Wayfinding software and wayfinding kiosks are fast becoming the new normal for forward-thinking organizations.
Delivering so much more than a static facility map, wayfinding software is an interactive database that can bring efficiency, productivity, and wellbeing to everyone in the workplace.
From streamlining move management to helping workers find rooms, resources, and colleagues, let’s take a look at how wayfinding software and wayfinding kiosks can benefit Facilities, IT, HR, site visitors, and individual employees.
What is wayfinding software?
Wayfinding software is technology’s response to the drawbacks of traditional workplace maps. The software creates interactive, color-coded, digital versions of your floor plan that work on any device. Changes to your floor plan are updated in real time, making it quick and easy for users to find what they need.
Employees can use the wayfinding software to connect with their workplace, learn the layout of different floors or buildings, find colleagues, locate and book resources (shared desks, rooms, printers, etc), and submit facility requests.
Managers and workplace leaders can use wayfinding software to gather key data, improve space utilization, plan and manage small and large-scale moves, and optimize a myriad of other HR, IT, and Facilities tasks.
Provided you’re using a leading workplace management platform, wayfinding software will work on all devices—desktop, tablet, smartphone—giving your people anytime, anywhere access to their facility on whatever device they use.
What is a wayfinding kiosk?
Wayfinding kiosks take digital wayfinding one step further. Powered by your company’s wayfinding software, wayfinding kiosks display your facility’s digital floor plans on an interactive touchscreen that everyone can use.
Kiosks commonly operate as full-sized, standalone touchscreens. But they can also be installed on floating iPads and wall-mounted touchscreen devices.
The power of wayfinding kiosks lies in their convenience. Visitors and travelling employees can use the kiosks to find their way around, without needing to install your company’s wayfinding software on their personal device.
If your workplace uses hot desking, hoteling, or neighborhoods as a seating strategy, employees can use wayfinding kiosks to quickly search for and find a desk the minute they arrive for work.
For larger facilities, dedicated kiosks can mean the difference between frustrated employees (and guests) and empowered teams.
What are the benefits of wayfinding software and wayfinding kiosks?
1. Increased organizational efficiency
Because wayfinding software has the power to support workplace leaders, departments, and individual employees, it brings a long list of efficiencies to the workplace.
For example, it’s quick and easy for employees to find whomever and whatever they need using any device. Requesting desk moves and booking available rooms can be done at the click of a button—no email back-and-forth required.
Facilities managers can use wayfinding software to streamline traditionally time-consuming tasks like planning and managing moves, managing facility requests, tracking down employees, and updating floor plan configurations.
Human resources save time when wayfinding software integrates with their HR platform of choice. This type of integration makes it easier to find desks for new hires and streamline onboarding.
IT teams can also use wayfinding software to install printer drivers remotely and quickly locate where an employee is sitting.
2. Find and connect with coworkers
The larger your organization becomes, the harder it is to remember who’s who, let alone where everyone sits. Wayfinding software links your employee database to your floor plan, giving everyone on your team full insight into who sits where.
Users can search for colleagues by name, title, or department. And individual listings can display helpful employee contact details like their physical location in the facility, their email address, and their phone number.
As an added bonus, if you forget somebody’s name, you don’t need to have an awkward conversation about it. Simply use your wayfinding software to find their name and they’ll be none the wiser.
3. Greater employee independence
Onboarding for new hires is tough. There are so many new processes to learn and too many new names to remember. Providing full access to digital floor plans and a searchable company directory, wayfinding software gives new hires an advantage from day one.
Wayfinding software also reduces the need for veteran employees to ask your reception team and your facilities teams for help with moves and day-to-day tasks. If an employee can’t find the answer they’re looking for on their own, employees can log requests via your company’s wayfinding software, rather than emailing or interrupting your facilities team for in-person support.
4. Increased productivity
Decision overload is the enemy of productivity. Wayfinding software helps your employees stay focused by limiting the amount of steps and decision involved in performing simple workplace tasks.
Wayfinding software does this by making it quick and easy to:
- Submit facility requests
- Request a desk move
- Find and book shared desks
- Locate resources
Integrating your workplace management platform with Slack and other instant messaging apps can further increase productivity. Using this integration, employees can find colleagues, book rooms and shared desks, and submit facility requests without leaving their work Slack account.
5. Positive visitor experience
Picture this: a visitor arrives at your facility, but nobody is at reception to greet them. That visitor can either wait until somebody arrives, or start walking around your facility to request help from the nearest available employee.
Understandably, this isn’t a positive experience for the visitor, or for the employees who are constantly being pulled away from their desk to help when your reception team isn’t available.
Companies are solving this problem by installing wayfinding kiosks at their reception desk. With an intuitive, user-friendly design, kiosks are easy to use, even for first timers. Visitors can use the kiosk to notify contacts of their arrival, or navigate their way directly to the meeting room they’re due to attend.
6. Sustainability
Any time your floor plan configuration changes, paper maps need to be reprinted and redistributed. It’s a time-consuming process for your facilities team which raises your company’s printing costs and negatively impacts the environment.
Digital wayfinding eliminates these problems while improving your organization’s environmental footprint. Any changes to your floor plan are updated in real time, so you’ll never worry about updating and resupplying paper maps to your employees.
7. Enhancements via integrations
Third-party integrations can further add to the benefits wayfinding software brings to your organization.
For example, when workplace sensors are integrated with your wayfinding software, they can update room and shared desk availability on your digital floor plan in real time.
Integrate your HR platform with your wayfinding software, and your human resources, facilities, and IT teams will receive automated notifications when it’s time to install a desk and new technology for new, incoming hires.
8. Improved employee well-being
Research has shown that improving the workplace experience has a direct, positive impact on employee well-being. Wayfinding software eliminates a long list of frustrations that often arise when paper maps and manual spreadsheets are the only tools available to navigate the workplace.
Helping your employees to connect with everything they need, quickly and without hassle, goes a long way to improving employee satisfaction and well-being.
Could your workplace use a wayfinding upgrade? Schedule a personalized demo and learn how OfficeSpace can help.
Photo Credits: Pixabay, Timothy Muza, Bruce Mars, Snapwire, mickey970
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