Skedda helps a global agency manage their office and parking spaces, and visitor experience

Too many people, not enough desks

Returning to the office in 2022, Actum Digital found themselves in a situation all too familiar to many hybrid workplaces. As their employee count grew, there were days when more people were in the office than chairs for them to sit in. 

“We had gotten slightly bigger than we used to be, so seating became quite complicated,” remarked Jan Opletal, a Security & Quality Specialist at Actum

While Actum’s digital transformation know-how is almost limitless, its shared resources (desks & parking spaces) were not. It became clear that they needed an easy-to-use system that would allow them to reserve shared desks and parking spaces.

Actum is a complex organization composed of several business units that have a mix of fully in-person and hybrid team members. They needed a desk and parking space reservation system that allowed them to map the complexity of their organizational structure without compromising ease of use. They also needed software that was quick to deploy and easy for employees to adopt. 

Plus, a need for a simple solution to manage visitors

The return to in-person work brought back another complexity: in-person client meetings. As in-person meetings surged, the reception staff at Actum became overwhelmed with word-of-mouth visitor notices. The system was prone to human error and distracted office managers from their other duties. Actum needed a simple solution to manage visitors. Something that would inform their facilities and reception team of arriving guests to ensure guests had a seamless experience from the moment they drove into the parking lot. 

The Solution: The end of musical chairs  

In May of 2023, Actum’s largest division had reached an inflection point. They had a 5:8 ratio of desks to employees, weekly onsite client meetings, and needed to solve their office space challenges as soon as possible. They found and chose Skedda for several key reasons:  

1. Easy-to-use interface

Skedda’s simple interface was a key factor in the decisions.

 “Skedda is very intuitive and easy to use. The admin settings are also easy to understand and learn,” said Opletal

Employees could be easily onboarded, and Actum found that they did not require complex instructions to understand how to start reserving their spaces. 

“It was very intuitive for employees to locate on the map where they are sitting, and reservations allowed them to know where they were going to sit before coming into the office, which was an improvement in their workday,” said Opletal.  

Further, Opletal and Actum have found Skedda to be easy to use from an administrative point of view. “I really like that we can self-service many of the adjustments that we have to do, rather than having to reach out to Skedda to change things for us,” he remarked. 

2. Utilization Insights (office and parking)

With Skedda, Actum can monitor how their office space and parking spaces are used. This has been useful for managers of different business units to see how their office utilization compares across the board. “It's nice to see how certain space is allocated, especially for parking because we have a lot of employees and not many spaces,” said Opletal.   

‍3. Ability to have a mix of shared and permanent desks

While many of Actum’s spaces are shared, it was important to the team that they be able to have a mix of permanent and shared assignments. Skedda allows them to signal permanent desk assignments in the app.

“For people who have permanent seat assignments, it was easy to set up a recurring reservation. It has been useful for other employees to see where managers and other team members with permanent desks sit,” remarked Opletal

4. Visitor Management 

A year into managing their workspace with Skedda, Actum decided to add on the Visitor Management product. 

“We wanted something to take care of processes that would help us identify who is on our premises. Skedda Visitor Management is working quite well. It’s great that we can send invitations to guests, explain where they have to go and when, and reserve spaces—all within the same system,” said Opletal

Skedda’s Visitor Management system ensures Actum knows who is in the building at any one time, which helps with safety and security. It also creates a pleasant guest experience for guests that now are seamlessly admitted to the building and know exactly where to go. “Our landlord manages the access to the building, and having Skedda’s Visitor management means that we can easily share an export of all the guests coming into the building,” said Opletal.  

The Result: Restoring order to the building 

Actum Digital shares their parking spaces with other tenants in the building. Frequently, employees would drive into the office unsure of whether or not they would find a place to park their cars. 

“People would come in, wouldn’t find a parking space, and in a hurry would park in a spot that was not allocated to Actum,” explained Opletal

With Skedda, employees are able to see availability and reserve a space before coming into the office, which has decreased instances of parking infractions with their landlord.

Skedda Visitor Management also helps their landlord know how many guest parking spaces the team will need as well, simplifying the tenant-landlord relationship. Opletal explains the unexpected benefit of switching to Skedda and adding on Visitor Management:

“In addition to making desk reservations easier, Skedda has also restored order to our parking situation.”