Resource booking system implemented for new company head office building

the problem

One thing that is surprising to many businesses is how much it costs to have office space.

Especially if you are planning on growing a business or if you have transient staff that aren’t always in the office, instead on the road, doing their job.

Paying for empty desks with no one using them is expensive for any business which is why a lot more businesses are looking to smarter ways of working.

It is very common that you do not need to have the same number of desks as you do staff because a lot of the time the desks are empty, so ways of working are changing. Instead of having desks that are the domain of one person, more businesses are implementing flexible working where desks become bookable resources instead of fixed to individuals.

The easiest way to think of it is that each desk becomes like a meeting room but for one person. If you need a desk, you look in the desk booking tool (something even as simple as just a calendar) and if it is free, you book it.

One thing that does occur with systems like this is that people can decide to block book a desk for weeks and then not use it, making the system invalid because others cannot book the resource, so this is where some intelligence comes in.

With resource booking systems now, such as Condeco, your bookable resources become smarter, so if someone books a desk, they need to be at the desk to electronically check in within 15 minutes of the booking start time otherwise the resource is automatically released into the available resources pool. This ensures that resources cannot be block booked and left empty whilst other staff struggle to find desks or other bookable resources.

Speaking of other bookable resources it is not only desks that can be allocated as smart bookable resources, other commodities such as parking spaces, company vehicles, meeting rooms and conference systems.

What we did

We helped a company fit out a new head office building with a new resource booking system

We helped then to make it smarter, allowing a reduction in the number of desks they needed which reduced the amount of floor space needed which in turn considerably reduced costs.

After doing some audit work it became obvious that a lot of real estate within their existing offices was unused and it was costing the business a lot of money to pay for empty space and after calculation it transpired that at least 70% of desks and resources were allocated to staff but went unused.

To combat this we came up with a solution using the Condeco smart resource booking system which allows the client to control how resources are deployed to staff members and also to define who could use which resources.

The resources within the building were all made smart although not all resources were bookable by everyone. For example we made sure the exec suite resources were only bookable by execs and their personal assistants. The training rooms which could be opened up into a single auditorium were also restricted as to who could book these resources.

All other resources were bookable by all staff which comprised of:

How it works:

 Sometimes we run a little late, through no fault of our own which is why we added flexibility into the solution. As this office space was a new building in London a lot of people need to travel considerable distances to get there and are often at the mercy of public transport not running to time. In order to accommodate people running late, we build some flexibility into the solution, allowing a user to remotely check into the desk to ensure they keep the resource and it is not released before the get there.