A report by advisory firm Colliers, titled “Return to the Office – an Opportunity and a Challenge. Office Market and Coronavirus”, shows that 77 percent of Polish workers want to work in a hybrid model. Most say they are willing to maintain remote work to the extent of 2 or 3 days per week. However, such a model requires a new approach to the organization of office space, as well as to its effective management. Dedicated technology tools, such as Whirla Smart Office, can help in that. In implementing this solution, clients will be supported by Colliers, which has established a strategic partnership with the tool’s creators.

The office as seen from a hybrid perspective

Reorganizing your office for hybrid work involves many changes. More and more companies tend to introduce hot desks and abandon desks assigned to a particular user, which allows to optimize space and expand the team without having to increase office space. More space is also allocated for collaborative and creative work. Such changes also present new challenges for space management.

“To increase employee comfort and effective office management in a hybrid model, it is helpful to set clear rules – establish in advance the proportion and days of work from office/home or define access to particular zones and rooms. However, technology plays a key role in the continuous improvement of office space by providing data, recommendations and insights that allow for analytics of space utilization. The introduction of technological solutions for space management also helps in the daily organization of the office, allowing for things such as dynamic desk reservations or floor plan creation,” says Karolina Dudek, Associate Director, expert on work environment, Workplace Innovation Department, Colliers.

Data as driver of change 

One of the solutions to manage and optimize shared office space is the Whirla Smart Office system. The tool consists of a dashboard that allows for easy configuration as well as creation of floor plans and division into teams and zones. In addition, it gives an up-to-date view of the use of individual places, deletes inactive reservations and provides statistics, reports and recommendations based on artificial intelligence. Employees, on the other hand, have a mobile app at their disposal. With this tool, they can reserve desks and conference rooms, as well as take up ad hoc vacant spaces. The application also allows you to mark your favorite places or create recurrent and group reservations.

The system also offers the option to expand with additional user-friendly, easy-to-install and fully independent IoT sensors that detect the presence of employees and show the occupancy rate of each workspace. Thus, they provide data on the actual use of space, enabling in-depth analytics. Whirla Smart Office creates statistics on desk and zone usage for specific days and months, for each user of the system. With such a rich set of data, the system itself is able to suggest the most optimal division of the office into zones, as well as employees into groups and teams. This allows to continually improve office space to best meet the needs of users.

“At Colliers, we believe that the workplace has long ceased to be limited to four walls, so we look at the office through the prism of the interwoven paths of experience of the people who use it. Through technology, we not only want to simplify life in the office, but also support its flexibility and enhance the experience of its users. For this purpose, we regularly test new solutions and look for innovative tools that respond to the challenges of the constantly changing reality. Working with the startup Whirla will allow us to support our clients in adapting technology tools to the current needs and situation of the organization,” says Renata Hartle, Technology Solutions Manager, Colliers.

Karolina Dudek

Associate Director

expert on work environment

Workplace Innovation Department, Colliers

Renata Hartle

Technology Solutions Manager, Colliers