Tag: Facilities Management

Quick Tips: How to Make Desk Sharing Work

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The concept of desk sharing can upset the balance of even the happiest workplace. Companies often believe their employees will clash over where, how, and when desks are used. Employees tend to fear the idea of a nomadic office, where they ultimately have no home. Both fears are valid, but easily addressed with the right desk-sharing setup.

Yanking the rug out from under employees with a desking shuffle is likely to create panic and chaos. Likewise, being too rigid about desk usage often eliminates the point of a shared desk arrangement. The approach needs to be somewhere in the middle—a happy medium between rigidity and office anarchy.

What is desk sharing?

Desk sharing’s definition is in its name. Instead of coming to work and walking to the same desk every day, employees can choose their workspace. There are many methods of execution. Some involve employees claiming a desk outright, while others rely on desk reservation systems.

Like most new-wave office concepts, the idea is to take employees out of their “silos” and encourage them to commingle homogeneously.

The motivation behind desk sharing is better space utilization and lower costs for the business. For employees, it’s meant to eliminate the droll, repetitious concept of doing the same thing every day. Desk sharing offers the flexibility both sides need to function better while promoting a positive, healthy workplace culture.

Desk sharing pros and cons

If the line between effective desk sharing at work and total workplace disruption is so thin, why chance it? Simple. The benefits of a successful desk-sharing arrangement far outweighs the negatives. Let’s put them in perspective.

Pros

  1. Saves space and lower space utilization costs
  2. Creates new collaboration opportunities among coworkers
  3. Improves workplace culture and employee wellbeing
  4. Helps attract and retain talent
  5. Increases business flexibility and worker agility
  6. Supports a flexible workforce (remote, part-time, contractor)
  7. Encourages a social workplace
  8. Incentivizes employees to be tidier and cleaner
  9. Levels the playing field in an office, creating equality

 

Cons

  1. Lacks personal, private space for employees
  2. Results in more disruptions to work
  3. Creates challenges for IT and support infrastructure
  4. Takes employees longer to get settled and working
  5. Promotes the formation of cliques and territories

 

Managed properly, the cons are easily minimized, managed, or eliminated altogether. There’s a tremendous incentive to make shared desking arrangements work.

How to make shared desks work

Making shared desks work isn’t a superhuman feat—it just relies on paying attention to the details. Here are a few tips for a proper transition to shared desks:

  1. Get buy-in from employees well before the changeover. Explain the benefits and field concerns in an open forum to foster positive sentiment.
  2. Actively address employee concerns beyond listening to them. Target pain points with innovative solutions and present them to employees. Responsible oversight can make the change easier.
  3. Determine the number of shared desks you’ll need, then budget for more. Consider the number of employees, the shifts they work, and other variables that affect occupancy. It may seem counterintuitive to cost-cutting, but extra desks ensure everyone has one during peak times.
  4. Create rules and guidelines to cover shared desk etiquette. This can stop bad habits and friction-inducing problems before they manifest. It’s also a great way to set the tone for what employees can expect from their new desking arrangement.
  5. Make the change gradual. Up-ending your entire office in a week won’t allow employees to transition or adapt. Delegate a set number of desks to convert over a period of time and lean into the transition. It’s less abrupt and gives employees time to get familiar.
  6. Create a variety of desk types and locations, as well as supplemental workspaces outside of shared desks. Employees shouldn’t feel boxed in by a lack of space. Provide options to improve utilization rates.
  7. Delegate authority to an office manager or facility manager. Creating a central authority for disputes and questions gives employees the comfort of having a final word on any uncertainties that may arise.
  8. Create a funnel for feedback about the shared desking arrangement. What do employees like or dislike? What isn’t meeting their needs or expectations? How could the arrangement be improved? Make the arrangement an ongoing forum.

 

These tips can help you avoid everything from workplace friction to the outright rejection of shared desks by your workforce. However, remain cognizant of how your workforce adjusts and adapts to shared desks. Keeping this arrangement successful depends on meeting ongoing challenges as they arise.

Avoid the pitfalls of desk sharing

The pitfalls of shared desks are few, but critical. Poorly executed shared desks can topple major pillars of your workplace—productivity, culture, and comfort. Proper execution is key. Ongoing adaptation is another. Consistent employee sentiment and recognition of relevant trends are the others. Together, they make shared desking work

Shared desking is a proven, positive workplace arrangement that offers measurable benefits. To capitalize on it, make sure you’re laying the right foundation and avoiding some of the common pitfalls that can sink this concept before it has a chance to return value.

By Tamara Sheehan
Director of Business Management
SpaceIQ

About IMS Consulting

For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of Archibus- related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced Archibus-certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of Archibus, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. Archibus is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Identifying Facilities Management Goals and Objectives

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Facility management has always been critical to overall organizational success because of how it impacts key performance metrics like growth, productivity, and the bottom line. But as the landscape has changed, so has the process of identifying facility management goals and objectives. 

