But new factories and machinery made it more efficient for workers to gather in one place - a hub of innovation.

Fast forward two centuries and the pandemic has proven to be a similarly impactful turning point for working habits. Although the worst of the pandemic is behind us, recent research suggests that the average worker only goes into the office 1.5 days per week.

As business leaders grapple with how best to manage new working models, behind the scenes, IT managers have quietly endeavoured to maintain a seamless workplace experience for all. But how can IT balance the needs of those that come into the office once a month or five days a week?

Cross-departmental collaboration

While the role of HR and Facilities may seem entirely separate to the responsibilities of IT, the reality is they all work to achieve the same goal: supporting employees and improving their experience at work. Yet, these departments are often siloed and don’t communicate, let alone collaborate.

For example, you frequently find that HR, Facilities and IT departments present policies to modernise the workplace, separately. Not only does this create tension between departments as they compete for budgets, it can also cause problems further down the line when it comes to employee adoption or integration with other systems. In fact, recent research found that 86% of employees cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communications as the main source of workplace failures.  

To maximise the potential of any workplace experience strategy, businesses must dismantle the usual siloes that exist and collaborate on any proposals that will impact the workplace from their inception.

Prioritise agility

Agility is a must-have in the age of hybrid working. The ability to accommodate both in-person and virtual collaboration instantaneously is simply expected. Even basic things – like ensuring employees can book or cancel a desk last minute, register car parking on an app and find their way around the building – can become unnecessary obstacles that deter employees from returning to the office if they are too complex, inaccessible or don’t apply good user-experience principles.

To put it simply, the right technology needs to be in place so that employees can quickly, efficiently and effectively do their job, wherever they may be. Likewise, technology needs to be ubiquitous so that home-based workers aren’t at a disadvantage to those in the office.

What’s more, businesses need to move away from digitalisation for the sake of it. If a process is inefficient, it will still be so even if digitised. The primary objective should always be focused on ensuring enhancements are employee-centric. Having to use one app to book a desk, another to book a room and another to register a guest, will quickly become a source of frustration for employees.

Instead, IT managers need to find solutions that offer a seamless workplace experience that prioritises agility. For example, truly connected workplace enhancement platforms, like RICOH Spaces, can provide employees with a complete toolkit that supports desk and visitor management,  room management and service requests through one mobile application. These technologies bring the workplace to employees’ fingertips and make the transition back to the office seamless.

Use insights to plan

A people-centric approach to workplace experience is vital. Without insights into how employees use the workplace, any strategies to enhance it will fall short.

However, collecting such data doesn’t have to be an arduous process. Again, integrated technology platforms can support by giving businesses the ability to see which meeting rooms and desks are the least popular, assess how often individuals are coming to the office, or show if more collaboration spaces are needed to adapt to workers’ needs.

With one integrated platform, office managers can better understand employee behaviour and adapt facilities for staff accordingly. These tools can also predict behaviour such as the busiest days in the office and therefore highlight where alternative arrangements may need to be offered.

These insights can be invaluable when developing strategies to further improve workplace experience. More broadly, by designing workspaces that are tailored to the needs of their employees, businesses will maximise employees’ productivity, fuelling growth as well as talent attraction and retention.

Looking forward

Ultimately, the role of IT in creating a seamless workplace experience is more important than ever. To do this, IT managers must overcome internal communication challenges and collaborate with other key decision makers. Any solutions introduced must be people centric. Simply put, the best proposals to improve workplace experience should be developed with the individual in mind – wherever they’re based.  

As history demonstrates, our relationship with the office is constantly evolving. To stay ahead of the curve and continually enhance the workplace experience, IT managers must implement an agile, collaborative and data-driven response to ensure IT maintains its hero status.