Is "Hoteling" the Wave of the Future?

The concept of office hoteling is not new, but it is a popular way for companies to deal with rising real estate costs, mobile employees and keeping key employees. Hoteling, also referred to as "non-territorial offices", became a catch phrase back in the mid 90's. It started with an ad agency in 1994 trading in their desks for lockers, and moved to a reservation system for workspace and equipment.

Hoteling is designed around technology. One of the greatest challenges of this cutting edge concept is how can the mobile employee communicate to their office and customers when they are on the road? One company, Travelers Telecom, has developed a product called WirelessConnect designed to link the employee's remote phone (this could be either a cell phone or home office phone) to their desk phone while they are anywhere in the United Sates creating a wireless office. As long as there are modems, electrical outlets, and cellular or PCS phones, traveling employees can tie into their office at any time. Hoteling allows business' to reduce office space by eliminating the traditional 1:1 ratio of employee to cubicle, and instead actually basing the desk space on demand. Hoteling models then rely on technology to create a transparent interface between an office and employees on the road. If 40% of your employees are outside salespeople, for example, their workspaces in the office would not need to sit idle while they are out selling.

That is the essence of office hoteling: you reserve space and technology based on when and where you will need it. And as long as your cell phone is 'connected" to your desk phone you will never miss that important call. One of the biggest barriers to success of this arrangement is dealing with reservations. You must communicate and meet that demand every time: There are a number of ways to do this: smaller companies would just keep a written log of who needs space and when it is needed. They may also organize a spreadsheet to do sign - ups. Other companies have developed their own in-house system. Most will turn to a reservation system software package. This software coordinates the creation of a new workspace that is enabled by advances in remote access and convergence technologies.

Companies with mobile employees should focus on asset sharing: the idea that business assets such as phones, faxes, printers, and desks should be thought of as shared resources rather than owned by a specific individual. Companies that utilize the best wireless technology available to them can route all of their calls through their company's PBX (Private Branch Exchange) phone system for call accounting. No longer will they have to submit tedious expense reports itemizing calls on their cell phone or home office. From a cost perspective, this makes a lot of sense. Having an office that isn't used half of the time makes no sense. Office hoteling consolidates these personal spaces into reserved work areas. Employees register into the office hotel and reserve office equipment as needed. Organized reservations are only part of the uphill climb in making hoteling work. If you can meet your employee's space and equipment needs on time and correctly, you will be well on your way to decreasing overhead costs and making the most of your corporate infrastructure.

Hoteling gives companies many benefits. Anderson Consulting LLP published occupancy cost reductions from $2,700 to $10,000 per person per year. Ernst and Young LLP published real estate costs savings of $40 million per year. Hoteling also increases productivity of sales people, consultants, and mobile service professionals by increasing the amount of time in front of customers. Productivity increases of 5% to 20% have been measured. A wireless office creates a true one number solution so that if a customer calls and the user chooses not to answer the call, it will route the message to the users corporate voicemail system, thus eliminating the need to check more than one voicemailbox. Another cost saving occurs when wireless office users can make international calls using their cell phone while taking advantage of land line rates. It also increases the productivity of all mobile professionals by. enabling them to reserve and occupy space that matches their needs for that day. Sharing resources throughout the enterprise allows mobile users to get what they need, when they need it,.in the location where they are. The results that business' have achieved are remarkable. One company reduced real estate costs by more than $40 million annually while another red iced per person occupancy costs by 70%. In North America leased office space utilization averages between 30% to 50% at any time during an eight-hour day. This is a poor allocation of resources compared to any plant, distribution center, or airplane. Finally in a study done by Rogers CanTel, wireless office integration has been shown to save 1.5 hours a day in telephone tag, searching for phone, retrieving voicemail and returning messages. With an average employee salary of $35,000 giving an hourly wage of $16.83, the daily savings are $25.25 per employee. In a company with .100 employees, the annual productivity saving in wages alone could be $656,500l! It is easy to see how this can happen in an organization when real estate and related office assets are vie wed as a perk of long-term employment, a sign of stature, or a fixed cost. The notion of one dedicated workplace per person is rapidly giving way to treating real estate as a shared enterprise asset.

This new view of the workplace creates unprecedented opportunities for organizations to reduce occupancy costs, release the cash now tied up in real estate (now typically 30% of a company's capital base), increase the productivity of mobile employees, and support more people with existing, or even fewer facilities.

Chris Boyd is a sales executive five with Travelers Telecom.