Traditionally, facility managers have acted more as space planners and workspace governors. But the rise of the hybrid office is just one of the many new workplace trends reshaping not only how we work but also where we work. Now, facilities managers need to set strategic goals using data and analytics from workplace management platforms and enterprise asset management solutions. They need to think about how to manage preventive maintenance for better asset management while finding new ways to support productivity by keeping a close eye on the overall employee experience. It’s a juggling act, with demands related to keeping people working and assets and equipment in working order. 

With their collections of always-connected, sometimes competing demands, facility managers need to carefully identify facility management goals and objectives before setting up the processes and procedures that help them get there. 

The Role of Facilities in goal setting

There are three types of facility management goals: those supporting the company, those supporting employees, and those inherent to the facilities themselves. It might be easier to understand these goals in a big upside-down funnel, with broad support at the top and specifics at the bottom. What ties all these goals together is the importance of the facilities, the facility manager, and the need for efficient facility management. 

Take a broad goal, for example, such as growing company revenue from $1M to $2M in 2023. Many different variables go into this objective, each playing a role in its ultimate success — facilities included. Because there are so many factors, the weight of the goal is evenly distributed. Marketing has to market more effectively. Sales have to sell better. Facilities need to support employees. Across departments, a lot of different teams and people play a part. 

With a goal like implementing a digital conference room booking system, there are only a few factors, because the focus is narrower. It’s a facility-specific goal, so it might only mostly involve the IT department. 

But in both examples, and in fact, with all goals, the facilities matter, and it’s up to the facility manager to ensure facility management plays a part in all strategic initiatives, regardless of scale. 

Facility goals that tie into company-wide objectives 

Broad goals are connected to the entire company, including: 

  • Top or bottom-line growth 
  • Branding and culture initiatives 
  • Product or service developments 

These goals touch every segment of the business in some form or another, which means they also involve the facilities. 

When it comes to broad goals, the objectives for facilities management tend to be passive. The workplace serves a supporting role — the foundation for all contributors to the goal. It’s about preventing burnout and promoting comfort at work. Ensuring employees have the right workspaces and amenities to do their best work. Streamlining daily operations to conserve time, money, and effort. Bringing this stability to the workplace provides sound backing for company-wide success.  

For example, that could cover keeping the offices safe with visitor management. Or keeping the employee experience positive with seamless desk booking. And keeping the workspace cool in the summer and warm in the winter with dependable HVAC. 

Facility goals with an employee focus

Because employees directly interact with their workplace, intermediary goals generally involve facilities to a greater degree. One affects the other. Rearranging the stack plan or moving to a new building. Hiring, promoting, or parting with talent. Installing new workplace processes or practices. To see these objectives succeed, facility managers need to draw a line that connects facilities and people in a positive way. For the last few years, though, the line of connection between employees and workplaces has been increasingly challenging to draw.  

Straight lines are out, and there’s a lot of looping back and forth with the increase in remote workers and the rise of the hybrid office. In the past, you had a steady number of people coming into the office five days a week. Now, you might only have surges on certain days, leaving a lot of the space empty when employees work from home. The new trend is for most to stay away Mondays and Fridays, with a build-up that starts Tuesday, peaks Wednesday, and then starts to fall on Thursday. And it’s not people coming in to sit at their desks and work alone. Employees are coming in for face-to-face meetings, driving up demand for larger spaces in the middle of the week. 

In most cases, facility managers need to consider employee interaction with the workplace and how facilities support employees. How can workplace changes improve productivity? Enable better collaboration? Reduce friction? It can be everything from implementing room booking software to making sure there are extra snacks in the break room mid-week. Changes may be significant, but they’re also purposeful. If you’re rearranging three departments over four floors, the outcome needs to achieve a specific goal that benefits employees in a meaningful way. 

Facility objectives for smaller, more targeted initiatives 

The narrower goals of FM support the facilities themselves. Employees may benefit and reaching these goals might contribute to broader business success, but the driving factor is facility-specific improvement.  

Some of the facility goals are more project-based while others are part of long-term efforts. So, you might have a project to: 

In all these cases, there’s a set start and end date, with a clear objective. If you’re improving an area by adding better blinds so people can see their screens without worrying about the midday sun, you have one specific date for the installation. After that, you can move on to the next project.     

But for long-term, ongoing efforts, you could look at reducing energy expenditures or tracking and improving on maintenance technician goals, for example: 

  • Maintenance backlog times 
  • Number of work orders closed 
  • Equipment costs 
  • Equipment downtime 
  • Preventive maintenance efficiency  

For both project and ongoing goals, you can think of them as facility-focused, mainly or in large part the responsibility of facility managers. Consider them a reinvestment in facilities that support the intermediary and broad goals listed above. Their focus is specific, but the outcome is likely to be far-reaching, even if it’s a bit harder to see. When you have less equipment downtime, even on something as small and simple as the break room coffee machine, employees don’t waste time standing around. They’re fully caffeinated and back on task quickly.    

