Your Ultimate Guide to Desk Booking Software
Your Ultimate Guide to Desk Booking Software
The only actionable guide to desk management you need
Fostering an inclusive and productive workplace
Creating a great collaborative experience for employees
Ensure that staff wellness is paramount
To ensure that they achieve optimum productivity
Understanding and maximizing the utilization of their desk real estate
Facilitate a robust and supportive hot desk booking policy in the new world of hybrid working
Simplify the process for your agile workers to locate and book desks and collaborative workspaces
Create a wonderful digital employee experience
Maximize your valuable flexible workspace footprint better.
What’s changed in your workplace – and why do you need to upgrade your hot desking software?
To encourage your staff to return to the office and create a great employee experience, they need to know they won’t be hunting round for a desk when they get there. The answer? Hot desk booking via a mobile app
Your desking – like the rest of your flexible workspace – needs to reconfigure to meet your requirements as your workforce needs evolve. That requires dynamic understanding of space and how to relate occupancy data to real-time needs.
Hot desking software is now the seamless supporter of every aspect of working life, making the staff work journey easy at every step
Your hot desking staff need to identify when and where their colleagues are in the office, and book desks near them, using a colleague search facility built into the hot desking software enhances better interaction and better results
Encouraging wellbeing should be high on your agenda, for employee engagement and to promote great productivity and strong talent retention across your workforce
Empathic management and building trust are a must to enable success in the transformed workplace and encourage buy-in to any changes
What are your
challenges for hybrid and flexible working
With hybrid working now embedded in workplace culture, organizations are tackling challenges that range from encouraging their people to return to the office to promoting wellbeing, collaboration and productivity in a far more agile workplace.
This huge change is happening at pace and without a ‘road map’ – and one thing is for sure: there’s no one-size fits all strategy and each organization must create its own tailored strategy.
We see companies adopting a raft of different approaches and styles but most fit into the following
- 60/40 split or a variation of time spent in the office and remote locations
- Office based approach
- All remote based approach
- Split approach – between office and remote working determined by role or department.
- Decentralized approach moving to hubs outside of the cities to promote better access and retention
Gartner points out that workplace leaders seeking to satisfy talent attraction and hybrid experiences are now seeking fit-for-purpose applications that go beyond space management and resource scheduling solutions.
Application leaders should: “Provide focus to workplace experience application assessments by evaluating vendor offerings against key moments that matter on hybrid employee journeys.”
Source: Gartner ®, 2022. “Demand to support hybrid employee experience is driving a transformation of the workplace markets.”
In order to succeed, workplace leaders need to build a workplace ecosystem that includes the way workspace – including hot desks – is configured, the technology that supports efficient operations, and the excellent employee engagement techniques ensures staff buy-in.
This holistic approach to space management creates a connected workplace with flexibility to respond to your organization’s evolving needs and provides the strategic and operational underpinning to make it work.
When fully integrated with the other elements of the connected workplace – access control, wayfinding, desk screens, occupancy sensors with occupancy analytics, and digital signage – it creates the kind of great employee experience in the workplace that makes it the place to be.
What are your
challenges for hybrid and flexible working
With hybrid working now embedded in workplace culture, organizations are tackling challenges that range from encouraging their people to return to the office to promoting wellbeing, collaboration and productivity in a far more agile workplace.
This huge change is happening at pace and without a ‘road map’ – and one thing is for sure: there’s no one-size fits all strategy and each organization must create its own tailored strategy.
We see companies adopting a raft of different approaches and styles but most fit into the following
- 60/40 split or a variation of time spent in the office and remote locations
- Office based approach
- All remote based approach
- Split approach – between office and remote working determined by role or department.
- Decentralized approach moving to hubs outside of the cities to promote better access and retention
Gartner points out that workplace leaders seeking to satisfy talent attraction and hybrid experiences are now seeking fit-for-purpose applications that go beyond space management and resource scheduling solutions.
