Why Use An Interactive Office Map In 2024? [Expert Guide]

Most of today’s workers prefer having a hybrid work option over working solely in-office. In fact, recent insights from Gallup show that six in ten employees with a remote-capable job would prefer a hybrid work arrangement, with fewer than 10% preferring to work entirely onsite.

A hybrid work environment has the potential to offer the best of everything to employees — but only if the downsides are mitigated. Full-time hybrid workers cite work-life balance, efficient use of time, and higher productivity as the top advantages of hybrid work. But less resource access, reduced collaboration, and coordination difficulties rank high among the challenges of the hybrid model.

As a company with a hybrid team, you’ll need to adapt to keep your employees engaged and productive. But how?

In this article, we’ll look at how an interactive office map can help your team members maximize their efficiency and feel more connected. We’ll outline what an interactive office map is, why you should consider one, and everything you’ll need to get started with your office map template.

Quick Summary:

• Hybrid work is popular, but it comes with challenges. An interactive office map can help keep your team on task, productive, and happy.
• The benefits of an interactive office map include ease of collaboration and a safer workplace.
• Creating and maintaining an interactive office map will help your team become more efficient.
• With OfficeRnD Workplace, you can streamline the workplace experience for your hybrid employees.

What Is an Interactive Office Map?

An interactive office map is a digital representation of your company’s workspace layout. It heightens the workplace experience for hybrid employees by making it easier to view, book, and locate key office resources.

Think of an interactive office map as a customizable office directory that gives you a bird’s-eye view, showing the floorspace, equipment, and people. Put simply, it solves the problem of employees knowing which person, piece of equipment, or conference room they need but being unable to find it.

An office map that makes office navigation easier can benefit any workplace, but it’s especially helpful in a hybrid environment. If your teams often move around, use a hot desking system, and collaborate on projects with remote employees, it’s a way to help everyone make the most of their time at the office.

5 Benefits of Using an Interactive Office Map

While hybrid work is preferred by many, the structure can make it harder for employees to feel connected to their team members during their home-based days. An interactive office map lets staff reserve the spaces and facilities they need on their remote days, which can help them maximize their focused work time when onsite.

Here are some of the key benefits of implementing a digital office map template:

Meetings Are Seamless Once Employees Are Onsite

According to Gartner research, building relationships and improving collaboration are among the top reasons employees use the office. By making it easier for them to book the spaces they need, you’ll improve the workplace experience for your team, leading to higher employee satisfaction.

As an example, with OfficeRnD Workplace, your team can use desk scheduling to book spaces together and reserve meeting rooms with the amenities they need.

Working Together Gets Easier

Harvard Business Review research indicates that coordination is a key challenge of hybrid work. Beyond desk reservations and room bookings, hybrid workers can use an office directory to search for the team members they need to contact and schedule in-person collaboration for their onsite workdays.

By picking a seat close to the person they need to work with, your team members can arrange in-person brainstorming sessions from their home office and get more mileage from the time they spend with their coworkers.

With a platform that makes it simple to locate crucial colleagues, you can create a hybrid work environment that fosters cross-departmental collaboration, empowering your employees to work together and be more productive.

Sure enough, the right tools help immensely in that process.

For example, with the OfficeRnD floorplan clustering system, booking desk space becomes easy for hybrid workers, even if they work in offices with large or complex floorplans.

You can even book desks in bulk.

A Safer Workplace

How familiar are your hybrid workers with your in-office protocols in the case of an emergency? An interactive office map is one way to help them get up to speed before disaster strikes.

A digital map gives you complete visibility of your premises. When you can see which hot desks are taken, you can manage headcounts in the event of an emergency or drill. You can then mark the emergency exits on the map for all employees to view, leading to a faster and more efficient evacuation if the worst should happen.

You can even combine this with advanced presence tracking to enhance your operational efficiency.

Optimized Onsite Time

Employees who arrive at the office prepared for their day are often more productive. Access to an office directory showing the layout ahead of time can help your team locate meeting rooms in a timely manner and easily book desks.

Plus, visitors benefit from seeing the building’s layout before their arrival. Instead of navigating a maze-like office on the fly and running late for appointments, your stakeholders, for instance, can help visitors prepare for their visit in advance.

Include a plan of the parking area to assist guests in finding a space quickly. You can even offer a contactless check-in option and add instructions for finding the badge entry area.

A Bird’s-Eye View

Creating a workplace that functions well starts with a clear and complete overview of what’s happening and where. For a facility manager, an interactive floor plan and customizable office map is a great way to keep on top of how space is being used, the occupancy status of rooms, and which areas of the office are likely to see high traffic.

