Industry

Workplace Analytics – the newest necessity for every facility manager, worldwide!

The pandemic has forced us to rethink the way we work. The inefficiency of workplace technology is one of the major concerns for most businesses. A survey by McKinsey suggested that the pandemic might accelerate the irreversible adoption of workplace technology trends such as automation and digitization, which claim to improve employee productivity and efficiency.

There has been a huge influx of these automation tools ever since the crisis such as collaboration systems, CRM automation tools, conferencing tools, etc. Since there is no historic data that could provide us insights as we never encountered a pandemic such as this, so, how do companies validate which tools are right for them, or do these tools increase productivity? The answer is workplace analytics.

What is workplace analytics?

Workplace Analytics provides businesses with insights from various cloud-based services to predict which factors upgrade or degrade productivity and efficiency and help optimize organizations’ resources. It is designed to analyze historical data and create prediction models that lead to insights and better future decisions which in turn helps both employer and employee. Workplace Analytics is just a modern concept to determine which technology is here to stay and improve productivity strategies.

“The pandemic will accelerate adoption of automation and touchless technologies, data and analytics, and mobile connectivity”.- said Flore Pradère, Director of Research for JLL.

Businesses rely significantly on historical analytics that are collected just once or twice by systems through annual or semi-annual evaluations. Since we have no data to support beneficial technology trends during the pandemic, the trend is changing, and the procedures and different types of statistical models are evolving as well. Organizations seek knowledge as and when things happen and not after. Systems and techniques today seek to obtain data in real-time to act at the correct time.

Businesses can use workplace analytics to simplify employee tasks and to cut real estate costs. But the question is “how”? The first step to improving employee productivity starts with facilitating collaboration. Groups of individuals can work together to achieve common goals by sharing their ideas, information, and skills. More than 50% of employees actually feel that collaboration platforms have enhanced connections with their colleagues. The implementation of a high-performance workplace platform includes features viz, notifications, access control systems, dashboards, and the ability to integrate with other enterprise systems. With the right software for workplace analytics. IT teams can take control and get insight into best suitable practices and understand the company’s optimum output behavior. Workforce analytics can find places in which activities may be transferred through automation to machinery, enabling employees to focus their attention rather on more valuable and vital operations.

Workplace Analytics also enables managers to determine the level of engagement of an employee and the factors that impact productivity. If the employees spend most of their time at meetings and not enough time on creative work, managers can develop a plan that reduces meeting time and concentrates more on productive activities. It can not only assess existing involvement but also provide statistics to indicate if some practices have attained their expected outcomes or not.

When it comes to decision-making, business managers need more than just their instincts and knowledge. They need to be completely sure of their selection and in order to so, they need data to support their selection which comes from a good analytics tool.

Workplace analytics “provides decision-making and insight tools to take advantage of the many processes that affect employees”, – Neil Pickering, customer and industry insight manager at Kronos. Managers and HR representatives must frequently meet employees to understand the factors that have a favorable and unfavorable impact on employee experiences.

Not only do workplace analytics help in the prediction of possible scenarios, but it also helps in optimizing resource utilization. Suppose you implement a self-service desk reservation system that enables employees to view desk availability, sanitization status and hence, book their desks in advance. You can use advanced analytics to modify space utilization plans based on occupancy data.  Self-service technologies in the workplace enable your employees to utilize time and resources efficiently.

A number of things impact the levels of productivity causing it to continually rise and fall. This includes the infrastructure, working conditions, managers and colleagues as well as job happiness. Collecting the information on what affects productivity will surely provide you with information to take decisive measures.

Many companies struggle with the recruitment and retention processes. They can utilize data analytics to meet these challenges. Companies can analyze critical data, which might improve recruiting and retention procedures so that employees on all levels appreciate their workplaces.

Companies always seek methods to reduce their overall expenditure. Although many business executives might be concerned about the extra cost of installing the software for data analysis, the cost savings may be significant. Investment in Workplace Analytics is a vital part of company functionalities. However, it is an underlying fact that technology has advanced and investment in workplace analytics has become essential. It enables executives to see procedures and results that were formerly unclear. Modern trends assist company executives to address important issues and evaluate probable business consequences. The forecast allows company executives to evaluate if changes to their firm are sustainable. Organizations may identify what technology, marketing techniques do not perform as they should with the help of intelligence tools. However, this does not require the whole substitution because the automation of tools may give just as much of a solution. Companies may remove resources that hinder productivity through in-depth knowledge from analytical solutions, ensuring that their products improve their efficacy.

A further key advancement for workplace analytics is the availability of in-building wireless communications systems to record and convey data from an individual source, such as individuals and workplaces. Wireless analytics systems can be integrated with wireless communications available at most workplaces, and also with applications that employees use on a regular basis to get data about their engagement and other work habits.

This data is collected by the software to indicate behavioral trends. These patterns can then show failures or other misalignments in the work process which can be addressed. The goal is to combine efficiency gains from individuals or groups in order to improve the overall performance of the company.

Therefore, if you can collect sufficient information and apply appropriate analytics tools as an organization, your employees can benefit from this modified approach.

Veris provides you with the right automation tools for your organization such as meeting room management tools, hot desking software with real-time usage analytics through which you can maximize resource utilization by mapping all usage parameters and trends on one screen.

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