Always factor in facilities

Facilities have gone from a line item on the balance sheet to a key instrument for goal-setting and objective planning. Facility managers aren’t just masters of space planning and allocation — they’re contributors to growth and optimization strategies. These strategies take place at every operational level — from mission-critical goals to everyday workplace improvements. Wherever it’s involved — and it’s always involved — the workplace is a critical part of overall success. 

Article reposted from SpaceIQ.com

About IMS Consulting

For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of Archibus- related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced Archibus-certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of Archibus, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. Archibus is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

The Next Normal in a Post-Pandemic Workspace

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Whether your office has already partially returned to work or you’re planning a workplace reentry, one thing is certain—things may never be the same. Safe facility management during an unprecedented pandemic requires a high level of planning and precaution. The measures you implement should increase employee productivity, promote workplace trust, and most importantly, keep employees and customers safe.

Rule and Regulation Compliance

It’s not always easy to keep up with new regulations, especially with constantly changing guidelines. Regardless, the first priority is employee safety. In most nations, employers are encouraged to provide a safe working environment. Physical safety should be a constant for all employees, but some may tolerate risk better than others. It’s wise to consider your most vulnerable employees when creating a return-to-work plan, but determine strategies with everyone in mind.

Second, keep employees informed of changes and guidelines. Assign staff to monitor local conditions and guidelines, then share updates on a consistent schedule. Keep a global perspective and adjust plans as needed to comply with local requirements.

Third, align business priorities with global realities. Inspect your building for potential hazards and determine remediation costs. Be willing to remodel, reconfigure, or rearrange everything including work schedules, walls, and seating arrangements.

Masking, Sanitation, and Social Distancing

Most official guidelines center on three principles—masking, sanitation, and social distancing. Depending on your industry, some guidelines may present more of a challenge than others. Restrictions will change as the coronavirus threat diminishes or increases, so keep long-term needs in mind when investing in safety equipment.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements can vary depending on the role. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to PPE. Some employees may not be able to wear masks. Others may need to avoid the workplace altogether, such as employees with asthma or other respiratory conditions.

Employees want clean workplaces, even more so now under COVID-19. Make sanitation a priority by setting up hygiene stations with hand sanitizer, soap, gloves, and disinfecting wipes. The typical weekly office cleanings may not be enough. Consider hiring extra cleaning staff to more frequently clean bathrooms, break areas, and shared spaces like conference rooms and lounges.

PPE isn’t limited to individual employees. Plexiglass shields provide an additional layer of protection around pinch points where social distancing may be a challenge, such as reception areas, entrances and exits, and payment areas. Posted policies and directional signage are great visual reminders for customers and employees to abide by your workplace precautions.

Other measures such as UV lights and thermal scanners are options for combating COVID-19 but should be part of an overall workplace health and safety strategy. It’s wise to check with locally, regionally, and country-specific requirements to determine what’s feasible for your team to manage.

Technology and Real Estate Optimization

For most workplaces, safety decisions center around official guidelines. Maintaining six feet of distance helps protect people from breathing in infected air particles. However, this is easier said than done for many businesses.

Social distance guidelines vary by country and region. In the U.S., 6 feet is the standard; the World Health Organization recommends 1 meter. Social distancing may reduce workplace capacity, depending on your current seating configuration, plan density, desk sharing, and other factors. The potential for space loss raises some interesting options:

  • Should some individuals work remotely forever? Can we stagger work schedules? Do we need to let some staff go?
  • Should we purchase or rent additional office space or retrofit the space we have? Should we consider moving? Should we renegotiate the terms of our lease?
  • How can we prepare our workplace for future emergencies?

During the pandemic, many business leaders are leveraging real estate planning software to visualize coronavirus-related changes to seating arrangements, staff schedules, and office remodeling before committing time and money to wholesale changes. For example, hoteling software helps maximize seating efficiency using dynamic data such as HR information and floor maps.

Business owners can require that employees reserve a hotel desk prior to coming to work and show the reservation before they’re allowed to enter. After someone uses the hotel desk, facility management can be notified that the area must be cleaned and sanitized before another reservation can be made.

The Next Normal is Now

Reopening your workplace can be difficult. Regulations are constantly changing and there’s no saying when COVID-19 will ease. The post-pandemic “next normal” requires flexibility and adaptability. Desks, rooms, and entire floors may not function the same way. Previous policies for remote work, sick leave, and work schedules may need to be reevaluated in the new work environment.

You can’t foresee every situation, but you can be flexible in establishing your new normal. Employees will appreciate your efforts as they return to their former—though newly arranged—workspaces.

By Nai Kanell
Vice President of Marketing
SpaceIQ

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of Archibus- related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced Archibus certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of Archibus, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. Archibus is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Facility Management KPI Examples

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Did we meet our monthly sales goal last month? Is our current ad campaign generating expected engagement? How long do customers spend on hold before we pick up and answer their questions? We track and measure success and failure in the workplace through Key Performance Indicators (KPI). KPIs help develop real goals and meaningful steps to achieve them, and they’re essential in every segment of the business.

