How to Enhance Hybrid Work with IoT-enabled Smart Offices
Optimize workplaces with IoT for enhanced productivity, comfort, and sustainability in the hybrid work era.
Louis Blatt of Join Digital discusses how smart offices, powered by IoT, reshape the hybrid work landscape, enhancing productivity, employee comfort, and resource efficiency.
Smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) have become a natural part of nearly every aspect of our busy lives. We have a smartwatch or a Fitbit that we connect to our smartphone to view metrics about our health and exercise. We have smart home security systems that we control right from our laptops or smartphones. And now, increasingly, smart devices are part of our everyday work in the form of smart offices.
The smart office market has an expected compound annual growth rate of about 14% for the next several years, which is a testament to the increasing demand for efficient workplace management.
That number will only rise as employees transition back to in-person and hybrid work, and employers strive to find ways to make the transition more comfortable and efficient. So, how can smart offices change the outlook for in-person work for companies and employees?
IoT in the Office
So, how do smart offices relate to the return to work movement? A smart office is a cloud-connected network that can deliver many workplace analytics. The analytics empower managers and company decision-makers to see what spaces are popular and how their workforce interacts on a given day. That data can help you optimize the employee experience.
This type of optimization is more necessary now than ever before. Pre-pandemic, the way that workers interacted with the office was routine. HR and team leaders always knew who would be in the office on a given day, making coordinating meetings or arranging collaborative projects easy. It was easy to predict how much of the office would be full at any given time or how many attendees would join a conference in person. In-person work was considered a given.
Post-pandemic, that’s no longer the case. Improvements in video conferencing and online collaboration accelerated the work from home. Now, companies are trying to figure out which activities should be done in person, online, or hybrid to optimize productivity.
Strong evidence and conventional wisdom indicate that in-person is better for creative collaboration (Nature, 2022), culture building, social events, and mentoring. These in-person activities can be improved with a more connected network and IoT. They may need to know who else is in the office today to plan project collaboration. Or maybe you’d like some of your team members to come into the office to work on a project, but they’re citing too much noise or poor air quality as reasons to stay home.
It’s hard for team leaders to arrange collaboration or know how to accommodate varied preferences and needs if they don’t know how the office space is being used or don’t have an easy way to track who is in the office on a given day. And that’s where IoT comes in, to provide all that information and make it easier to transition to hybrid or in-person work.
Data-driven Decisions
IoT in the office can provide a much more comfortable, optimized work environment through data collection and optimization, and providing ways for employees to give feedback immediately.
Let’s start with data collection. What kinds of data might be useful on a given day? IoT can help you collect attendance data through smart badges or smart entry sensors, so you know who is in the office at any given time. Occupancy sensors can tell you where in the office your employees are at any given time, which conference rooms are full, and so on. Air quality monitoring, temperature, lighting, and noise sensors can tell you how healthy and comfortable the environment is for your employees. Strong evidence indicates a 20% improvement in productivity for spaces that monitor indoor environmental quality.
And that information will bring you directly to the next part: optimization. Smart offices often have smart lighting and HVAC systems. The sensors collect the data, and the IoT systems can adjust the environment. This reduces costs and improves sustainability.
For example, smart lighting sensors can collect data about the level of natural light provided by windows, etc., and balance the indoor lighting accordingly. Occupancy sensors can show which rooms are vacant at which times during the day so that you can reduce or eliminate lights in those rooms. Or maybe occupancy data shows you that your employees are avoiding a particular room in your building, and temperature data shows you why: the HVAC system isn’t working properly to cool the area.
And since I’m in management, let me tell you that this also benefits company leaders. Not only will this type of data help you keep your employees comfortable with in-person attendance, but it also helps you save money and operate more sustainably. Offices using IoT to optimize their electricity use typically reduce energy consumption by 10% to 30%. So, a smart office can help you save resources that you can allocate towards improving employee satisfaction and productivity in other areas.
See More: Top 6 Analytics Trends To Drive Data-Driven Decision
Empowering Employee Feedback for Enhanced Smart Offices
Finally, you can create ways for your employees to provide immediate feedback on your smart office setup so you can optimize further. IoT lets you make this available on-site when your employees have something to say. For example, you could have a mobile app that allows employees to give feedback on how easy it was to connect with coworkers for a conference. Or you can have a smart console that lets employees fill out a short survey, express concerns or pain points, or express that, for example, there’s not enough light or the environment is uncomfortable for another reason.
Smart buildings provide a host of new opportunities for you to connect with your employees and learn about their preferences and how to help them be more productive. You can let workers feel heard and optimize the workplace for greater efficiency, lower costs, and better sustainability. No wonder smart offices are becoming more and more common today.
How can IoT-driven smart offices enhance employee experience, productivity, and sustainability? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
Image Source: Shutterstock
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