Dive Brief:
- Envoy rolled out four new features for its integrated workplace platform intended to provide facilities managers with space utilization insights and streamlined workplace design, as more employees return to the office.
- These capabilities include workplace maps integrated with contextual data powered by artificial intelligence, dynamic right-sizing of office resources such as desks and meeting rooms, passive data capture, and attendance reporting through an occupancy dashboard, Envoy said in a news release Wednesday.
- “We were manually tracking space utilization, visitor management and attendance across multiple sites. Collecting and aggregating the data was incredibly time-consuming,” platform user Andrei Pop, corporate real estate systems operator at Flutter, said in the release. “Now, with Envoy’s data and automation, we can not only see how our space is used, but also automate workflows for employees, from entry to exit, freeing up valuable time and resources”
Dive Insight:
The new tools come at a time when businesses that manage workplaces manually are “struggling to measure RTO performance,” Envoy noted. Ninety-six percent of respondents to a survey Envoy is due to release later this month “have returned to the office with some regularity,” the release said. In keeping with this trend, the company has been rolling out tools that provide space utilization insights facilities managers can harness as they strive to adapt to an evolving workplace model.
“The discussion about whether or not to return to office is over,” Envoy founder and CEO Larry Gadea said in a statement. “Most high performing companies who have leaned into the difficult conversation about how to balance company objectives and employee preferences have come back three to five days a week.”
Earlier this month, Envoy unveiled five capabilities for its integrated workplace platform designed to boost security and safety efforts for employees and visitors.
The new suite of tools, announced April 17, includes a data-enriched Workplace Maps tool that allows operators to access in-office attendance and space utilization insights while creating or editing a workplace map and an occupancy dashboard that provides a more detailed picture of employee attendance trends that can inform space and resource planning decisions, per the release. While a “passive data capture” feature eliminates the need for employees to manually sign in, an attendance-reporting tool can provide insights into behavioral patterns and yield more optimized scheduling for meetings and other events, helping facilities managers allocate resources and catch up to employee demands while repurposing or getting rid of unused space, Envoy said.
While editing floor plans within the Envoy platform, administrators can now see contextual employee attendance, space usage statistics and AI-powered optimization recommendations overlaid on the interface, a company spokesperson said in an email, noting that this capability can inform decisions on space utilization in layout design — a key element of getting more employees to come back to the office.
A growing number of employees say their offices have insufficient space for them to be productive when they return on-site, a recent report from VergeSense found. The findings shed light on an incongruity between pre-pandemic space designs and new preferences for in-office work — an area businesses have not yet caught up on, the report says.
The insights the Envoy platform can provide “play a crucial role in informing RTO processes and strategies by offering businesses data-driven recommendations to optimize their physical workplaces, consequently supporting employee productivity and satisfaction,” the Envoy spokesperson said.