Below, we’ll dive into some facility management KPI examples that identify opportunities for workplace success. But first, let’s take a closer look at KPIs themselves and why they’re so integral.

What are KPIs and why track them?

KPIs are like a roadmap that tells us if we’re on track or off-course, or if our goals are even feasible. They’re an important metric across every business unit, from sales to marketing, to facilities management. KPIs show how short Sales are from their monthly revenue goal. They set the precedent for how many media impressions Marketing will get from its newest ad campaign. KPIs even apply at a personal level and can show Max how far ahead he is on a specific project.

KPIs focus on the most important aspects of business for a particular group or individual. You’re not going to track sales revenue for your Marketing team because they’re not the ones selling, just like you wouldn’t track average wait time for your Sales department—that’s a Customer Service metric. Identify and track KPIs that are relevant to each business unit to understand how well that business unit is performing.

Usually, departmental KPIs are narrow-focused on explicit goals set for that team. Facility management KPIs are a bit broader and span both people and the building itself, but they’re nonetheless important to track. Here are some sample KPIs for facilities managers that touch both realms.

People-focused KPIs

Facility manager primary KPIs focus on how people interact with the workplace. The primary goal of the workplace is to support the workforce, so it only makes sense! People-focused KPIs look at space occupancy and availability, how happy and/or satisfied employees are, and workforce allocation. Some of the most important KPIs to track include:

    1. Space occupancy rates
    2. Desk availability
    3. NET Promoter Score
    4. Workforce distribution

 

Uptrends on these KPIs indicate that the workplace is functioning as it should. People are happy, they have the right workspaces available to them, and they’re doing work in a productive way. KPIs trending down in this area indicate the workplace doesn’t meet the needs of the people in it. They’re not able to work efficiently or productively, and they’re dissatisfied with the workplace—or worse, the company itself.

Building-focused KPIs

On the flip side of facility management, KPIs are building-facing metrics. These KPIs look specifically at the building as an investment. Is it generating positive returns? How does the building serve the needs of the business as an asset? These KPIs track costs, building performance, and maintenance of the investment. Some of the most common include:

    1. Work order fulfillment times
    2. HVAC and energy costs
    3. Total facilities costs
    4. Equipment downtime

 

Facility managers need to track these metrics with the intent to continuously improve them. Ask yourself, how does the business benefit from a reduction in equipment downtime? Where can you reallocate bottom-line savings to generate better ROI for the top line? Building-focused KPIs tell facility managers what they need to know about the performance of the building as a physical investment.

Use KPIs to set actionable goals

Facility management KPIs represent the aspects of the job that matter most—those with the biggest impact on the workplace and the people in it. It’s not enough to just measure them; you also need to improve upon them. For example:

Right now, 23% of employees are remote. We want to increase this to 45% over the next 12 months while accounting for new job growth in that time. 

Over the last six months, the average response time for routine building repairs and maintenance was three days. We want this to be two or fewer days in Q3 and beyond.

KPIs don’t force a solution—they connect the dots between data and strategy, providing one to facilitate the other. You might buy coworking memberships for the employees you intend to transition to remote work, or staff another person to the maintenance department to expedite work order fulfillment. It’s not how you improve your KPIs, so much as that you continue to hold yourself to them.

The more you know, the more you grow

KPIs are a drilled-down way to look at fundamental aspects of the business—the ones important to its success. Tracking facility management KPIs is the simplest way to hold the workplace to its highest standards, to facilitate success within it. There are infinite ways to reach your goals and meet your metrics, and what matters is that you hold yourself to these standards.

KPIs will tell you when you fall short of the ideal and where there’s room for improvement. Pay attention to them!

By Reagan Nickl
Director of Professional Services
SpaceIQ

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of Archibus- related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced Archibus certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of Archibus, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. Archibus is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Archibus OnSite On-Demand Webinar

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Archibus OnSite is a cloud-based SaaS CMMS that provides preventive and reactive maintenance, asset and compliance management.

Join us to learn how Archibus OnSite takes a holistic approach to facilities management, connecting asset, compliance, and maintenance management with an intuitive mobile app for managing work, and floor plans and maps for locating and planning work.

 

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Hybrid and Smart: Building the Workplaces of the Future

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Now, perhaps more than ever, employers are seeking to enhance their approach to the workplace experience. They are embracing new trends, such as hybrid structures and smart buildings, to create what we like to call “digital workplace euphoria.”

Euphoria may seem like hyperbole, but happy employees make for successful businesses. We’re not talking about amenities like ping pong tables, free Friday lunches, and in-office theaters. The goal of a euphoric workplace is to transform barely there connected offices to intelligent, autonomous ecosystems that empower employees to their most productive and efficient while maintaining healthy work-life balances.

Research indicates that we are seeing much more of a radical change among companies reacting to the workplace trends. Leaders in companies may not respond to every human or occupant need, but certainly, they are reacting to create a more automated workplace for agile teams. One part of the “why” for proactive movement toward hybrid agile is the long-term impact on business.

