In 2022, the way organizations think about space management has changed drastically. Today, companies are adopting flexible work models as employees return to work. If your company is like most, realty expenditure must be your second-largest expense—and one of your biggest opportunities for cost reduction.
The only way facility managers can do that is by improving the organization’s space utilization. Instead of focusing only on reducing costs, space management strategies nowadays can accommodate many things, like enhancing the employee experience, bettering collaboration, etc.
However, to do that, enterprises must first have insights into how their meeting rooms, other common spaces, office buildings, and other facilities are used by employees. This necessitates the use of space management software.
What Is Space Management and Space Management Software?
Space management ties together multiple business metrics. It is a way to monitor and optimize the workspaces and amenities employees need to work. Controlling overhead costs, as well as monitoring, measuring, and optimizing your company’s physical space, are all benefits of space management.
With so many important outcomes linked to how a company manages its space, understanding the cascading benefits of workplace management software is even more important today.
Facility managers can use space management software to plan out, design, and govern their available square footage. Different applications’ functionality can differ in this area. The goal of space management software is to assist employees in finding, designing, arranging, and integrating available workspaces based on their needs and desires. Facility managers can tick the following off their to-do lists when configuring office space with space management software:
- Creating floor plans
- Planning stacks and allocating assets
- Devising seating patterns
Space management software, when used efficiently, enables organizations to maximize space utilization as it offers the most productive configuration for employees. It provides opportunities for better spatial design, cost-cutting, maintenance, and space tracking.
The best part is that the space management software grows with your business. Yes, of course! It can accommodate a wide range of work styles in areas of varying square feet.
So, in a nutshell, space management is a multi-step process requiring data gathering, analytics, forecasting, planning, strategizing, and optimizing. In practice, it involves deploying a space management solution, which helps identify floor layouts and occupants across your office premises. Space management software streamlines this practice and makes it easier to conduct effective space planning.
To meet the constantly evolving needs of today’s hybrid workplace, space management software goes beyond seating assignments, physical distancing protocols, and occupancy rates. Without strategies around how organizations plan to use the office space or a way to measure overall space utilization, facility managers will deal with a lot of wasted space.
According to a JLL bench, the average space utilization for corporate real estate prior to the pandemic was merely 60%.
However, stats from CBRE research show that 87% of companies plan to adopt a hybrid work setup. That means spatial planning and optimizing space utilization is a hot topic now more than ever. So, let’s take a look at the benefits of adopting space management software in today’s offices.
Benefits of Space Management Software
- Real-Time Space Utilization Data
According to studies, the average office has about 40% of its space vacant at any given moment. While you may assume you have a strong understanding of your building’s occupancy rates, you could be losing tens of thousands of dollars as a result of a lack of numbers. In this circumstance, using space management software to access real-time space utilization data can be advantageous.
Facility managers can use the data to make informed decisions about building utilities and maintenance. This way, organizations can also glance at your real estate portfolio. The space management software enables employers to look at both granular and the 10,000-foot view of their organization’s real estate.
- Custom Dashboards And Ease Of Reporting
If facilities teams need to compile space utilization data with space management software, the work is already done. The data is typically available in presentation-ready, shareable formats, making it easy to look at. Team leaders can also build customized dashboards their C-level team can view at any time.
Besides, facility managers still using spreadsheets to manage space must realize that the data is most likely out of data, and the files aren’t accessible for the team on the go.
- Forecasting And Planning
Now that facilities leads are monitoring space utilization trends, they can plan better for the company’s spatial mid and long-term expansion because they will have a far better grasp on how much area each person actually utilizes and how much additional space they need to accommodate using space management software.
- Locating Other Spaces or People
In hybrid work structures, employees hardly sit at their desks, and even if they do, the seating changes every now and then. Hence, when managers are trying to locate individuals, rooms, buildings, or assets, they can quickly pull up the schematics.
- Boosting The Workplace’s Functionality
It becomes easier to restructure workplace spaces as facilities staff optimize space efficiency and track which modifications have the greatest impact. They can present real-time space usage data to the C-suite to enable large-scale workplace re-designs or relocations.
- Easily Trackable Expenditures and Chargebacks
Since the space management software monitors space, organizations can get rid of chargeback disputes. Real-time, scalable data indicates clear-cut usage. Besides, some platforms even allow automatic reporting to bookkeeping daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
- Improving Employee Experience
The way people work and feel at the workplace is often governed by the room’s practicality. Are they able to easily track down people, request service, choose amenities, and make reservations for meetings and collaboration? Facility managers could get answers to these and other questions using space management software.
Choosing The Right Space Management Software
Space management software helps plan, optimize, and manage office space. The software equips facility managers with a comprehensive view of what’s happening in their space and how employees are utilizing the space. It also makes it easier for employees to navigate the office space.
So, when looking for an intuitive hybrid space management software, choose WorkInSync. It comes with features like hot-desking, contact tracing, room reservations, and real-time space allocations. The app is cloud-based and has a mobile app. You can opt for a demo to learn more about WorkInSYnc.
