New in Mapiq: Group Workspace Booking

Why we built Group Workspace Booking

With hybrid work here to stay, organizations face a common challenge: helping employees coordinate their workdays while using resources efficiently.  

Today, many employees see going to the office not as a way to be productive, but as a task that wastes time. They wonder why they should bother commuting to the office if they are just going to sit alone, or, even worse, spend the entire workday in a meeting room on virtual calls.

In our research, we learned that people also spend more time trying to catch up with colleagues and looking for the best place to complete a task than collaborating with each other. And after countless interviews with workplace leaders, as well as employees, we were able to learn firsthand the additional struggles people had with existing ways of collaborating at the office:  

‍Reduced cross-team collaboration: While people within teams can usually align quite easily with each other about office days, it is much more difficult to predict when other colleagues will be at the office and where to find them. That is especially true if you are used to working in project teams or squads with people from different departments. For example, Product Managers - collaborate with Development teams - but also need to consistently align with various stakeholders internally.  

Lack of designated seating: With hot desks becoming more the norm, it is quite difficult to find a place to sit with a group. Usually, team leaders need to coordinate that well in advance, or book a number of individual workspaces for the entire team.  

This is how the idea of Group Workspace Booking was born – a feature that allows employees to easily coordinate with each other about when and where they are going to sit together to optimize their time at the office.

Plan your office days more intentionally

In our research, we found that many employees didn’t have a clear understanding of when to come to the office and for what purpose. The most widespread practice is having team days, but those are insufficient for cross-team collaboration.

For example, if two people work remotely 2.5 days per week, their probability of meeting at the office on a weekly basis is 19%. If they work at the office on one day each week, this probability decreases to around 3%.  

So how do you meet with a colleague that only comes to the office once a week, and know exactly where to sit together?

Part of the answer is now found in Group Workspace Booking!

Every time you want to go to the office and collaborate with a group of people in person, you can invite them with Mapiq. We then make sure that we suggest the right number of workspaces for the right type of activity.  

See more detailed instructions.

Be notified when someone invites you

The Group Workspace Booking functionality comes with in-app, e-mail, and push notifications as we wanted to make sure that no one misses an awesome office day!  

If you cannot make it to the office on that day, you can of course decline the invite, and the workspace will be reassigned to someone else.  

When accepted, the group booking will be shown on your main Mapiq page, along with your workspace details.  

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"When people come together to collaborate, new ideas are born. Group Workspace Booking will make it much easier to initiate these innovative moments that make people and organizations thrive, which is why I personally use it every week!"

Dorenda Slof

Product Director at Mapiq

To adapt to new ways of working and stay connected with colleagues, we need to plan our workdays more intentionally. With Group Workspace Booking, you’ll get the flexibility to collaborate with others in person without losing time organizing it!