How athenahealth Reimagined Their Offices for Employee Ease and Next-Level Space Planning
Challenge: Matching New Office Tech to Modern Office Needs
It’s a story that continues to play out in offices everywhere. The way we work has changed, and our physical spaces are still in the process of changing to match.
Whether it’s accommodating a more flexible approach to using the office or tracking office utilization to understand what your teams need, reimagining the physical spaces where we work means managing a lot of moving parts.
As athenahealth’s team considered how to initiate the change, their upcoming office move in Boston provided an excellent opportunity to reconsider how they navigated office management and which solutions would make the most sense for their teams.
With offices worldwide, this space would serve as a trial for new ways of working and gradually, other offices would follow suit.
Solution: Adopting A User-Friendly Platform Across Teams
When moving into a new space, a few things are critical:
- Stakeholder buy-in
- Something that's easy for employees to use
- Data to help support decisions from day one in a new office.
Working closely with their Robin CSM, Abby, the athenahealth team set out to create a strong rollout plan and with quick adoption among teams they were able to start better understanding how their office spaces were actually being used.
“We wanted to make the best use of the spaces we do have so we started exploring what that meant, things like finding the right team days, deciding on how many rooms we need - we didn’t want to be reactive in making choices; we wanted to use data. That’s where Robin comes in,” explains Brittany.
Planning for A Simple and Intentional Rollout Plan
A strategic rollout plan paired with the right technology meant a smooth implementation for the athenahealth offices. With an easily navigable web dashboard and mobile app, employees and leaders could adopt Robin to book desks, spaces and resources quickly.
“Robin is a user-friendly platform,” said Francesca. “Right off the bat, I could see people engaging with it more than, in the past, with other office reservation systems. Nobody likes a system that is difficult to navigate.”
The team also ensured Robin was available on platforms where their teams were already working. Meeting people where they are makes it easier for them to adopt new tools.
“The Teams plugin is awesome. I love the fact that you can click the button for Robin, and it pulls up my week,” notes Francesca.
Unifying Data to Better Understand Office Activity
With their eye toward data-driven office resource management, the athenahealth workplace team wanted to make decisions based on office utilization data. So, together with our product team, athenahealth piloted a new custom badge integration so leaders could look at the most accurate occupancy data possible.
This new integration enabled them to supplement their employee check-in data with badge check-ins in Robin. Today, badging accounts for 25% of all desk check-ins.
Currently, Brittany and Francesca are focused on using that data to impact bigger things in the office, like:
- Quarterly office activity reports for execs
- Monthly utilization insights for workplace teams
- Reliable information to guide the scheduling of team days in the office
Leveraging Activity Data to Drive Change
With advanced analytics, teams can easily access utilization and activity reports to better understand how the office is being used. Using these insights, the athenahealth team made strategic choices in laying out office spaces and allocating specific resources.
Outcomes: Smooth In-Office Work and Data-Driven Space Planning
By using one consolidated platform, athenahealth ended up with the results they sought and a future plan for their workplace that excited them.
Great Days in The Office
Brittany, who is in charge of workplace experience, armed herself with more insight into what teams need and where they seem to interact most in the office.
With data-driven office resource management, the workplace team could make decisions based on how spaces and resources were actually being used. As such,
“Working together in the office lends itself to certain friction points like organizing in-person days and ensuring everyone has what they need to do their work," notes Francesca. “Robin helps us identify and smooth out the bumps that come with in-office work.”
Data-Driven Office Policies = Effective Office Management:
Why would anyone rely on best guesses when they could tap into data that drives better decisions? Robin gives athenahealth teams the data that matches their needs; that way, everyone is on the same page.
The team continues to look at Robin's data to determine what is working. It’s about deciding if they are using the space in the best way possible. Are these policies working? They want to ensure that everyone has the necessary equipment on designated team days.
“That's the bigger piece of the puzzle over the next year. I do think that at some point, Robin data will be looked at to see how many people are coming into the office,” explains Brittany.
“Are they coming in just for meetings? Are they coming to sit at desks? How are hybrid policies working? When are people using the office most? So, I am trying to really encourage and maintain adoption. Then, space decisions can be made properly and not just making assumptions.”
Continuous Success and Meaningful Iterations:
When you pair accessible reporting with automated insights about your office, you can easily showcase the value of office management to the right people at the right times. As they continue to reimagine their office space, the entire team wants to leverage Robin for insights into how to prepare spaces for the future of work.
“The next goal is ensuring we're maximizing our use of the tool. And making sure that we're utilizing the features that will best increase performance and enhance our workplace experience,” explains Francesca.
The Right Workplace Platform for The Right Business Outcomes
As for what comes next for the Robin and athenahealth partnership, data will continue to be the name of the game. As they continue to secure adoption across their offices, the ultimate goal is to access up-to-date, accurate reports on office activity readily.
With those insights in mind, the athenahealth team can make smarter decisions about their office spaces based on how these spaces are actually being used. Together with Robin, the plan is to continue exploring what office spaces can be when you have the right technology on your side.
“It's been remarkable over the course of the pandemic to experience how our work has changed,” says Brittany. “And all of these changes funnel into a need for technologies like Robin, solutions that help lead how we think about the way we work.”