Application leaders should: “Provide focus to workplace experience application assessments by evaluating vendor offerings against key moments that matter on hybrid employee journeys.”
Source: Gartner ®, 2022. “Demand to support hybrid employee experience is driving a transformation of the workplace markets.”
In order to succeed, workplace leaders need to build a workplace ecosystem that includes the way workspace – including hot desks – is configured, the technology that supports efficient operations, and the excellent employee engagement techniques ensures staff buy-in.
This holistic approach to space management creates a connected workplace with flexibility to respond to your organization’s evolving needs and provides the strategic and operational underpinning to make it work.
When fully integrated with the other elements of the connected workplace – access control, wayfinding, desk screens, occupancy sensors with occupancy analytics, and digital signage – it creates the kind of great employee experience in the workplace that makes it the place to be.
What is desk booking software?
In a nutshell a desk booking software solution is dedicated to making it easier to manage desks and collaborative workspaces.
The challenges it addresses are:
- Providing a desk for staff when they need it
- Creating an orderly process for hot desk booking – not a free for all!
- Saving time – workers check in/out in seconds
- Enabling staff to effectively collaborate
- Reducing expensive desk “no-shows” and “ghost bookings”
- Ensuring maximum desk occupancy and optimized desk ratios
- Maximizing return on your real estate investment
- Providing actionable data for future real estate decisions and configurations
- Reducing frustrations of never being able to find the right space/desk
Creating the perfect employee
experience – every day
Lee opens up a mobile app and uses the easy-to-view graphical floorplan to see when the necessary colleagues will be in the office, and where they will be.
Lee books a desk close to them; they might also have booked an informal collaboration space or meeting room for the time they need it.
The desk reservation system sends Lee a QR code, which can be used to check into the building contact-free.
Lee finds the right desk via integrated wayfinder technology and is checked into the space automatically on arrival. If Lee does not arrive as planned, the desk reservation system will allow someone else to book the space.
Lee’s team is able to arrive, find their desks, and start working together without delay. They have also organized a video conference with further remote members in multiple locations, using the meeting room booking system via the same mobile app, and have added services they need such as catering and equipment in a few clicks.
After a satisfying day’s work and collaboration, Lee leaves the booked desk and is automatically checked out by the desk screen.
Your checklist to select the
right desk booking software
- Gain valuable insight for planning with data and analysis from your desk booking system and up-to-date occupancy analysis
- Create a great digital working experience using a toolset where staff can book hot desking for office visits
- Look for a people centric solution for a digital and physical experience
- Develop a workplace ecosystem that underpins both desk hoteling strategy and operations and creates flexibility
- Remove silos by integrating your desk reservation software with signage, desk screens, Outlook, Teams and Zoom
- Tackle hybrid working challenges eg ‘are my colleagues in the office?’
- Encourage staff take-up of the technology with employee engagement techniques including good communications that demonstrate the benefits
- Prioritize staff wellness through the use of technology, collaboration and culture
- Understand the audience, what does your user base look like, differing age groups and dynamics within the business will need differing agile arrangements
- Encourage great teamworking and a positive employee experience by enabling the set-up of collaboration hubs and neighbourhoods
How desk booking software
creates a great office visit
experience for your staff
Working together in the office creates a huge range of benefits including networking, opportunities for creativity, teambuilding and healthy social engagement – and as many know, it can be fun! So, you don’t want those benefits to be wiped out by a frustrating search for appropriate workspace.
Desk booking software makes every office visit experience a great one with:
Using an app on their mobile device, your people can secure the perfect hot desk before they begin their journey in
If they need to work closely with colleagues, they can locate them via the graphical floorplan and book a desk near them
The desk booking system sends them a QR code when they book that automatically checks them in when they walk up to the desk – or they can press a button on the app
The desk booking system puts them back into availability if no-one checks in as booked
Fixed desks can be repurposed for temporary hot desking when the users are away so they don’t stand empty
Not every visit to the office requires a full day; the desk reservation system enables staff to book flexible workspace by the hour or by the half day
What challenges does an
integrated desk reservation
system overcome?