Smart BuildingsMany companies are going through significant financial losses due to COVID-19. How companies navigate digital disruption will likely affect their revenues and future operations. During the crisis of the companies who saw a 25% growth in the revenues 72% were first to experiment with new technologies. As well, 67% of those companies invested more in digital-related expenditures, according to a 2020 report by McKinsey. The companies that had not taken steps are electing to embrace the productivity associated with remote work to help them recoup those costs of not doing so in the past.

Certain financial dependencies, like expiring office leases and stakeholder pressures, are pushing companies to make an immediate decision on how to proceed with digital based investments to create work environments conducive to agile work, from anywhere. According to a Gartner survey, 38% of tech, media, and telecom business leaders (and 26% of leaders across all represented industries) reported plans to reduce their real estate footprint by, for example, closing retail locations. Gartner also reported that 74% of CFOs and finance leaders at least 5% of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions after COVID-19.

Why Companies Choose to Go Hybrid

Remote and hybrid work is not new, but it certainly hasn’t been as widespread as it is now. According to a Microsoft report, some professions have been trending toward remote work since the oil crisis of the 1970s that resulted in substantially higher commuting and automotive costs. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drove a “profound increase in the magnitude and speed of the shift toward remote work, with 88% of organizations from around the world surveyed in March [2020] reporting that they were encouraging employees to work from home,” the report noted. More than a third of U.S. workers transitioned to remote or hybrid work between March and April 2020 alone.

Aside from the long-term impact on fiscal reports, this mass transition away from the confines of a 9-to-5 physical office is the other part of the “why” for companies looking to improve three key facets of the digital workplace: people, space, and technology.

The Workplace Mantra: People, Space, and Technology

Creating an environment for employees – or an investor’s case, tenants – that elicits a sense of euphoria is challenging but not impossible. How are companies tackling the digital workplace? There are three elements of an optimized workplace that one should consider.

The first starts with people. People form the community within an organization that will serve as the litmus test for successful digital workplace implementation.

The second element is technology, which acts as the catalyst for change and encompasses each tier of the Smart Building Maturity Model. Most buildings fall somewhere in between the connected and intelligent spaces of the model. From the Internet of Things (IoT) to artificial intelligence (AI), the infrastructure created by technology ultimately makes up the third element of an enhanced workplace: space.

Space doesn’t always refer to a physical location; it relates to the context in which people are working. Space can mean a geographically distributed footprint, flexible hoteling and co-working spaces within your organization, or a scalable real estate portfolio that allows you to set your physical and virtual space settings in a manner that best suits your internal method of operating.

Georgia-Pacific (GP) is one company that has fully embraced all three spheres of the optimized workplace, and by the way is one of the companies that experimented with digital based agile work long before the COVID-19 crisis. The Atlanta-based maker of paper, packaging, building products, and related chemicals resides in an iconic office tower. In the first major renovation since the company occupied the tower in 1982, GP aimed to achieve “optimal integration, functionality, cost and efficiency among the various systems throughout each floor – lighting, HVAC, audio-visual and room scheduling systems,” according to a company press release. The digital building transformation included an Internet of Things (IoT) foundation that resulted in economically feasible, purposeful automation carefully constructed for GP’s user base.

GP reported that the building uses “bio-dynamic (circadian) lighting in the office and collaboration areas, driven by network-connected lighting management. [GP] will respond to peak electrical demands by adjusting building systems. The interconnected system allows the company to collect accurate, real-time data to understand how the space is used, improve employee productivity and satisfaction, and increase real estate investment.”

Along with commercial offices, hospitality and education are two other industries that are exceptionally receptive to similar methods of in-house automation. Fortunately, platforms offered by companies like SpaceIQ offer businesses of all sizes and types of options to create digital workplaces that support agility and flexibility.

Hybrid Strategies for Working “Smart” and Hard

For many companies, leveraging hybrid strategies starts with creating smart buildings and workplaces.

Smart building(s) – both as a verb and a noun – is a partner of hybrid workplaces at the heart of the “next normal” regarding the future of work. Over the last year, companies worldwide have experienced a rapid shift to long-term hybrid and/or remote environments. From Human Resources (HR) to Information Technology (IT) to Marketing and beyond, the functional teams within these organizations are being driven to review their existing work practices and confirm that they align with employees’ current needs.

For some companies, this process may feel like an uncertain scramble – but it shouldn’t.

This moment presents an opportunity for organizations to revise their digital framework and create an even better workplace experience – one that encourages a positive return-to-office transition after a yearlong hiatus or, for remote and hybrid workers, a structure that compels them to engage virtually. Smart building is critical for both employees and executives to tap into the human side of work and reach peak satisfaction in the process of doing so.

As a company specializing in “smart building,” Cognitive Corp is at the forefront of researching and analyzing workplace trends and technologies that impact commercial real estate (CRE) teams.

So, what do we mean by “smart building?” In a word, automation.

