Space Management: What is Space Management and How Can it Help You?

What is Space Management?

Space Management is the management of an organisation’s physical space inventory. What does this mean? To put it simply, space management is the way in which a company manages their office space, floor plans and estate plans. This includes their office layouts and parking lot maps. Space management is underpinned by data and analytics. Data and analytics can help with forecasting and furthermore in developing a strategy. Space Management can be tricky to do manually, so there are space management software solutions available to help facilities managers.

How Can Space Management Help You?

Many facilities managers have faced a tough task of managing space over the past 12 months. Once full offices have faced major reductions in occupancy. Now, with many countries returning to the office, space utilization will be critical. Companies must make sure they are maximising occupancy and keeping employees safe onsite. By managing space correctly, companies will gain benefits. Like a fully occupied office with optimised space utilization. Which, in the end, results in cost effective facilities and real-estate.

On the other hand, there is the threat of mismanaged space. Mismanaged space is not good for facilities managers. Mismanaged space means the office space is not used to the best of its capabilities. This could be a lack of meeting rooms in an office or a poorly designed car park layout. No matter what it is, mismanagement of space means the facilities team budget is affected. Better space management increases efficiency in space and in spending.

So yes, space management, when done right, can help you. However, when done poorly, it can harm your business. Luckily, there are different space management solutions available to help with this process.

What Makes a Space Management Solution Effective?

Using a solution to help manage your space can help to streamline the process. It is important to ensure the solution you choose is effective. An article by Oliver Rist looks at five factors that are fundamental to a space management solution. These include:

1. Measure Employee Population

Measuring the number of employees inside the building on any given day. This seems obvious, but it is very important. Following on from the pandemic, the number of occupants indoors must be considered when keeping staff safe. This is a basic requirement for your space management solution. It will help with space and maintenance forecasting.

2. Create Social Distancing Protocols

Governments worldwide have been facilitating vaccination rollouts to reduce the effects of Covid-19. However, with variants arising, like the Delta variant, the process is facing challenges. As the weeks go by, it is becoming more evident that Covid-19 will be a part of our lives for some time. Now the focus turns to “how can we live with Covid-19”. For offices, this means continuing to social distance.

An effective space management solution should be able to generate social distancing protocols. Having social distancing rules will mean staff are allocated socially distanced spots. These rules should be completely automated in the solution – making desk booking seamless for staff and easy to manage for facilities teams.

3. Check-In & Check-Out Process

To make sure that bookings are fulfilled, and staff are onsite, your solution needs a check-in and check-out process. Typically, this feature should be built into the solutions itself. This function means that staff can check-in to work. The data can be recorded to see what space is used the most. Check-in and check-out features allow companies to manage contact tracing, work schedules and is perfect for flexible working. Similarly, this feature is great for hot-desking companies that share desk space throughout the day.

4. Monitor Facilities and Work Resources

Space management solutions should be able to monitor and allocate shared space and working resources. Shared spaces include meeting rooms, desks, and parking spaces. Some companies may choose to manage their work resources in their solutions. These resources could be telephones, printers, and specialized equipment. A complete space management solution should include facilities monitoring and for more specific requirements, work resources.

5. Establish Analytics

Analytics and data underpin the success of space management solutions. These solutions are important for allowing staff to book spaces in the office and maintaining safety. However, they are also important for future forecasting and planning. This is where the data and analytics recorded becomes more important. For facilities managers, it is important to know that their space is being utilized to its maximum potential. There is no room for wasted space or unused facilities. Therefore, the data and analytics is critical for good space management.

An effective space management solution will record the right information and provide the best reports for facilities teams. Some key reports that the solution must have are:

Booking Demand

A booking demand report gives the facilities manager an overview of the number of bookings made for resources in the office. For example, the number of parking spaces that are booked out each day for the coming days. Understanding demand allows you to plan and forecast for things like cleaning supplies and sanitisation products. Understanding demand can also help understand if people prefer flexible working, work from home or working in the office.

Contact Tracing

This report would have been critical throughout the pandemic. Now, it is still very important, but it can also be used to tell you who is in the building, what time they were in and where they were onsite. This is essential for space managers. Now, they can see where exactly the most people are situated. What time people are in the office and which departments need the most space. As for tracing Covid-19, the report will help to stop any further outbreak.

Daily Reporting

Daily reporting means tracking and monitoring how often employees are interacting with the space management solution. For example, if the solution uses a mobile app, it will monitor how often the employees use the app. This could mean when they are booking a space or releasing a desk space. Possibly even logging in to check future availability. This data could provide a good insight into when the best time is to open up new space bookings. For example, if some spaces are only bookable 7 days in advance, these spaces may be available to book when most people are active on the app. These periods of high user activity are also the best times for facilities teams to interact with employees through the solution. Like sending an update on an upcoming maintenance for the car park.

Cleaning Reporting

Similar to contact tracing, knowing what spaces people have used is important. Why? Because the office cleaners and janitors need to know what spaces to clean. This report makes cleaning the office much simpler. Instead of spending time cleaning unused spaces or floors, all used spaces are recorded. These spaces can then be cleaned and prepared to use again.

What is the Right Solution?

You now know what space management is, how it can help you and what you need from an effective solution. Now you need to choose the right solution. In searching for a solution, you must keep in mind the five important factors mentioned above. Look out for these factors when searching and this will help in making a decision.

There are many plenty of solutions to choose from, however, not many will have everything you are looking for. Ronspot originally began as a parking management software. After the outbreak of Covid-19, the team introduced the Desk Manager. As of July 2021, Meeting Room Booking has been introduced. In just three years, Ronspot have created an effective Space Management Solution. Looking at the five factors above, Ronspot can satisfy each one. Take a look below.

• Measuring Employee Population
• Creating Social Distancing Protocols
• Check-in & Check-out Process
• Monitoring Facilities and Shared Spaces
• Ronspot Analytics

Space Management with Ronspot

Ronspot has a whole host of other features that will make your life as a facilities manager much easier. Including an interactive office map booking system, real-time facilities booking and a credit system to ensure fair allocation. Your IT team will be happy to know that Ronspot is ISO 27001 certified and Ronspot Is hosted on AWS (Amazon Web Servers). You can have unlimited users and unlimited spaces in the solution. The app can also be used in multiple locations, all in the one account. Therefore, you can manage offices and parking lots worldwide from home.

All in all, Ronspot has everything you need to be effective and more. With continuous developments and new features, your will be able to manage your space easily. If you would like to see more about Ronspot feel free to visit our other blogs below.

If you think Ronspot could help you and your team, see our calendar below. Choose a time and date that suits you and book a quick demo. If you don’t see a time that suits, email sales@ronspotflexwork.com to arrange a time.