7 problems solved with workforce management software

Posted on by Elizabeth Spencer

Discover how introducing workplace management software resolves numerous problems affecting employee satisfaction and overall business performance.

Today’s top-performing companies understand the influence their work environment has on employee productivity and wellbeing.

A welcoming, well-structured atmosphere will boost morale and engagement. A disorganised, demanding environment will have the opposite effect. To avoid falling into the latter category, organisations must introduce systems to overcome workplace management issues and achieve the agility and stronger user experiences they desire.

This is where workplace management software enters the picture. Below, we will explore the variety of workplace problems this technology resolves, and the positive difference this can make to businesses of all sizes and industries.

What problems can effective workplace management software solve?

1. Wasted space

Space is a valuable resource in any workplace. Yet, many companies are unaware of just how much space across their facilities goes to waste:

  • Approximately 60% of available office space is used in a typical workday

  • The average company has 30-50% more space than needed

  • Workstations are often vacant 50-60% of the day

  • Just 13% of companies say their workplace is utilised over 80% of the time

Statistics provided by iOffice

Poor space utilisation can cost businesses thousands annually, cutting a sizable chunk into their operating costs. Having no solution in place to oversee the organisation of space can also be the catalyst for several further workplace management problems, including:

  • Poor space design, hurting workplace collaboration and making it harder for people to navigate their surroundings

  • Overcrowding in certain areas or rooms, while other space is left completely unoccupied

  • Overlapped bookings of desks and workstations, particularly for companies with hybrid working models

Workplace management software overcomes these hurdles by capturing real-time spatial data across your facilities. This will identify any areas of your buildings that are left unoccupied most of the day – and the costs attached to these.

With this data in clear view, you can improve space planning significantly, whether it’s repurposing rooms or adjusting layouts to make these more efficient and collaborative. This will help you cut down unnecessary overheads and create a better environment for your teams.

2. Inability to harness BIM data

In a similar vein, BIM technology is playing a bigger role in building construction and management with each passing year:

The NBS 2020 BIM Report demonstrated that BIM adoption has risen to its highest level yet, with 73% surveyed saying they currently use BIM

When harnessed effectively, the data generated by BIM can help FMs understand facilities with absolute accuracy, and use this to maximise the lifecycle of buildings and the assets within them. However, all too often this data is left untouched, or cannot be comfortably translated into their existing FM software.

Effective workplace management software helps you reap the full benefits of BIM, allowing you to translate this data across all project document types, including COBie, wexBIM and IFC files. With this, FM teams can integrate this data into one, manageable 3D model, and gain total oversight over the lifecycle of buildings, facilities and assets.

3. Disorganised meetings and bookings

Few things grind productivity to a halt in the workplace like a poorly organised meeting. In fact, it is estimated that these cost UK companies over £43 billion annually.

On top of costs involved in meetings that overrun or aren’t run optimally, this can also cause a great deal of frustration or tension among colleagues. From a double-booked meeting room for two crucial client meetings, to arguments over who has dibs on a shared workstation, the lack of reliable facility booking software can cause a deeply unpleasant atmosphere.

Workplace management software can eliminate this problem by making room bookings straightforward and self-managed. Employees can always know what rooms are available and seamlessly communicate details to all attendees. With these systems in place, meetings run like clockwork, so people get the most out of them.

Find out more by reading ‘8 Ways Room Booking Solutions Boost Business Efficiency’.

4. Minimal data-driven decision making

Data drives modern businesses forward. However, if this cannot be captured or kept under control, it offers no value in how companies strategically plan their next steps.

That is a problem that many organisations face – they need data and analytics to guide their path, but these aren’t kept in one central location. This means that they tend to lead with assumptions, which will not reap the same benefits for company finances and overall growth.

Solutions like Live View, part of our workplace management software package, ensure that all crucial information is displayed in clear, easy-to-digest visual displays. With this oversight, teams are empowered to use this data to guide meaningful improvements to business processes.

Plus, by setting custom parameters for areas such as asset performance, stock levels or task completion, this helps you monitor whether your workplace is performing optimally according to your business goals.

5. Health and safety struggles

Part of creating a positive, productive workplace is reassuring employees that it is clean, safe and secure. If they feel uncomfortable in their surroundings, or that they might be at risk of either hazards or illnesses, then this will have a negative impact on their happiness and performance.