Your staff know they can locate and book the hot desking space they need quickly and easily via a mobile app with a graphical floorplan so they can see where colleagues are working.
Meeting room management software makes it easy to organize an efficient meeting, using a mobile meeting room booking app to locate and reserve meeting space and book facilities such as video conferencing, AV or catering.
A desk booking system with an open API can connect seamlessly to other digital platforms including signage, Outlook and Teams is critical to your success
Accurate data on how space is being used utilized is invaluable when it comes to planning decisions such as reconfiguring space for hot desking. Occupancy sensors integrated with your workplace management system provide real-time availability views and occupancy analysis capability.
A desk booking system helps create the conditions where collaboration can thrive by keeping staff who return to the office in touch with the movements of their team and enabling opportunities for developing collaboration neighbourhoods.
Workspace management technology underpins the new holistic culture of the flexible workplace, where IT, HR and management work hand in hand to create a great experience for workers.
How integration drives optimum space management and planning
In the typical workday situation we’ve just described, the workplace management system is constantly capturing real-time information and providing occupancy analysis showing how Lee and colleagues are using the space.
The fully-integrated system uses an open API to create a connected workplace with technologies such as digital signage for wayfinding, occupancy sensors for real-time usage data and desk screens for automated check in and out. It also integrates with room panels so meeting attendees can extend the duration of the meeting or order extra catering without leaving the room.
Thanks to the capturing and analysis of this valuable data, workplace leaders can analyse usage and make well-supported space management and planning decisions. For instance, an under-used formal meeting room might be reconfigured for less formal gatherings, or entirely repurposed as an area for much-needed hot desking.
Looking forward, the information gathered can drive the entire workspace strategy of an organization in a direction that can save costs, promote collaboration and productivity and encourage staff wellbeing. Because workplace leaders don’t just think they know what the staff want and need – they know it.
How integration drives optimum space management and planning
In the typical workday situation we’ve just described, the workplace management system is constantly capturing real-time information and providing occupancy analysis showing how Lee and colleagues are using the space.
The fully-integrated system uses an open API to create a connected workplace with technologies such as digital signage for wayfinding, occupancy sensors for real-time usage data and desk screens for automated check in and out. It also integrates with room panels so meeting attendees can extend the duration of the meeting or order extra catering without leaving the room.
Thanks to the capturing and analysis of this valuable data, workplace leaders can analyse usage and make well-supported space management and planning decisions. For instance, an under-used formal meeting room might be reconfigured for less formal gatherings, or entirely repurposed as an area for much-needed hot desking.
Looking forward, the information gathered can drive the entire workspace strategy of an organization in a direction that can save costs, promote collaboration and productivity and encourage staff wellbeing. Because workplace leaders don’t just think they know what the staff want and need – they know it.
What good outcomes look like – case studies
organization of over
10,000 desks
A large US financial with more than 10,000 desks chose to use Rendezvous for hot desking and desk screens, with customization of the mobile app and QR codes.
A large US financial with more than 10,000 desks chose to use Rendezvous for hot desking and desk screens, with customization of the mobile app and QR codes.
organization of over
10,000 desks
to create a great
employee experience
Leading law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner selected Rendezvous for their workspace management, using the mobile app and occupancy sensors. They were so impressed with the results they are now moving forward with the Employee Experience app.
technology deployment
International law firm Simmons & Simmons needed cutting edge workspace management technology with a fast deployment model. We delivered – in their words – an exceptional experience.
International law firm Simmons & Simmons needed cutting edge workspace management technology with a fast deployment model. We delivered – in their words – an exceptional experience.
technology deployment
The 4 steps you need to take now for better desk hoteling in your workplace
It’s time to rethink your hot desking strategy. What level of desking do you need to comfortably accommodate your remote workers on office visits and provide them with a great experience? Are they able to find desks close to those with whom they want to collaborate? Do you need to reconfigure some seldom-used formal meeting space for hot desking?