For example, the bathrooms adjacent to the conference space used for quarterly sales meetings might need an extra bit of TLC ahead of the big day. An interactive map will help you to identify where your maintenance team should spend their time.

Case Study: How an Office Map Helped Dewhirst Go Hybrid Without a Headache

A leader in fashion design and manufacture, Dewhirst is no stranger to changing with the times. The company was established in 1880 and continues to innovate to meet the needs of modern employees.

After the COVID-19 pandemic shook up their office culture, Dewhirst turned to OfficeRnD Workplace for help adopting a reliable hybrid work model. With a simple-to-use floorplan and ease of desk and room booking, OfficeRnD helped Dewhirst get their employees back to top productivity without frustration.

4 Tips for Creating an Interactive Office Map

The shift toward remote and hybrid work continues even now, post-pandemic, according to data from McKinsey.

With many skilled employees weighing work-life balance and lifestyle aspects, such as hybrid work, heavily in their decision-making processes, getting a solid strategy in place for hybrid work in the future will help you attract and retain high-quality workers.

But creating dynamic work environments that function well isn’t easy.

An interactive office map can help you bolster employee productivity in and out of your office building by making it easier for them to navigate the physical space and make the most of their face-to-face time with colleagues.

Ready to create your office map? Take a look at these four tips:

Get to Know Your Space

Are you clear on how your space is currently being used? Creating a floor plan map is a good way to review your space management and make sure you’re getting the most out of every square foot.

It starts with collecting data on your current layout, furniture, equipment, and people. Once you have this data, you can review how your office amenities are being utilized and where you could make some changes.

For example, if a particular piece of equipment has gone unused for a while, consider placing it in storage to free up more space for the amenities your team members use more frequently.

Improve Your Space Utilization

As you prepare to create your interactive office map, assess whether the ways you’re currently utilizing your space are working or if switching things up could be beneficial.

For instance, is your furniture arranged in a way that allows natural light to enter the office? Are any breakout spaces under-utilized? And if heavily used spaces neighbor each other, are acoustics an issue?

OfficeRnD Workplace can help you manage your spaces, creating a customized environment that fits your workers’ needs.

Conduct Testing and Feedback

Once your interactive office map is ready, it’s time to test, test, test! Gather internal feedback from your teams — after all, they’ll be the ones using the office map the most. It’s a good idea to have them run through some simple tasks, like locating a colleague or booking a desk.

External feedback is also valuable. If someone external to the organization visits your office for meetings periodically, consider providing them with the map and asking for feedback on whether it makes their life easier.

And, of course, make sure to build in enough time to refine your interactive office map before you go live with it.

Update Your Map When Things Change

Building an interactive office map isn’t a one-and-done project. Sometimes, you’ll need to move things around.

And when your floor plans change, your customizable digital office map should, too.

For example, if a meeting room is closed for refurbishment, be sure to mark that on the map. Or if you’ve added an extra sofa to a breakout area, let your team know — they might plan to use it!

By updating your interactive office map regularly, you’ll avoid confusion caused by out-of-date information and help your employees stay informed and productive.

How OfficeRnD Workplace Can Help

If you’re looking to get your workplace ready for hybrid workers, an interactive office map can help. With OfficeRnD Workplace, your team can:

• View available spaces and create one-time or recurring desk and meeting room bookings on an interactive office map
• Reserve equipment from anywhere in a few clicks
• Easily navigate the hybrid workplace with a visual floor plan of every location
• Find key colleagues and book collaboration sessions

OfficeRnD Workplace lets you easily add new office maps and mark bookable desks and meeting rooms. Plus, you can use it to create “neighborhoods” or special zones assignable to specific teams.

FAQ

Is There a Way to Create an Interactive Map?

Yes, you can create an interactive map. First, pick a map software to use. Next, gather data about your workplace. Thirdly, add interactivity and customize your map. Finally, publish it.

What Makes a Good Interactive Map?

A good interactive map is intuitive, easy to use, and updated as necessary to reflect the latest layout and amenities of the mapped area.

What Is a Clickable Map?

A clickable map is a floor plan that allows users to engage with the map and its features. For example, users can zoom in and out or click on certain areas to view information or perform an action.

How to Create an Interactive Floor Plan in Excel?

Creating an interactive floor plan in Excel involves a few steps that leverage Excel’s features like shapes, images, and hyperlinks. Here’s a nice guide. In addition, you can check out our Excel desk booking template that contains a floor plan.