Workplace management software goes a long way to guaranteeing the cleanliness of a workspace is never in question. Through it, organisations can establish cleaning schedules that maintain a hygienic environment for everyone.

It can also give employees full vision of what activities are happening at what times. This provides them with reassurance that their workplace facilities are being looked after, which will encourage them in their approach to work.

For examples of how these solutions can tackle health and safety struggles, check out a number of our dedicated workforce apps:

  • Cleaning Now

  • Task Manager

  • Adhoc Tasks

6. Uncoordinated workflows

Workplace management solutions can also play a powerful role in organising the tasks that keep workplaces in top condition. If the workflows of engineers, cleaners and other technicians are not coordinated effectively, the core functions and cleanliness of a building can gradually decline.

This will hurt employee morale and, if left unchecked, could inspire them to walk away. To prevent this possibility, this software helps to arrange and automate the delivery of these tasks. As a result, duties aren’t missed due to human error, and engineers have all the information they need to fulfil their role in making the workplace as welcoming as possible.

This means:

  • Better workplace environments, allowing team members to thrive

  • Boosted employee satisfaction, leading to stronger productivity

  • More structured, less intensive experiences for technicians and FM teams

  • Minimal unplanned downtime or disruptions

7. Poor project management

Approximately only 22% of organisations use a form of project management software (Workamajig)

Project managers are tasked with handling challenging processes with the aim of achieving positive results. Unfortunately, between them and these results is an extensive list of obstacles that may make or break the entire project.

Problems managing projects can emerge due to internal or external factors. But no matter the source, without a system in place to monitor and manage all aspects, this can cause costly delays and mistakes that send project planning completely off the rails.

This is another area where workplace management software can make a massive difference. A fully integrated Project Management solution can help teams oversee each milestone of a project through a straightforward, single task grid interface.

With this single, unified view of all activities, obstacles can be navigated smoothly, potential risks can be rectified, and profitability is preserved.

8. Overburdened helpdesks

Operating a helpdesk can often feel like a thankless, burdensome task. It is all too easy for requests and calls to overwhelm these teams, making life more difficult for the operators and causing jobs to bottleneck, delaying work from being completed.

Workplace management software can ease the strain on helpdesks and make their position more agile, while at the same time empowering employees to initiate maintenance tasks themselves.

Solutions like our Integrated Services Module (ISM) raise the responsiveness of helpdesks, enabling them to easily assign tasks through a simple drag-and-drop system, and rapidly complete data entry and task assignment.

Furthermore, apps such as ChatLog give employees the ability to directly report workplace issues to the FM team. This alleviates the burden on the helpdesk, and gives them a clearer indication of how tasks are progressing, improving their own wellbeing.

What is an IWMS (Integrated Workplace Management System)?

Integrated workplace management systems (IWMS) is an all-inclusive solution to support modern facilities management responsibilities. It fulfils five fundamental areas of FM:

  • Real estate management

  • Facilities/space management

  • Maintenance management

  • Project management

  • Environmental sustainability

Through this, IWMS software covers every aspect of making workplaces as comfortable and efficient as possible, both for those working within them and the organisation overall. It is why MRI Evolution is designed to be a combined CAFM/IWMS solution – to be a total business management platform, sitting at the core of all FM operations.

Workplace management and workforce management

Our overarching workplace software incorporates a wide range of workplace management and workforce management apps – all built with the aim of streamlining operations, improving connectivity and creating the best possible workplace environments.

Workplace management

Our workplace management apps focus on engaging with people within a workplace, encouraging them to be actively involved in maintaining the quality of their environment and supporting overall employee satisfaction.

Together, these uphold a positive company culture, reinforce the cleanliness of workspaces, and inspire greater communication between employees and their FM teams.

Explore our applications below for more information:

  • Our Info

  • Our Say

  • Our Events

  • ChatLog

  • Visitor App

  • Book It

  • Our Classified

Workforce management

Our workforce management solutions meanwhile concentrate on creating a smart network that connects your entire workforce, no matter where they are. This enables your remote engineers and teams to focus on their tasks without the need for constant in-person supervision.

Through this flow of data from remote sources directly and instantly into your CAFM/IWMS solution, you will be faster and more responsive, while everyone in your organisation has access to real-time information at their fingertips.

Explore our applications below for more information:

  • Cleaning Now

  • Task Manager

  • Audit Now

  • Adhoc Tasks

  • Asset Manager

  • Portering App

  • Supervisor App

Is IWMS software suitable for small businesses?

