Enabling hybrid working with bespoke desk booking system

Industry

Technology

Introduction

Find out how NashTech’s internal desk booking software helped to drive efficiency in the workplace and measure occupancy rates with high accuracy.

A new working model: adapting to a changed world

The rise of the pandemic led way to a significant shift in the working model of organisations. What was once a rarity, the hybrid working model has emerged as the norm for organisations today. NashTech is no exception to this. With employees spending part of their time in the office and the other remote, the occupancy rates of our physical centres across Vietnam have reduced by almost half. This change introduced a number of benefits: reduced real estate costs and turnover rates, as well as increased employee engagement and satisfaction.

Yet, the adjustment to the hybrid model was not always met with efficiency and NashTech faced several challenges when anticipating office occupancy levels.

The unexpected challenges of the hybrid model

The new working policy meant that a significant number of employees were opting to work from home in place of the office. With this behavioural shift it was becoming increasingly difficult to determine exactly how many employees were attending the office daily.

An unfortunate byproduct, employees would frequently enter the office to find overcrowding and insufficient desk spaces. Product teams for example, found this particularly frustrating as they relied on the close collaboration and easy teamwork that the office would provide. What’s more, the lack of data points meant that NashTech could not measure the value of office space respective to specific teams, times, or days.

NashTech needed a system that would efficiently capture real-time data to measure occupancy rates and influx periods. The system would need to be user-friendly and accurate, enabling employees to easily manage, schedule and book their desks as desired.

Building a platform to measure office utilisation

NashTech quickly brought together a set of teams to deliver the desk booking software. Built on top of the robust Power Platform, our solution leverages Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI, providing a seamless and user-friendly experience for all users. The inclusion of a floor map feature allows users to visualise desk availability and choose the most suitable workspace dynamically.

We implemented three distinct roles tailored to meet specific needs:

Employee (individual desk booking)
Project Manager (booking multiple desks for their entire project teams)
Admin (manage desk usage for all employees, departments and projects, ensuring optimal space utilisation).

The Power Automate integration enables smooth communication with various cloud services such as O365 Outlook, Personal OneDrive, Dataverse and Custom Connectors, ensuring a connected and integrated workflow. As an efficient database solution, we utilise SharePoint lists to store essential information, including office details, bookings, configurations and employee data.

To enhance employee and project data retrieval, our system seamlessly integrates with Azure App Services, ensuring up-to-date information for booking purposes (such as project names to facilitate bookings for Project Manages). Moreover, it integrates with card reader machines, allowing for automatic check-in when employees swipe their cards in front of each office.

Leveraging the capabilities of Power BI, we are able to create comprehensive sets of reports, empowering our management team with valuable insights into desk usage, including time spent in office by employee, preferred rooms, and more. These reports play a pivotal role in enhancing the booking process, leading to optimised desk utilisation and more efficient workspaces.

The results speak for themselves

The new desk booking solution has unlocked a new level of efficiency and utilisation tracking for NashTech. Now, desk reservations can be managed and office spaces optimised based on real data.

Since its implementation, we have witnessed a significant improvement in employee productivity and engagement across our five offices in Vietnam where it has been deployed. The flexibility and easy usability of our system has enabled employees to set booking dates (even during the weekends) and allocate desks to specific projects as needed.

“Since implementing the desk booking software, we have seen significant improvement in the efficiency of office utilisation and productivity of employees. The smart retrieval of data means we have been able to measure and track office occupancy with high accuracy, while providing the opportunity to optimise spaces, food and beverage supply and drive employee engagement”
Cuong Nguyen Hung, Managing Director at NashTech