Let me ask you a question. When you use Google Maps, is it mainly for navigation or information?
Last weekend, my husband and I decided to take the kids on a road trip to Germany. It is a three-hour drive from where we live; three hours on the freeway with not a single turn. Yet, we used Google Maps all the way there. Not for navigation but for searching for a place along the way to have lunch, checking opening hours, reading reviews, and exploring the neighborhood.
Google Maps is not just a map. It is real-time information about the places you are interested in. Thanks to Google Maps, I could find all the information we needed in one app. Alternatively, I would have had to search for each shop and restaurant to check their opening hours and addresses. Then I would have had to check their location on a map to figure out where they were located to create the best route, and finally, I would have had to search for reviews if I wanted to know more about each restaurant.
Google Maps makes it easy to search and find information because it gathers everything in one place. And if hybrid workplaces are to remain efficient and productive, they have to do the same.
1. All important information in one place
You might be wondering what Google Maps has to do with your workplace solution. Well, the average company has a whopping 254 SaaS applications with enterprises averaging 364 apps. While the apps are all designed to make life easier for employees, they end up making life more difficult for them because it is time-consuming and frustrating having to check and use so many different applications. If you want to create a world-leading workplace platform, you have to provide users with everything they need in one place - just like Google Maps.
With an indoor map as the foundation of your solution, you can integrate any third-party system into your workplace app, providing employees with easy access to all the important information they need in one visual experience. Tasks like booking a work desk or a meeting room, finding a free parking slot for the car, or even ordering food from the canteen are possible and can be done directly through the map, making indoor maps a key component of any workplace solutions.
2. Easy overview and wayfinding
The majority of employees only visit the office once a week, meaning that offices can change while the worker is away. This can be changes to the layout of the office or managerial changes, such as when certain teams are occupying certain rooms.
With an indoor map and wayfinding integrated into your workplace platform, employees always have a clear overview of the spaces, preventing them from getting lost or wasting unnecessary time navigating the office.
The map you chose for your workplace solution should have a well-functioning clustering feature to ensure a clear overview of the data visualized on the map. Without a clustering feature, the map will look messy and employees will find your solution useless because it takes too much effort to find the information they are looking for.
3. Book and locate resources
Finding an available desk or meeting room can be a challenge in a shared desk workplace, which is why room and desk booking is one of the key features in most workplace applications. However, finding Desk 244 in an office with 1,500 desks spread across 4 floors is not easy either unless you have a map that shows you its exact location.
Adding a map to your workplace solution also enables you to visualize other important information, such as how many people a room is suitable for, what equipment is available in the room, and what the temperature and air quality are like. Likewise, you can show the temperature of different areas of your open office space. This allows employees to find and book a room or desk that matches their preferences directly through the map.
4. Find colleagues
The office is transforming from a productivity hub to a collaboration center. However, hybrid working threatens collaboration as it makes it difficult for employees to know when their colleagues are in the office and where to find them.
By integrating a map into your workplace solution, you enable employees to see their colleagues’ locations in real-time and book desks next to each other, ensuring close collaboration.
Just like Google Maps, indoor mapping is not just about wayfinding. It is about giving employees easy access to the information they need when they need it. Adding a map to your workplace solution will help ensure productivity and collaboration as well as enhance employee experience.
If you are looking for an indoor map that easily integrates with any third-party system and possibly any IWMS, MapsIndoors might be the map you are searching for. However, we know that figuring out which map is the right for your solution can be difficult and you might be wondering if you should create your own map. To help you make the right decision, we have created this blog post about the ROI of indoor mapping.
If you want to discuss your solution and needs or if you want a free demo of MapsIndoors, reach out to us here.
February 9, 2023
