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Having dedicated desks for your employees may have worked in the traditional office setup. But it is grossly inefficient in a hybrid work setup.
Dedicated desks mean unused spaces, wastage of resources, and unreasonable operational costs when a portion of your workforce is working remotely. Moreover, they make collaboration on team projects several times difficult.
This is why companies are turning to flexible desking options like desk hoteling and hot-desking – to minimize desk costs and allow employees to choose their work areas to work effectively.
In this blog, we tell you all about a hoteling solution and why it is a must-have for the modern workplace.
What is Hoteling Solution?
In the concept of desk hoteling, employees do not have an assigned work desk. When working onsite, employees can choose a desk they want and reserve it for a specific time. The idea is similar to that of an actual hotel. You reserve a space, check in, use it for the duration, and check out.
A hoteling solution helps you automate this process end-to-end. The primary element of the solution is a desk booking system. It helps employees to make bookings digitally and helps managers manage the office space efficiently. It integrates seamlessly with your office calendar and other enterprise systems to store all records in the same place.
Importance of a Hoteling Solution in a Hybrid Workplace
Although a desk booking system is the most important element of a hoteling solution, it offers much more. This includes space optimization, maintaining social distancing protocols, improving collaboration, and much more. Here is why a hoteling solution is crucial for your hybrid workplace-
- It Promotes Seating Flexibility
A hoteling solution helps employees see which desks are available on their preferred days. They can reserve a desk and directly proceed to their work desks without waiting for managers to approve the booking.
Employees can choose desks based on location, available amenities, and even for a specified duration. They can also book desks around coworkers if they need to collaborate on a particular task. In fact, they can do all of this through a single mobile app!
Most hoteling solutions integrate seamlessly with a mobile app to enable employees to view and book available spaces anytime and anywhere. All employees need to do is select a desk of their choice and book it.
Thus, a hoteling solution facilitates a smooth transition between remote and onsite working by providing maximum flexibility to employees.
- It Promotes Employee Productivity
When employees do not have a dedicated work desk, they spend a lot of time locating their workspace. A hoteling solution eliminates this issue with its wayfinding feature.
A hoteling solution equipped with the wayfinding feature allows employees to arrive at the office and navigate straight to their work desk. With such stepwise directions, employees never spend too long looking for their booked desks. In fact, wayfinding also reduces the number of times employees disturb their colleagues by asking for directions too.
- It Prevents Errors in Booking
To err is human. But managing desk bookings manually can cause serious errors that result in wasted time and resources. A hoteling solution eliminates clerical errors like double bookings or miscommunicated reservations.
Employees can use a desk hoteling solution to book desks in advance. When a desk gets reserved, the software instantly marks it as unavailable. This prevents instances of double bookings and lowers employee conflicts.
But that is not all. Desk hoteling software also updates booking cancellations and booking rescheduling instantly. The entire approval process is automated, and all the information is stored on the cloud.
Naturally, employees and managers can easily access this data to determine which spaces are occupied and for how long, no matter their location.
- It Helps You Manage Your Office Space Efficiently
When not all employees are working from the office, a lot of desks remain unused. A hoteling solution provides real-time occupancy data and generates reports on the desk usage pattern. With access to these insights, facility managers can easily identify which desks employees prefer the most and the least.
For instance, if you notice employees repeatedly book a standing desk compared to one with an ergonomic chair, you might want to incorporate more standing desks into your office. This will not only boost desk usage but it will also cut down resource wastage.
Alternatively, say your desk hoteling solution could reveal that employees were using desk neighborhoods or shared spaces more than individual desks. You could reconfigure your office space to include more desk neighborhoods.
Thus, managers can use hoteling systems to keep track of desk usage and allocate them optimally.
Hoteling Solution for an Efficient Workplace
A hoteling solution is a significant investment with multiple benefits. It simplifies desk booking and promotes convenience for employees and managers alike.
With WorkInSync office hoteling software, you get to enjoy benefits like uploading interactive floor plans, automated sanitization workflow, mobile app integration, and much more. You can also cut down on your real estate costs with our desk booking module.
Schedule a demo of the desk booking software and begin your journey to implementing a flexible workplace.