It’s time to rethink your hot desking strategy. What level of desking do you need to comfortably accommodate your remote workers on office visits and provide them with a great experience? Are they able to find desks close to those with whom they want to collaborate? Do you need to reconfigure some seldom-used formal meeting space for hot desking?
Implement desk reservation software to help your staff make quick desk bookings via an app on their mobile device. As part of your workspace management ecosystem, it also makes organizing a meeting simple, even across time zones and multiple locations.
Choose an open API office hoteling system that integrates seamlessly with your existing hardware and software platforms. Along with your meeting room management software. it should be he heart of an ecosystem that supports your entire operation.
Choose an open API office hoteling system that integrates seamlessly with your existing hardware and software platforms. Along with your meeting room management software. it should be he heart of an ecosystem that supports your entire operation.
When encouraging staff to return to the office, you can’t overestimate the safety value of contactless check-in and out of your offices, meeting rooms and hot desks. It’s also extremely convenient when it comes to welcoming pre-screened visitors to the office who have a QR code to access the office, meeting room or hot desk – the codes integrate with sensors that automatically keep occupancy your data up to the date.
Choosing the desk booking software that’s right for you
The culture, operations and priorities of every workforce are different, and the desk booking software you choose needs to be able to fulfil and exceed their specific needs and expectations.
So, getting your choice of desk booking software right is a big deal…you need to seek out a supplier who:
- Takes a consultative approach: You require a supplier like NFS with consultants who understand the results that you want from your workspace reservation system – and who works tirelessly with you to deliver them.
- Has a strong track record: Seek out a supplier with a strong clientele. With more than 1800 clients worldwide and many long-lasting working relationships, NFS – a Microsoft Gold partner – is the perfect technology partner.
- Continually develops its offering: Workplace transformation is going to continue, and the best suppliers are keeping pace with evolving demands by developing their products and services – such as Rendezvous Workspace.
- Provides good ROI: Every organization needs great ROI from their hot desking software, and with a choice of hosted Cloud-based or on-premise technology and a variety of purchase and hire arrangements available, NFS enables rapid benefits.
- Provides robust support: You rely on your workplace ecosystem, so you need good technical support if any problems do occur. Ensure the supplier has a 24/7 helpdesk, such as the one staffed by NFS experts.
Driving a great employee experience
It’s a new world in your flexible workplace – and the way your workers feel about it is also very different.
No-one quite knows how the situation will develop, but one thing is for certain – the insight and data provided by workplace management technology provide workplace leaders with the ability to judge developments and make the best planning decisions for their staff and their organization.
The emphasis now is on providing an excellent experience in the office that will make staff eager to return to the office, with all the benefits of human engagement, sparking ideas and building teams.
Easy-to-use hot desking software and meeting room booking technology puts the power in the hands of agile workers – and gives leaders the tools they need to create a happy working environment that benefits staff and the organization on both daily and strategic levels.
Driving a great employee experience
It’s a new world in your flexible workplace – and the way your workers feel about it is also very different.
No-one quite knows how the situation will develop, but one thing is for certain – the insight and data provided by workplace management technology provide workplace leaders with the ability to judge developments and make the best planning decisions for their staff and their organization.
The emphasis now is on providing an excellent experience in the office that will make staff eager to return to the office, with all the benefits of human engagement, sparking ideas and building teams.
Easy-to-use hot desking software and meeting room booking technology puts the power in the hands of agile workers – and gives leaders the tools they need to create a happy working environment that benefits staff and the organization on both daily and strategic levels.
Want to discover more about desk booking software?
Dip into the NFS resource library, where you will find blogs and videos including:
Rendezvous Overview | Hybrid Video | Data Video | Hybrid Collaboration Video
Talk to our NFS experts about what Rendezvous meeting room management software can do for your organization.