The pandemic will end sooner or later, but attitude towards work organisation may have changed forever. Businesses are aware that maintaining large offices is not always efficient.

Flexible working hours that allow a combination of remote and on-site work are often more efficient, both in terms of performance and cost savings. Every company is now looking for its ideal work organisation formula, and that is where smart office management software comes in. One of the most convenient is Simple Office.

From personal experience

“Before the pandemic, we found ourselves a bigger office and almost started renovating it, but when the Covid-19 restrictions ended, we realised we did not need a bigger office. Rather, we should be grateful, because remote work has changed the way how many people and companies understand processes,” says Dmitrijs Sapa, co-owner of Unibranes, as he starts the conversation with Forbes.

Faced with this new challenge, Dmitrijs, who has been working in the field of information technology for almost 20 years, together with his partners looked for possible solutions. “When the pandemic started, the IT market changed a lot, as did client requirements,” points out Dmitrijs. That is why the search for new solutions was not limited by geography. And the solution was found in the United Arab Emirates, where programmers had created a product Simple Office. Unibranes is now the official distributor of the system.

New challenges

Five days in the office – such a model remains in the past. Many companies are adopting a hybrid working model – some days employees are required to be at the office, other days they can work from home. From time to time, situations arise where employees, the whole team or just a department, need to consult face-to-face, without a screen or monitor, sometimes they need to meet with clients.

Several studies confirm that not all employees want to return to the office for the whole week. In many fields, especially given the shortage of qualified employees, convenience in organising the work process is a competitive advantage in the race for specialists. Employers have the difficult task of meeting the needs and expectations of their employees while maintaining the efficiency of the company.

Businesses understand that it is unforgivably wasteful to maintain premises for 100 employees when, in reality, only 30-50 people are in the office at once. The right choice in this situation is obvious – to reduce office space, however, it poses new organisational challenges in terms of office space use and staff interaction.

How to effectively organise team work on projects? How can I control the number of employees that are at the office at the same time? How to avoid queues in the meeting rooms, or in the common areas, such as the canteen? In practice, managers have to deal with all these issues promptly.

Maximum flexibility is needed. Rapid changes inworking patterns are very stressful for employees, even if they do not show it. It is important to create new habits and to demonstrate that all initiatives are aimed at keeping workers healthy, safe, and comfortable.

That is where IT solutions come in – office managers that organise the entire work process. However, it is very important that such software is as user-friendly as possible, otherwise employees will see it as an additional burden and will not use it.

Such a modern solution to the problem was available before the pandemic, but people would still be drawn to their working place. Now it seems inconvenient, and sometimes even irrelevant on busy days. Dmitrijs Sapa is convinced that his company's new product Simple Office meets all modern requirements.  

How does the system work in practice?

“Simple Office is a unique system with no analogues. There are similar systems that provide only some of the Simple Office functions. Other systems are made solely for booking meeting rooms. Our product is designed for both booking workstations and organising the work process as a whole,” says Dmitrijs. The system can be installed within one day and consists of several components. It is a mobile application which every employee has, but the system is administered by the office manager.

The idea is simple: a plan of the premises is loaded into the system, which Unibranes can also create if necessary. All workstations, meeting rooms and the equipment available at the workstation, such as a computer, telephone, coffee machine or anything else, are then marked. Each workstation is identified with a QR code. An employee who wants to work in an office can check on their phone which workstations will be occupied and which – available, and whether there is any sense to go to the office at all. When an employee arrives, he scans a QR code to sign in. If a person is, for example, more than 15 minutes late (does not scan the QR code within the set time limit), his workstation reservation is cancelled, and the workstation is available again.

“During the pandemic, companies cut jobs and partially gave up offices, although the number of employees remained the same. For example, there are companies that have an office space for ten people but twice as many employees. Thanks to Simple Office, this is not a problem – you will always make sure there is space available when you arrive at the office of such a company,” says Dmitrijs.

Simple Office is not just a handy tool for employees. The system is an excellent tool for planning and managing office space for the employer as well. He can monitor office occupancy, see statistics on workstation usage and draw conclusions about employees' preferences to work remotely or on-site. You can also send a notification to all users, to a group or to a specific person through Simple Office.

Simple Office developers offer the possibility to adapt the system to the specific needs of each customer. The system is suitable for both companies and co-working space owners.

The world has changed significantly in recent years and business field is forced to adapt. Now, to remain profitable, it is necessary to know how to use tools that not only minimize costs but also increase the efficiency of our staff. Simple Office is the tool to do just that!

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