Diagnosing your office: Have more visibility into what’s happening

It’s easy to implement fixes once a problem is identified, but most of the time, finding that problem can take longer than the fix itself. In the world of the workplace, finding ways to improve office efficiency, or room usage, has been something that has been historically hard to pinpoint and improve upon.‍

“Make it an open office, more work will get done.”

“Add new tech, employees love new tech.”

“Let’s add a new boardroom, employees love to have meetings in big spaces.”

‍How do we know all this? We don’t, at least not the full story, until we diagnose the office and everything in it. This post will serve as the beginnings of how you can start to understand your office and workplace a bit better, to be able to answer those questions with a bit more confidence.

Indexing your office and everything in it

New budgets, new hires and maybe a new office. Between the technology, furniture and meeting spaces themselves, there’s all kinds of data floating around that have traditionally been left in silos, untouched.

With software like Robin, you can index all of these things, and track usage across meetings and the people and things that make them successful. Have a conference room that fits 10 people that no one ever uses? In what space do you employees meet best? A breakout room? How would you know that? Are you going to ask everyone? Of course not.

Data is collected proactively once you have the foundation in place, so that over time, you can answer these questions, or solve problems when they arise. Especially if it’s a question about why something isn’t being used, or if you’re asked about how many more meetings your office is having since expanding its HQ, you can be in position to answer these questions before they become problems.

Maxwell Health: A Story in Growth

Maxwell Health is one of the fastest growing companies in the healthcare space in Boston, and are a Robin customer. Before moving into their new office, Maxwell Health didn’t any idea how their office was being used. They moved from 20 employees in only one open area with four breakout rooms, to a space with more than 150 employees spread across 20 rooms on two floors.

As you could imagine, it was hard to understand how to best optimize the space they were in as they added over 100 employees in such a short time.No one goes searching for problems in the office, but they tend to turn up when you least want them to. For Maxwell Health, they wanted added visibility, to be even more proactive with key business decisions inside their office.

Now, as they continue to grow, Maxwell Health can point to the kind of work environment, the space types and the technology that will get them there.

Start asking yourself these questions about the office

   
• Is your team constrained by their current working environment?
   
• Are you outgrowing your space? Do you know the kinds of meeting spaces that will compliment how your employees work?
   
• Are all the meeting spaces being used? Any ones being used overwhelmingly more? Why?
   
• Are things broken in the office that are being neglected? (TVs, phones, etc.)
   
• Do you have the ability to implement, track and measure new things that are brought into the office? If not, will that constrict growth? Your own job’s performance?

We have a few guides on how to have more efficient meetings and questions to ask before moving offices. Check them out here.