to socially active hotspots and long extended working tables. This variety accommodates meetings with clients, solo workdays, or teamwork assignments.
- Allow employees to personalize spaces: you can use tactics such as sufficient storage to ensure that the space is diverse and allows for use by a variety of personalities.
- Get employee involvement before switching: you want to make sure that the opinions of the employees are taken into account with data-driven approaches to transiting into the hotel office space. Even though the benefits of these systems are many, not having your employees on board can lead to difficult transitions and failures.
Office hoteling is the way to go in hybrid working modes. If there is one thing the pandemic has taught us is the need to adapt and integrate new systems as they come. Transitioning into office hotel spaces will not always be easy and convenient for you and your employees but with time, the streamlined process will begin to reap fruits for you and everyone else in the office.
