Tribeloo optimizes the hybrid workplace with their easy-to-use desk booking solution

The New Way of Working

The team over at Tribeloo started working on their solution back in 2017, developing their product next to their full-time jobs.

"Back in 2017, you could consider us as visionaries as we believed New Ways of Working (NWOW) would be the future" said Serge, one of Tribeloo’s founders, "However, the COVID pandemic is what really kickstarted most companies in the 21st century and showed us that our current working practices were outdated”

Hybrid working, where employees have some flexibility over WHEN and WHERE they work, is only the beginning according to Tribeloo. In “agile working”, employees also have full control over HOW they get things done. They might pick up different roles and work within different teams. All that matters is the result, not the process itself. To enable this, it is important to create an agile or “activity-based” working environment which includes a mix of spaces:

-  Open spaces
-  Quiet zones
-  Breakout / relaxing spaces
-  Focus rooms
-  Phone booths
-  Huddle rooms
-  Meeting rooms

According to research by McKinsey& Company, 52% of employees prefer a more flexible working model over a fully remote or on-site one. What's more, over 30%  of employees said they’d leave their current job if it meant they had to go back to working in an office full-time. According to Microsoft, 66% of decision-makers are thinking about redesigning their physical spaces to better accommodate a hybrid work model.

According to Tribeloo, these numbers aren’t surprising as the benefits of hybrid work are numerous: Increased employee productivity, improved work-life balance, higher employee satisfaction & retention rates and lower real estate costs.

A desk booking solution to optimize the hybrid workplace

In a hybrid working model, it does not make sense to have a fixed desk for each employee as many desks will never be used. Instead, the amount of desks can be significantly reduced by reducing floor space or redesigning the office space.

Companies can opt for either hot desking or office hoteling. These are similar in that the desks are fully flexible and can be taken by anyone. The major difference is that in office hoteling, desks can be booked in advanced while in the traditional sense of hot desking, they cannot.

“Office hoteling, also called desk booking, has some significant advantages over hot desking,” according to Tribeloo co-founder Thomas, “workspaces can be booked in advance, allowing you to see where your colleagues are sitting and when they are in the office. You also don’t have the risk of showing up to a full office. And lastly, you do not need any expensive sensors to know the office utilization, you can just rely on the bookings made by your employees.”

What to look for in a desk booking solution

“The desk booking solution market is booming and there are many different solutions out there making it difficult for companies to choose one that fits them,” according to Thomas. “Make sure to think about some of the following things”

-  Ease of use: A solution may have an endless amount of features, if it’s not intuitive and easy to use for employees, the tool will not get adopted and the project will fail. This is Tribeloo’s key focus area.
-  Integrations: Integrations with a native Outlook or Google calendar may be very practical as employees are already used to book meeting rooms from there. Tribeloo offers both and even gives the option to show a floorplan within the calendar.
-  Floorplans: Ideally look for a solution that supports a visual floorplan and makes it easy to upload and change them.
-  Finding colleagues: Several solutions offer options to see who is in the office at a certain time or even check their booking schedule and book a desk next to them.
-  Neighborhoods: allow workplaces to be grouped under a neighborhood (e.g. sales) so that teams can sit together and rules can be configured related to who can book the neighborhoods and when.

The future

The best way for companies to get started with desk booking is just to give it a try, start A/B testing and see what works and what does not work for their company. 

“Desk booking solutions are constantly evolving” says Thomas, “Tribeloo is continuously updating their product based on customer feedback. We are currently undergoing a drastic UX / UI redesign aimed to further improve and simplify the ease of use and simplicity of our solution.”