Guest blog by, Leon Papkoff, CEO and Chief Strategist, The CXApp
Considering the rise of the gig economy, organizations are shifting focus to employee engagement in order to attract top talent, keep it, and inspire innovation. Employees want to be more than just a number. A company culture that is rooted in immersive experiences and putting the focus back on the employees wants and needs is where we’re seeing the focus shift to.
The way employees can move within and interact with physical ‘spaces’ has become a competitive differentiator for creating these immersive experiences. That means innovation and technology have to be integrated at a foundational level.
Each touchpoint an employee has with their workplace factors into overall sentiment be it digital, physical or otherwise.
Top Trends
The modern workplace is dynamic, agile, user-friendly, and in converting to an world of connected experiences. The following trends have a considerable impact on an organization’s operations, services, processes, and employee satisfaction.
On-Demand Seating
Hot desking, hoteling, and other types of seating arrangements are on the rise. Workplaces tend to have more free, open parameters for where employees show up each day, lending itself to more fluid allocation of resources. On-demand access to where you sit or what rooms best suit group productivity allows people to match their day to day needs with their physical spaces.
Real-time, on-the-go access to booking tools to reserve conference rooms and desks ensure that none of your spaces become stagnant or unusable.
Convertible and Multi-Use Spaces
Think about the different areas that make up the workplace: lounges, boardrooms, bullpens, cafeterias etc. Each of these serve a specific use case. But the transition a lot of modern offices are making is designing these areas to be convertible or repurposed for multiple use cases.
For example, cafeterias convert to all-hands meeting spaces, lounges convert to brainstorm meeting rooms, and lobbies convert to demo spaces. Convertibility is one thing. But more importantly, having the analytics and insights that point to fluctuations in space usage will help ops teams allocate spaces to compliment employees, teams, and groups based on usage patterns.
Connected Devices, IoT, and Sensors
In the workplace more now than ever, employees want a connected experience. Sensors like RFID badges, IoT devices like remote controls, coffee stations, or speakers and monitors, create an accessible network of tools and systems workers can engage with throughout their day. Unique experiences come from the most innovative use cases of connecting people to each other and to their work environments so no matter where they are, who they are, or what time it is, they can engage with content or devices in a new way.
Location Services
The more the physical environment knows about it’s users, the better it can contextually deliver information. Location services take the ‘x’ and ‘y’ of where an employee is and fine-tunes immersive experiences. This equates to personalized and contextual communications, proximity alerts triggered from an employee’s specific location, live mapping, and wayfinding capabilities across an entire campus or venue.
Holistic Ecosystems
Information has become siloed and we’ve reached an app or software overload in the enterprise. Employees are expected to access different systems for different business and operational use cases. But software that combines all digital operations into one holistic ecosystem are becoming more attractive.
A central hub of applications that work together in a single platform streamline workflows and decrease overhead and the complexity that comes with managing multiple systems. This requires a network of modern workplace experience tools that partner together to create combined experiences.
Creating a Smart Workplace
Digital transformation initiatives have led to this point – the convergence of digital touchpoints, physical spaces and the people who interface with them. Digital experiences delivered in the real world are becoming heavily reliant on content, context, and data-powered communications. This shift is trending towards smarter, more aware, and more capable spaces.
Above it all, consistency is key. The internal programs you run should be omni-channel so that there is a seamless experience from location to location and device to device and aligned from top-to-bottom and the bottom up to make employees feel more engaged in the overall business objectives and goals.
As technology advances, many more opportunities will become available that enhance corporate properties and workspaces. The market is continuously evolving.
About the Author:
Leon Papkoff (@LeonPapkoff), Title: CEO and Chief Strategist, The CXApp
As CEO and Chief Strategist for The CXApp (a division of Design Reactor), I have worked with Fortune 500 companies to build programs that deliver personalized, interactive experiences for enhanced business operations across events, meetings, communities and workplace management.