Smart building implies that a company has a built-in infrastructure to automate as many day-to-day and long-term tasks as possible. Infrastructure can include IT and networks, HVAC, lighting, time-tracking, scheduling, and anything in between that has a digital footprint.

A key strategy is to distribute the levels of automation and smart building into four tiers on a visual pyramid called the Smart Building Maturity Model. This model helps companies prioritize based on current needs and future growth:

    • Connected Building: Connected building forms the foundation at the bottom of the pyramid. Most companies fall into this category, which includes basic IT networks and the commonplace technology you’d find in a standard office.
    • Intelligent Building: With system integration, energy efficiency, and building automation, intelligent building is what most companies strive for in their next-level smart building process. It can lead to more unified collaboration, better asset management, and streamlined workspace and remote services.
    • Smart Building: The core of the pyramid. Smart building includes open architecture, occupant interaction predictive analytics, which contributes to human centric workplace metrics, on-demand services, big data, and more elements of building intelligence. The future of work is already here, and smart building should be a consideration for most companies.
    • Cognitive Building: At the pinnacle of the pyramid we’ll find cognitive building. Here, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics are the vital pieces that drive building automation. While most non-technological companies do not aim for this high-level tier, we believe it’s still essential knowledge to know all the possibilities within the realm of intelligent architecture.

 

Data-driven Insights to Support the Hybrid Workplace

The digital workplace focuses on the occupant’s experience within a technological ecosystem. A successful digital workplace supports the human-centric side of corporate initiatives. Different personas within the commercial real estate industry will perform unique functions depending on their role in their organization. However, all roles utilize metrics to inform the progress of their digital transformation.

For individual roles, here are some items to consider:

    • Commercial Real Estate and Facilities Managers: Individuals entrusted with managing facilities should articulate workplace values about the broader business. This includes adapting to change, especially as it relates to the physical space. Your growth mindset should shift from fixed to fluid.
    • Workplace Professionals: As a workplace professional, try to develop strategies and tactics that support agile, flexible workplaces and employee experiences. Consider the wider range of knowledge available to you, beyond just “physical office” and “working from home.”

Workplace Euphoria is Frictionless

An agile, flexible workplace is no longer an option for most businesses; it is a requirement. Baseline metrics allow companies to see how initiatives eliminate employee and occupant stress during times of uncertainty, deliver on diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments, improve operational efficiency, and make remote work, workable.

Additionally, metrics shed light into the onboarding of new technologies, security automation, and workplace productivity. Workplace analytics provide a 360-degree view of any misaligned technology expectations. Embracing technology to create agility and flexibility in return to the workplace can result in euphoria for employers and employees.

To learn more request a demo.

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Leverage the CLEAN Future and LIFT America Acts with an IWMS

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The House Committee on Energy and Commerce recently introduced two bills—the CLEAN Future Act and LIFT America Act—that are focused on clean energy and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in America by 2050.

What does that mean for U.S. workplaces? A lot. The impacts on businesses and organizations of all types are substantial. Managing the nuances of each act will require powerful technologies – such as an integrated workplace management system (IWMS) – to meet the stringent requirements geared toward sustainability.

What is the CLEAN Future Act?

The Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s (CLEAN) Future Act is legislation designed to ensure the U.S. achieves net-zero greenhouse gas pollution no later than 2050. The policy also includes an interim target of reducing 2005 levels of pollution by 50 percent no later than 2030.

These targets have been set by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global group that believes that all nations must work together to aggressively cut carbon pollution. The panel said achieving net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 will help the world avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

What is the LIFT America Act?

The Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s (LIFT) America Act is legislation aimed at reducing energy and water usage in U.S. facilities, including hospitals, community drinking water plants, and schools.

These changes are meant to modernize infrastructure, fight the effects of climate change, and improve public health standards. The policy is designed to improve:

    • Energy efficiency and clean energy
    • Electric vehicle infrastructure
    • Drinking water
    • Broadband internet access
    • Public health infrastructure

Impacts on U.S. Businesses and Organizations

The CLEAN Future and LIFT America acts will directly impact businesses and organizations by alternating building requirements and energy standards across the country. If passed, the CLEAN Future Act would require building owners to:

    • Benchmark annual energy and water usage via the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager® – this applies to buildings greater than 50,000 square feet and buildings already in compliance with local benchmarking ordinances are exempt
    • Develop a model building energy code using ASHRAE 90.1
    • Increase building energy performance standards

 

The LIFT America Act will place additional requirements on federally owned structures, including:

    • Reduce average facility energy intensity by 2.5 percent each year (relative to their 2018 baseline)
    • Reduce potable water consumption by 3 percent each year (relative to their 2007 baseline), for a total of 54 percent reduction by 2030

Increasing Sustainability with an IWMS

Many organizations struggle to find cost-effective ways to reduce their carbon footprint and ensure employee safety and wellness. Technology can streamline processes to effectively track and measure sustainability goals.

