3 August 2011
Have you ever walked around your offices and counted the number of empty seats?
How about empty meeting rooms? Does this sound like the activity of someone with far too much time on his or her hands?
If you’ve answered yes to the last question then I’m afraid you’re wrong, it’s the activity of someone who’s concerned they’ve got too much space on their hands.
I’m confident that if you take that stroll past your meeting rooms over the next week at different times of day, and record their usage, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised. Meeting rooms at certain times of day contain more eerie silences than a ghost ride. And if various news stories are to be believed, come the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics the office population will probably shrink further. Many major businesses (32% according to Deloitte’s research) are introducing flexible working hours or work from home policies to allow staff to watch some of the Games, or if the company is London-based, at least to avoid the predicted travel chaos.
There is a solution in the form of space booking software; ideally in combination with a full workspace efficiency audit, to assess overall office space usage and the popularity of each meeting room and its respective features and technologies.
At a time when companies are searching for ways to save money, cutting the amount of office space you actually require can deliver some immediate savings. And we’ve got energy targets to satisfy and energy bills to pay too, so the ability to link space booking software to Passive Infrared sensor (PIR) detectors and building management systems offers the potential to slash energy bills by heating and lighting certain areas only when strictly needed.
So, increased productivity, reduced overheads, reduced energy use and genuine fairness in the office. Probably time you took one of the most financially beneficial saunters around your office you’ve ever taken.
Matthew Wailing is a consultancy director at Cordless Consultants.
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