Creativity is just connecting things.” ― Steve Jobs Work is stressful sometimes. We deal with deadlines, an overwhelming number of tasks, and too many emails. We’ve all read those articles telling us how to reduce stress during the workday. They recommend not looking at your email first thing in the morning and, my favorite, doing breathing exercises. For the most part, that’s unrealistic advice. Most of us get anxious if we don’t look at our emails in the morning. And breathing exercises can turn into hyperventilating worry sessions. The simple answer to dealing with tension in the workplace is letting go. Let go of old technology, siloed software platforms, and those dreaded spreadsheets. Embrace collaboration and create happiness. Connected Workplace has all you need to plan, deliver, operate, and control your enterprise services. It’s a software platform where you share data for all physical locations, all assets, and all work, creating synergy and harmony across departments. At the center of a fully connected workplace is the customer. The customer can be an employee, field technician, or the IT helpdesk—anyone requesting or providing services within your organization. 10 Ways the Connected Workplace Creates Zen 1. Provides one portal for all requests Submit any service request and keep track of that request through a mobile app or online portal; that’s self-service at its finest. Most of the information on the portal is pre-populated, so you don’t need to know or find out all the details. Simply describe your problem, fill out a few other fields, and the system will route the request to the right queue. No more spending time figuring out who to call to report your problem or answering endless emails with questions about the issue. Instead, take a break, go for a walk, and when you come back, just check the portal for an update. 2. Simplifies work order management There’s great satisfaction when facilities teams use Connected Workplace. They can easily and quickly organize all their work orders and design preventive maintenance (PM) schedules that can be accessed anywhere on any device and shared across the organization. Technicians have instant access to the work order, asset service history, service manuals, knowledge bases, spare parts inventory, and training videos. They complete the assigned work directly from the mobile application, submit invoices, and track their performance. 3. Automates work orders Stop searching for the right technicians or assigning work orders haphazardly. Let the data and business rules guide you. Workflows are very Zen. Once created, they are the tool that guides the work to the right technician fast. Use smart dispatching to automate and autoroute your work orders based on location, certifications, vendor preference, etc. The nearest technician in the field with the right machine certification is assigned the work order. 4. Supports field service management Managing a field-services team is complex and essential. It involves many variables like managing work orders, scheduling, and dispatching, tracking skills, tasks, assets, hours, service levels, vehicles, parts, etc. A connected platform supports field services and connects them with the rest of the organization. It’s reassuring when your field service teams can deliver exceptional, modern, mobile-first customer service. Their interactions are essential to building and sustaining successful long-term customer relationships. 5. Consolidates applications It’s common for organizations to use different applications across their business. Why? Maybe they don’t know about Connected Workplace. Using, supporting, integrating, and maintaining different software that isn’t connected to the rest of the organization is monotonous. Eliminate those silos! Consolidate IT, facilities, HR, payroll, merchandising, logistics, network operations, and more. Share data and information in one central location. 6. Tracks and finds everything Service management is all about finding, tracking, and managing people, assets, and locations. Sharing one platform means you can share data about locations with everyone. That data is shared through interactive floor maps, making it easy to find people and assets. That’s powerful. You can even do a Wayfinding search–you can keyword search and find a person or work order on a map and continually narrow it down until you are at the right desk (how Zen is that?). 7. Helps us understand and design our workplaces More than ever, we need to understand where everyone sits, who is coming into the offices, and where the high traffic areas are located. With Connected Workplace, you can manage your entire space portfolio, create floor plan modeling scenarios, see how space is allocated, and manage costs by planning space utilization with precision accuracy. And our mobile app allows anyone to take floor maps with them. You won’t need those breathing exercises; redesigning your workplaces for returning employees and allowing them to reserve spaces is simple and modern with Connected Workplace. 8. Improves our environmental footprints Are you stepping up green initiatives? Do you want to improve the quality of your workplaces while being environmentally responsible? Connected Workplace can help. Improve energy performance and lessen the demand on the electric grid, reduce waste where you can, and measure water consumption. Know where your energy goes using advanced, thorough reports and energy spike alerts. A centralized platform makes it easy to collect and report on the data. Here’s where it becomes really valuable. With facilities and engineering on the same platform sharing sustainability data, they can proactively implement meaningful change. 9. Protects all connected assets Cybersecurity is typically associated with protecting IT network infrastructures. Today, more physical devices that affect our workplaces are being added to the network without any security protocols. Think about this for a minute. HVAC systems, medical devices, manufacturing equipment, and remote-controlled smart devices are all connected to the network. They can be hacked. Protecting your mission-critical non-IT devices is a coordinated effort and requires expertise from facilities, IT, and security. Connected Workplace overlays IT cybersecurity with non-IT assets and ensures you’re protected from any cyber-attacks in the workplace. 10. Strengthens data-driven decisions Let data guide your business decisions; comprehensive data reveals the truth. Sharing data on one central platform gives you advanced accurate reporting. You can create reports and dashboards that measure work order response times, asset repair costs, reactive maintenance requests, space occupancy levels, energy costs, and more. And they provide a top-level view of all your services operations. Capturing data, analyzing that data for more effective decision making, and seeing the workplace clearly to improve it: that’s Zen! We can connect with the colleagues that build our buildings and workspaces, the technicians that fix our problems, the engineers that oversee our equipment, the teams that move us, and the green initiative teams. We can all work together, get updates together, and resolve problems together in Connected Workplace. You might also enjoy Six Elements of a Successful Return to Workplace Strategy Share