Often, smaller businesses and start-ups will overlook the need for workplace management software, presuming that this technology is more applicable to larger organisations with broader property portfolios. Although their needs may be less pressing, ensuring employees have the best physical environment to work in applies to companies of all sizes.

Therefore, in order to compete with larger companies for talent and market share, smaller businesses should be seriously considering their workplace management solutions. This technology will help give their employees ideal workplace conditions, support recruitment and retention, and enable them to work at their most productive.

Plus, with access to space management software, this enables organisations to scale-up personnel or effectively restructure their environment to maximise efficiency as their business evolves over time.

Unlock the benefits of workplace management software

This article merely scratches the surface of the advantages that successful workplace management software can deliver to organisations at any scale. We hope that this has given you a stronger understanding of the problems this technology can resolve, and encouraged you to seek out the full benefits for yourself.

If you are ready to start that journey, speak to our experts at FSI. For over 30 years, we’ve helped businesses run smarter, empower their workforces to take ownership of their environment, and streamline facilities management duties into simple, effective solutions.

Get in touch today for more information on our workplace management solutions.

Posted in FSI

3 ways return to office plans have evolved for landlords and tenants

Posted on by Brian Zrimsek

In the spring of 2021, the commercial real estate sector looked ahead to a bright future as the global vaccine rollout was underway, and businesses everywhere considered how best to bring their employees back into the office.

But just as all things in today’s world are subject to change on a moment’s notice, so has the thinking of landlords and tenants in the face of unexpected speed bumps in the return to “the new normal,” including the rise of the delta variant and discussions surrounding vaccine and health requirements.

MRI conducted two surveys – the first in March and the second in September 2021 – to see how landlord and tenant views on return to office plans have changed over time. Now that businesses have 2022 in their sights, let’s take a look to see where both parties stand today.

Firming up return to office timing

Our first survey from Q1 2021 indicated that a large percentage of tenants were unsure as to when they’d bring more than 75% of their workforce back into the office, and landlords, didn’t expect to go back into the office until later in the fall or winter.

Data from the Q3 2021 survey, however, shows that tenants and landlords now have stronger ideas as to when employees will be brought back into the office. 57% of corporate tenants expect to have more than half of their workforce back in the office by the end of Q1 2022, while landlords were more optimistic, with 67% expecting the majority of workers to be back onsite by the end of Q4 2021.

Return to the office policies are being cemented

In our survey from the first half of 2021, landlords and occupiers alike agreed that some time in-office should be required for employees, but plans were not yet set in stone. Our data from Q3 2021 shows that 70% of respondents planned to institute hybrid work policies that include onsite requirements, formalizing plans as return dates get closer.

Policies around hybrid work and office requirements have largely firmed up across the board, with nearly 80% of all respondents increasing the availability of hybrid work. We also see that 69% of respondents said that the worldwide shift to remote working during the pandemic has fundamentally changed their long-term approach to space usage, which is consistent with the initial survey. Nearly half of the respondents plan seating capacity for less than 75% of their workforce.

Occupiers and landlords need flexible technology to meet new challenges

In Q1 2021, landlords felt mostly confident that they had the technology in place to handle a return to the office, but this is no longer the case. With changing space requirements and the need to better understand the health of employees and visitors that enter the building, both occupiers and landlords now see a strong need to adopt technologies to handle changing requirements.

According to the data, 70% of corporate occupiers plan to adopt new technologies to manage changes in space usage. The percentage of landlords that thought their existing solutions were sufficient to manage changes in office usage dropped from 61% to 45% between the two 2021 surveys. The most recent results reveal that 61% of landlords expect to adopt new technologies to handle changing space needs, compared to 55% in the previous survey.

The latter half of 2021 is not turning out the exact way that many predicted, but landlords and tenants are adjusting their expectations and assessing new technologies and their own space requirements in order to facilitate a successful return to the office. As we continue into 2022, communication between all parties and solutions that flex to a business’s individual needs will be crucial in transitioning into a new normal.

Get the full survey data from the report:

MRI Software Market Insights: Views from Real Estate Occupiers and Landlords on the Return to Office, by MRI Software and CoreNet Global

Emergency management: An insurance policy for your organisation

Posted on by Elizabeth Spencer

An insurance policy is a backstop, we all have them but hopefully, we’ll never have to use them. However, it’s great to know if something should go wrong that you have the right protection in place.

