3 Ways Beacon Technology is Building a Mobile-Driven Workplace

 At first glance, you might not immediately think that new innovations in the retail sector would carry over into the workplace. Two completely different environments, right? Well, not exactly. While they might serve different functions and different goals, they both have to place a heavy emphasis on appealing to people and driving engagement with mobile- and location-based insight. In retail’s case, this means attracting customers with a personalized, targeted engagement strategy; for the workplace, it means creating an accommodating and comfortable climate that sparks productivity and engenders collaboration among employees. 

So, given that, it should probably come as no surprise that employers are taking a cue from the retail industry when it comes to adopting beacons, integrating them into offices to create more intuitive and personalized workplace experiences, based on mobile insights and activity. 

Don’t believe it? Here are three ways that beacons can revolutionize the way we all experience the office: 

Intuitive Conference Room Bookings

Beacons provide a simple solution to booking conference rooms. Rather than having to walk through the entire office, searching one conference room after another for an empty space, the app on your smartphone will simply direct you to where you need to go, instantly checking you into that room as you pass through the door. This also eliminates that awkward situation of knocking on closed doors to determine whether a room is already occupied – potentially interrupting someone else’s meeting in the process. 

Instead, the beacon-powered app can simply provide you with a list on your phone of who’s in a given room, so that you can tell whether or not that’s where you need to be – all without running the risk of intruding on someone else. 

Manage Utility Levels: Light, Temperature and Humidity

The push for going green and adopting more energy-efficient offices has helped to spotlight sources of wasteful spending on utilities like light and heat. Leaving lights on in unoccupied conference rooms, or having the heat or air conditioning running constantly at pre-set temperatures, wastes energy and wastes the money spent on that energy. 

Beacons offer a more eco-friendly and cost-effective solution to the problem. The app on your smartphone will log whenever a person enters or exits a room, and trigger a reaction that turns the lights on or off accordingly.  The same can be applied to computers or monitors throughout the office, too. Beacons can be adjusted to automatically start up your PC as you approach it, switch it off when you leave for the day or turn on conference room monitors when employees begin flooding in. Not only does this save on electricity expenses, it also ensures you don’t need to spend time waiting for your computer to boot up in the morning or setting up projectors and monitors for a meeting. 

Temperature and humidity work the same way. Rather than setting a thermostat to an arbitrary level (one that may be hotter or colder than what employees actually need or even like), beacons can program temperature levels based on past preferences. This intuitive workaround ensures not only a more comfortable office, but also reduces the likelihood of paying for unnecessary and unwanted amounts of heated or cool air. 

Responding to Employee Needs

With a beacon-enabled smartphone app, employees no longer have to worry about relying on key cards or badges to get into the office. Instead, the beacon does all the work, automatically signing in employees once they’ve arrived at the building. This immediately expedites how workers get into the office, while also eliminating that frustrating what-if scenario of what to do if you don’t have your key card on you (you’re less likely to not have your phone with you, after all). Not only that, but it also provides a significant benefit to how billable office hours are tracked. 

Think about it: no more punching the clock, no more having to manually log into time sheets every time you leave and re-enter the building. For employees, keeping a record of your day-to-day office hours is as simple as walking through the front door. That means that the smartphone app can learn your habits over time and serve you customized recommendations, desk bookings and room bookings in line with your day-to-day behavior. 

The Workplace of the Present

It’s tempting to think of beacons as some far-off technology that will only really apply to the workplace of the future. But the fact of the matter is, beacons are here right now; they’re available and, when paired with the right app on your phone, they can do everything I outlined above and plenty more. This isn’t some hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky what-if. Beacons are already playing a part in transforming how we manage and pay for our offices, and are increasingly a cornerstone of today’s, rather than tomorrow’s, mobile-driven workplace.