An integrated workplace management system (IWMS) platform, including one offered by Archibus, an iOFFICE + SpaceIQ product, makes it easier for organizations to comply with the more aggressive standards outlined by the CLEAN Future and LIFT America acts. A web-based IWMS platform can track key processes like energy and waste management, which helps organizations better understand the impact they have on the environment.

Organizations can utilize Archibus apps to align with their unique business needs, including:

    • Sustainability Assessments: Regular sustainability assessments allow organizations to measure performance indicators, mitigate risk, and reduce their carbon footprint
    • Energy Management: Many organizations have inefficient energy management practices that are difficult to find and cost them thousands of dollars each year – benchmarking, tracking, and management tools help control costs and increase sustainability
    • Green Building: Whether companies must meet new legislation requirements for individual buildings or across their portfolio, the green building app will help them achieve those goals
    • Waste Management: Efficient waste management systems allow organizations to improve health practices and minimize risks
    • Emergency Preparedness: The right IWMS tools overlap with business continuity planning, helping organizations recover quickly in emergency situations
    • Hazard Abatement: Identifying and abating indoor environmental hazards can be time-consuming, but this feature streamlines the process and keeps organizations safer
    • Health & Safety: From workplace safety accidents to PPE, organizations can gain greater control over health and safety protocols
    • Hazardous Materials: Quickly retrieving material safety information helps to protect building occupants and cut compliance costs

Where to start: Sustainability Assessments and Energy Management

Businesses and organizations don’t need to wait for the CLEAN Future and LIFT America acts to launch sustainability measures. IWMS technology makes the concept of environmental sustainability a reality by tracking, ranking, and documenting details on the condition and use of physical assets.

Manual evaluation using spreadsheets and other archaic methods are replaced by objective and systematic ways to identify and prioritize facility replacements, upgrades, and renovations based on environmental sustainability criteria.

Using data from a central repository in Archibus, building owners/managers can:

    • Establish proactive sustainability processes that can improve operational efficiencies, enhance stakeholder work environments, and boost asset value
    • Identify which assets should be repaired, renovated or replaced to achieve environmental efficiency goals or support an existing LEED™ or BREEAM® rating program
    • Improve capital budgeting and planning capabilities by tracking costs and budgets associated with environmental deficiencies
    • Increase efficiency of sustainability efforts by integrating assessments with work order management and by using a unified data repository

 

An energy management solution is also easy to implement in order to aggregate, evaluate, and optimize energy and utility spending decisions and reduce unnecessary consumption and costs. With Archibus, organizations can:

    • Evaluate consumption patterns to help renegotiate rates and consolidate energy providers
    • Reduce business risk and exposure to changes in energy costs or carbon emissions regulation thought what-if analyses
    • Track energy expenditures against a business plan or objective benchmarks

 

For more information on sustainability assessments and using IWMS technology to set the stage for compliance with the CLEAN Future and LIFT America acts, visit www.archibus.com.

By Fred Kraus
Sr. Director Product, Archibus
iOFFICE + SpaceIQ

To learn more request a demo.

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Archibus OnSite Makes Fielding Work Orders Simpler

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Maintaining facilities takes an organized, concerted effort. There are so many facets of property upkeep to consider, each demanding its own approach to maintenance, repair, and improvement. Businesses need a tool on their side that enables not only visibility into these tasks, but also streamlined management of them. It’s why iOFFICE + SpaceIQ created Archibus OnSite.

Archibus OnSite is a new mobile solution that helps organizations efficiently manage preventive and corrective maintenance work orders, assets, and compliance. It’s designed with total facilities in mind, to enable groups and teams charged with keeping them up and running right.

Companies are taking a closer look at overhead

In the era of flex work, companies are paying more attention to the cost of overhead. What they’re finding are opportunities to cut back—not necessarily on space, but on the cost of maintaining that space. It’s all about cost optimization through better workplace efficiency.

Organizations are wasting too much time on administrative overhead: completing work orders in the office and planning work routes ahead of time. Instead, they need to efficiently maintain facilities and assets in a manner that optimizes for availability, uptime, good working order, compliance, and cost. They’re turning to Archibus OnSite to help them take a smarter approach to broad facility upkeep, and reaping the benefits that come with it.

How Archibus OnSite helps maximize overhead ROI

Archibus OnSite is built on a modern, mobile framework that makes facility teams and field workers more efficient. From fielding and sorting work orders, to built-in compliance checklists—Archibus OnSite puts critical resources in the hands of craftspeople charged with vital facilities tasks. Additional core features planned for the app include:

    • Location awareness for easy work planning and routing
    • Push notifications for instant reminders of what’s important
    • Questionnaire framework for regulatory compliance maintenance checklists

 

Unlike other maintenance solutions that focus solely on ticket management, Archibus OnSite takes a holistic approach to facilities management. It connects asset, compliance, and maintenance management with floor plans and maps to optimize the management of tasks—including locating and planning work.