Managing your organisation in an emergency is no different. If you think about emergencies you and your organisation have had to manage in the past they generally come out of left-field and without warning. Knowing that you are protected not only gives your organisation, employees, and everyone in your duty of care peace of mind but ensures you are meeting your compliance obligations.

Why do we need emergency management software?

In the past, we may have managed an emergency situation in our workplace using pen and paper. While this, in theory, is good it does have its downfalls. What if the book that guests have signed into is forgotten as the building is evacuated? Or writing is illegible?

Or someone spills coffee over the book so you can’t read the writing?

These are all real possibilities when it comes to using a  manual emergency management system. Like your insurance policy, you can’t leave your emergency management to chance. Emergency management software is not only your insurance policy but also the way to ensure your organisation can easily manage and protect those in their duty of care.

What is emergency management software?

Emergency management software allows you to remove manual processes and gives you the assurance that you can account for everyone in an emergency.

The MRI OnLocation emergency management tool OnEvac gives you central access to people presence data and enables you to quickly and easily account for everyone in the event of an emergency.

OnEvac has a number of features to streamline and automate your emergency management from creating an event to clearing zones and communicating with your team.

Evacuation event

Quickly and easily create an evacuation event, for a particular area, zone, or your whole workplace. Invite Safety Marshalls to join and help manage the event.

Verify those on-site are safe

Safety Marshalls can verify those within their zone as they evacuate. Employees can also self verify so efforts can be focused on those who are unaccounted for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clear zones

Get accurate and real-time reporting as Safety Marshall’s clear zones and verify employees are safe.

SMS messaging

Send an SMS to your employees and contractors asking them to self verify if they are safe or not.

Forum Chat

Communicate not only with other Safety Marshalls but also respond to the replies from the SMS message to make sure you can be as effective and efficient as possible with making sure everyone is safe.

Dashboard overview

An easy-to-understand and navigate overview of the event where all Safety Marshalls can see what the others are doing.

No matter the size of your organisation having an emergency management system and process in place is vital. You may not need it today, or tomorrow but when an emergency situation strikes you can have the confidence that you can protect everyone in your duty of care. To learn more about OnEvac book a demo.

 

Building a strong voice of the customer program in property management

Posted on by kestoesta

As customers demand more direct engagement with businesses they associate with, Voice of Customer (VoC) programs have become part of the core business strategy for many organisations. VoC programs are also starting to gain traction in the real estate and property management sectors, as it puts a strong focus on understanding the customer – who are at the heart of any real estate business.

What is Voice of the Customer?

In essence, Voice of the Customer is listening to your customer’s feedback about their experience with your products or services. The process involves gathering and analysing this feedback, so you’re able to make highly informed business decisions in meeting customer needs and expectations. While gathering feedback has always been part of business growth, VoC takes it a step further by “closing the loop” – that is, acting on your customers’ insights to improve a product or service.

VoC Data and Customer Experience

VoC programs hinge on addressing customer expectations – making it an essential part of your Customer Experience (CX) strategy. Without customer feedback, it will be difficult to know how you can improve the experience of landlords and tenants. VoC data gives you valuable insight into your customer’s experiences – helping you uncover trends and opportunities to improve satisfaction and customer engagement across the customer journey.

How to build a Voice of the Customer program in real estate

Starting a voice of the customer program requires organisational change, both to how teams within your business interact with customers and with each other. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

1. Collect and monitor feedback efficiently
There are various methods to gather customer insights, but in choosing which method or system to use, it’s crucial to make sending that all-important feedback easy for your customers. Equally important is how accessible the system is for your product team to be able to monitor comments overtime and highlight what the majority of your customers want. At MRI Software, our User Voice forum is the online forum where customers can make suggestions on how we can improve our products, these suggestions can then be voted on by other customers, giving our product team a clear picture on improvements that will make a big difference for our client base.

2. Distribute feedback to internal stakeholders
As feedback can come from different sources, using different methods, it’s important that the right information falls to the right people or team responsible to action them. Create a process or playbook within your organisation that identifies ownership when it comes to responding and routing customer inputs from various channels – emails, social media, surveys, etc. VoC best practices highlights the importance of acting on customer feedback, so internal stakeholders should be able respond quickly in letting customers know that they’ve been heard and explain how you plan to address their concerns.

