Hoteling in Office Space: 7 Benefits to Employees

Hoteling in office space, a concept EY’s credited for pioneering, is popular among several corporates today. It is more relevant today as offices reopen and shift to a hybrid work model. It’s similar to how you book a hotel room, hence the name.

Employees book a desk of their choice using space booking software, like the one made by WorkinSync. It is different from hot desking, where desks are allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis. The advance booking feature in hoteling eliminates the uncertainty of not finding a desk of your choice to a fair extent.

While the business benefits through better space management and cost-saving on square footage, employees are benefitted as well.

Here is a list of seven such employee benefits of hoteling.

How does an Employee Benefit from Hoteling in Office Space?

Hoteling is often confused with hot desking. However, they are as different as chalk and cheese. Hoteling is a reservation and check-in system that delivers a seamless experience to employees. It also significantly reduces real estate costs. Hot desking also helps, but it works differently.

Following are seven well-acknowledged benefits:

1. Flexibility

As employees return to the office, most surveys indicate that flexibility at work is a critical requirement. Hoteling allows employees to choose a space that works best for them – a busy aisle or a quiet corner.

2. Assures of Desk Availability

As most offices have shrunk their office space and have fewer desks, a visit to the office can be marred with the anxiety of not finding a desk. Trivial as it may sound now, it will emerge as a concern as more people start returning to the office. With hoteling, employees would be assured of a desk. If not, they would be able to reschedule their visit.

3. Ensures Better Engagement

With a sense of control over your environment, you feel more comfortable. An employee in control of her surroundings is more comfortable and better engaged. Office hoteling fulfills this need by letting people choose a place of their comfort.

4. Improves Collaboration

As opposed to hot desking, hoteling prevents the team from getting scattered. In work involving different teams, employees can book seats close to each other for the project duration. It saves the time spent on meetings. People can get into a huddle just by turning their chairs around. Getting into a huddle becomes much easier and reduces the need for formal meetings.

5. Helps You Network Better

Knowing who is seated where helps employees network better. It could prove beneficial for newer employees and help them settle in faster. It can also help leaders to get to know their teams better by working closely with them.

6. Ensures Health Safety

A hoteling software is a credible source of data on the occupancy levels of an office. To ensure social distancing, it can block reservations when a floor has hit its upper limit. Also, the housekeeping staff can use the time between booking to clean and sanitize desks.

7. Improves Productivity

When an employee gets to choose a desk of her choice, it has a positive influence on productivity. Also, as hoteling makes collaboration easier, the work gets done faster. Thus, enabling teams to choose where and how they work makes them more productive. It also helps businesses utilize space more effectively and bring down costs.

Conclusion

If you are moving to a hybrid workplace, hoteling is the first step towards it. Choosing the right solution makes for a win-win situation for both employers and employees. Opt for either, but a solution should be:

• Easy to use – It must be easily accessible on both desktops and mobile devices, also offering seamless integration with other popular tools (Outlook, Google Calendar, Slack/Teams)

• Easy to implement – If you pick a complex or unfinished solution, its implementation will take time. Also, you may end up wasting a lot of time and money with sub-optimal results. So, pick a finished product with a proven track record.

• Equipped with advanced analytics – It must provide admins insights about multiple aspects of running a workplace – from tracking office usage to managing housekeeping to monitoring productivity.

WorkinSync provides complete solutions for space scheduling and booking. Our desk and conference room booking solutions work with team planners, collaboration tools, and notification consoles to provide the most seamless hoteling experience.