Introducing workplace schedules: A new way for teams to plan when and how to work together

As much as people love the flexibility of remote work, they also miss working side by side with their co-workers each day. Most people want to return to the workplace and say they most want to return to work alongside their peers.

However, when the default is no longer the office, coordinating when, where, and how to work together becomes a challenge. Say you’re coordinating a big launch and need to work on-site with your project team this week. What days can everyone go in? And how should you let them know that you’ll need them on-site on Thursday? You’ll need a place to work—are enough desks available together and is there a free meeting room that’s large enough for the group? It looks like you need to pull another co-worker into the meeting—are they on-site today? If so, where are they sitting?Answering these questions for your team will be vital to helping them focus and collaborate in a hybrid work environment. Today, we’re excited to introduce new ways to use Envoy to help your team coordinate when and how they will work together.

Plan to work on-site as a team

With a hybrid workplace, planning your workweek can feel like a strange game of chess where you can’t see the other players’ moves. You want to go in on the same days as your team or project group. But, unless they start adding their workplace schedule to their calendars, you’re stuck guessing which days they’ll be on site. Not only could this hold a project back if plans don’t match up, but it could mean that your work is less visible if you choose the “wrong” days.

Starting today, you can use Envoy Protect to sync your workplace schedule with your co-workers, so no commute goes to waste. See who plans to work on-site each day before you set your schedule. Reserve a spot in the workplace to make it known which days you plan to work on-site, so your team knows when they can catch you in person.

If you don’t want co-workers to see your workplace schedule, you have the control and flexibility to make your schedule public or private.

Reduce the back and forth of coordinating schedules

There are few tasks more trying than finding a day and time that everyone can meet up in person. Whether you’re planning an on-site for your team or want to catch up with a work friend, speed up the process of coordinating your schedules with Envoy.

Starting in June, you will be able to use the Envoy app to invite co-workers to reserve a spot in the workplace on days that you plan to go in. You’ll get a heads up once they accept your invitation, so you can spend less time playing calendar Tetris and more time working together.

Reserve the space you need to focus or collaborate

With fewer people using the workplace each day, many companies plan to replace assigned seats with desks that anyone can book. But not knowing if there will be a desk available when you arrive can create anxiety. Now you can use Envoy Desks with Protect to book a desk days or weeks in advance.

When you set your schedule in the Envoy app, Envoy reserves you a desk near your team for each day you plan to go in. You can easily select a different desk depending on the task at hand that day or who you want to work with.

Know who’s working where

When it comes to working with others—whether that be asking a simple question or holding a meeting—it helps to know your collaborators’ locations. For instance, for your meeting in five minutes, do you need to grab a two-person room, a six-person room, or a phone booth and a Zoom link? Should you walk over to their desk to ask the question or message them on Slack or Microsoft Teams?

Now you can link your Slack status to Envoy to show when you’re signed in and working from the office. If you book a desk, your desk number appears as well, so it’s easy for co-workers to find you when they need to.

Anticipate and adapt based on data

As a workplace leader, one of the most critical parts of your job is seeing into the future. Predicting how many desks, lunches, or security staff you might need today, let alone three months from now, becomes even more difficult with a hybrid work model.

Now that employees can set their schedules in Envoy in advance, you get an accurate view of who and how many people plan to work on-site each day. With forward-looking data on foot traffic, you can determine when you might need more bookable spaces or scale down things like lunch orders on slower days.

Customize Envoy to meet your team’s hybrid work needs

To create a thriving hybrid work culture, you will need to adapt your tech stack and processes to suit the new demands of your team. Envoy’s developer platform makes it easy to build custom workflows on top of Envoy, so you can streamline processes and help your team to navigate the challenges of hybrid work. For instance, with Envoy’s developer platform you can:

• Automatically update the size of your lunch order based on how many people are expected at the workplace that day.
• Show who plans to work on-site and their assigned seats on digital displays in the workplace.
• Notify employees when the workplace is close to reaching capacity so they can grab a spot before it fills up.

Visit our Developer hub to get started customizing Envoy to meet your team’s specific hybrid work needs.

Empower your team to thrive in a hybrid work environment

To create a great workplace experience in 2021, you need to understand and empower your people to do their best work—wherever they are. Shifting to a hybrid work model should help your team thrive at work, not stand in the way. With a workplace platform centered around people, not spaces, it’s easy to support your team to connect, collaborate, and focus.

Learn more about how Envoy helps companies create safe, flexible workplaces where people love to be.

Get started with Protect to empower employees to set their schedules and invite co-workers, and Desks to book desks in advance.