3. Discuss and analyse customer feedback
Customer feedback will uncover problems and opportunities within your organisation and focus groups will play an important role in reviewing this information to understand what’s affecting the customers. Getting the right people from the right organisations involved in this review process will provide a more holistic view in coming up with effective solutions. At MRI, we recently launched the Customer Advisory Board (CAB), bringing together 20 industry leaders that represent tens of thousands of properties across Australia and New Zealand to better understand the trends and challenges impacting the real estate industry, helping us at MRI develop solutions that support our customers in the best way possible.

4. Design with the user’s perspective in mind
In designing changes, it is best to follow a user-centric approach. Getting actual users involved in shaping improvements ensure that products and services directly benefit them. After all, the best people to ask what works and what doesn’t in your products and services are the people who use them. This collaborative relationship also puts emphasis on how much you value your customer’s feedback in making their experience that much better.

Here at MRI Software, we engage our customers to get involved in improving the products they use through our Early Adopters Program (EAP). With EAP, we encourage our user community to provide real-life user experience testing of new feature development across our product suite.

5. Close the loop with customers
The true value of any VoC program lies in the implementation of the insights you’ve gained to areas in your business that will drive the biggest change. It is important to keep in mind that while owners and tenants directly give feedback on the product and services you offer, it will also affect processes within your organisation that help deliver these improvements. These organisational changes ultimately lead to better CX and improve speed of delivery.

A Voice of the Customer program can provide your real estate business with actionable insights that can create amazing experiences for your customers. Moreover, it is also a valuable tool within your organisation to improve processes, providing you with insights from the very people who drives growth and revenue to your business.

Learn more about delivering amazing client experiences

Delivering an amazing owner and tenant experience is part of the property manager’s mission – to do right by the people that live in your community and contribute to their well-being. Download this free eBook to learn how technology can help transform the way you engage with your clients.

voice of customer program ebook

 

 

 

AI partners with accounting expertise to maintain IFRS 16 compliance

Posted on by spawlak

The International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 16) came into effect in January 2019, significantly changing lease accounting practices by requiring everything from a real estate lease to a car lease to a fax machine lease to be holistically evaluated, categorised, and placed on the balance sheet appropriately. To combat this change, many organisations adapted technology solutions to help with the heavy lifting.

Enlisting a technology partner to extract data quickly and accurately into a single repository accelerates the transition and facilitates efficient lease management in the long run. Let’s look at a practical example to see how deploying artificial intelligence (AI) technology can simplify the IFRS 16 shift.

With just seven months to go before the IFRS 16 reporting 2019 deadline, a prominent retailer had a tight timeline to implement a lease accounting solution. MRI Contract Intelligence, powered by Leverton AI, was engaged alongside a leading accounting firm to support the 500+ lease IFRS 16 transition. The whole process had been completed ahead of schedule in preparation for the new leasing standards.

Below is an outline of the process from start to finish that highlights the significant benefits of AI coupled with accounting expertise for lease accounting projects.

Phase 1: Determining population and importing of data

  • The accounting partner provided guidance around the relevant lease population for the transition project.
  • MRI Contract Intelligence helped identify problematic or missing contracts.
  • All documents were classified automatically, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology created fully searchable documents regardless of document quality.

Phase 2: Capturing the right data

  • MRI Contract Intelligence extracted the appropriate IFRS 16 data set co-developed between LevertonMRI, technical accounting experts, and the client
  • The process ensured that both IFRS 16-relevant data points and those that would be useful from an ongoing lease management perspective were captured swiftly and accurately.

Phase 3: Data extraction and validation

  • MRI Contract Intelligence used its market-leading AI technology coupled with two layers of quality assurance to provide weekly batch delivery of data.
  • Sample quality reviews were performed by the accounting team, focusing on high risk and high value assets.
  • The result was an accurate, auditable data set.

Phase 4: Ongoing management and auditor communication

  • MRI Contract Intelligence offered a versatile solution, expertly positioned to deal with ongoing lease agreement updates, changes to IFRS 16 data points, and broader real estate management needs.
  • The AI technology streamlined and simplified reporting and audit requirements through transparent, auditable data.

MRI’s AI-powered lease abstraction solution allows the automated processing of assets and all real estate leases. With a pre-built custom IFRS 16 extraction template it can interface the information into your database. MRI Contract Intelligence can also be partnered with accounting systems such as ProLease and MRI Horizon to assist in this extraction process. The system will also provide highly structured data and meet the ongoing compliance standards of the new regulations.

Click here If you would like to learn more about how MRI Contract Intelligence can support your business.

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