Archibus OnSite optimizes maintenance operations by bringing visibility and flexibility to the actions that enable them. Beyond realizing the need for maintenance, upkeep, or repair, Archibus OnSite helps facility teams execute with purpose, to get the job done more efficiently and at a lower cost to the organization.

Archibus OnSite is part of a full-featured IWMS

Archibus OnSite works seamlessly with other Archibus modules to enable an even more streamlined approach to facility upkeep. The Archibus integrated workplace management system (IWMS) delivers a full profile of relevant data to Archibus OnSite users, giving them even more capabilities in the field, so they can do their job better. Over time, core synergies will include:

    • Connect to assets for a complete asset inventory and maintenance history to inform lifecycle decisions.
    • Extend to compliance and condition assessment solutions for a comprehensive view of assets under management.
    • Connect to space data and GIS to include floor plans, campus plans, and maps for wayfinding, planning, and locating.

 

Archibus OnSite allows facility teams to do more, faster. Robust integrations provide immediate, relevant data for an informed response to any support ticket, no matter where it originates or what the scope of work is.

Archibus OnSite as a comprehensive maintenance solution

As overhead costs loom large over organizations, Archibus OnSite ensures a higher standard of upkeep and quicker responsiveness that reduces asset maintenance costs and maximizes the ROI of the workplace using:

    • Robust and configurable workflows (approvals, estimating, scheduling, checklists, etc.)
    • Labor scheduling and workforce management and coordination tools
    • Part inventory management for simplified inventories and better cost control
    • Asset lists, maintenance history, reference documents, and compliance sheets

 

Archibus OnSite brings a broader level of oversight to facility upkeep and puts organizations more in-control of their response to everyday facilities tasks. No matter where or when maintenance demands arise, Archibus OnSite ensures a well-coordinated response.

The time for smarter asset management is now

Overhead costs may seem like a burden, but it’s vital to remember that real estate is an asset. To maximize asset ROI and more than justify the overhead costs that come with it, companies need to focus on the variables they can control—namely, their response to facilities maintenance.

Archibus OnSite is a ready-to-deploy, easy-to-integrate, versatile app that transforms the way an organization manages its largest asset. With seamless connectivity to other Archibus solutions, availability in seven languages, and the full support of iOFFICE + SpaceIQ behind it, Archibus OnSite will change the way companies think about and approach facility maintenance.

To learn more, check out our webinar or request a demo.

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

2 Minute Drill – IMS System Auditing Extension for Archibus

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2 Minute Drill – IMS System Auditing Extension for Archibus

 

An integral part of managing an Archibus implementation is understanding who is accessing the system, what information are they reviewing, and if users are experiencing errors during the execution of their daily responsibilities. The IMS System Auditing Extension for Archibus provides organizations with the ability to review detailed logs of system performance, track system errors experienced by end-users and system processes, and review a log of all users that have logged in and out of the Archibus application.

IMS System Audit Extension for Archibus - IMS Consulting

As a core feature, the Archibus application provides data event logging to allow organizations to track when data in the system changes, what data changed, and who changed it. The IMS System Auditing Extension for Archibus also provides enhancements to this core feature by parsing all data event logs, displaying the captured events in easy-to-read reports, and performing analysis to help organizations understand the transaction load their users are placing on the system.

For more information about these offers contact IMS Consulting: hello@ims.consulting or find us online at http://ims.consulting Connect with us on LinkedIn.

About IMS Consulting

For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of Archibus-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced Archibus certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of Archibus, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. Archibus is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

2 Minute Drill – Archibus Maintenance Application v.25

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2 Minute Drill – Archibus Maintenance v.25

 

Optimize operations with Archibus Maintenance v.25 and its pro-active tools for automating preventive maintenance. Track and evaluate everything to improve continuously and enhance outcomes across the board.

Generate Detailed Work Orders

Enable occupants, craftspersons, and managers to generate work orders from anywhere.

Automate Preventive Maintenance

With Archibus Maintenance v.25 you can prevent costly breaks before they happen with a preventive maintenance strategy. Generate work orders automatically based on the specific maintenance of needs of different assets with an automated Preventive Maintenance Planner.

Prioritize and Centralize Work Orders

View, approve and manage all work orders from a single console. Drill into each order and advance to view details and advance its status through to completion. Automate alerts for critical orders and bottlenecks that need attention.

Respond Quickly and Effectively

Enable craftspersons to receive requests directly on their mobile phones with relevant details, then update orders with additional details after completion. Track the status of each order to ensure that the job is done, and reschedule missed orders.

Evaluate and Optimize

Evaluate effectiveness with metrics that enable you to track the cost, labor, and performance of operations. Track trends, identify outliers and gain visibility into how effectively your strategy is meeting needs on the ground.

Anticipate Budgetary Needs

Calculate the cost of your preventive maintenance plan for the year ahead to ensure that your budget reflects your priorities.

For more information about these offers contact IMS Consulting: hello@ims.consulting or find us online at http://ims.consulting Connect with us on LinkedIn.

About IMS Consulting

For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.