Envoy Announces the General Availability of its Hot-Desking Solution for the Rise of the Hybrid Workplace

By HRTech News Desk On Jun 15, 2021

Envoy is announcing the general availability of Envoy Desks, a desk reservation system launched in beta in November 2020 to help companies adapt to a hybrid workplace, meet social distancing guidelines, and optimize their space with data-driven insights. After a year of working remotely due to the pandemic, 48% of people (surveyed out of 1,000 US office-workers) want to maintain their new flexibility by working on-site 1-4 days per week. The demand for hot desks is also increasing, with Envoy desk bookings growing 95% from April to May 2021, with over 113,000 reservations in May alone. Desks offers a flexible way to ensure teams can collaborate in person while keeping a safe distance as employees make their return to the workplace.

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“Hybrid work is the new reality, as workers are embracing the flexibility and work life balance it brings. However, hybrid models can be complex when it comes to scheduling, safety, and the employee experience,” said Larry Gadea, Founder & CEO of Envoy. “We built Envoy Desks by working with our customers and understanding their greatest needs. While we aimed to simplify the process of hot desking for employers, the employee’s experience was always top of mind. We wanted to enable workplace teams to design an experience that supports employees to do their best work wherever they are.”

In a recent survey of 800+ global workplace leaders, 54% reported adding at least some spaces designed for hot-desking to their workplace. With the general availability of Envoy Desks comes additional tools to make the management of those spaces easier, and ultimately make it easier for employees to collaborate in-person. These tools unlock benefits including:

Collaboration: With multi-day booking, employees have the ability to set their schedule for the hybrid work week and book a desk in advance. For admins, this provides more data around who is planning to work on-site so they can plan ahead.
Accessibility: Employees can now book and change desks however they prefer, whether that be via the mobile app, a web browser—or soon, from Slack.
Space efficiency: Allows employees to free up desks for someone else to use if they don’t need a desk that day, as well as automatically free up desks that go unused. This provides an accurate view of who and how many people plan to work on-site each day so teams can adjust their layout to support employees and minimize wasted space.
Space planning and optimization: Desks global analytics help workplaces leaders understand how their space is being used across locations, which can help them make cost-saving decisions backed by data on occupancy, neighborhood usage, and preferred desk bookings. They can see desk utilization across locations to understand how their spaces are used across all or at specific locations.
Customization: Envoy is built to fit seamlessly with the other tools and foundational systems used in the workplace. With an open API and a fast-growing directory of 75+ integrations, companies can easily connect Envoy to their most-used tools and critical workplace systems, streamlining team’s workflows and capturing more value from existing tools. For example, teams can create automated workflows to reserve and check-in to desks from other workplace tools and sensors; show upcoming desk reservations on digital displays; or create custom analytics using desk reservations.

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Companies such as Zoom, Patagonia, Lionsgate and others have been using Desks to plan for and support their hybrid work model, while adjusting their space and capacity per the CDC’s recommendations.

“Planning for our reopening has been taxing. We don’t want employees to have to wonder if their teammates will be coming into the office or where they will be sitting to be able to effectively work and collaborate,” said Alex Pezzulo, Senior Office and Facilities Manager at Conductor. “Envoy Desks has made hot-desking a seamless process that offers an easy way for employees to coordinate when, where and how they will work together.”

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