4 Ways an IWMS can make your buildings smart and more sustainable
An integrated workplace management system (IWMS) helps you visualize and manage workspaces and workplace data, but it can also do much more—like serve as the hub of your smart building operations and efforts. Integrating your IWMS into the mix of smart building technologies helps your team leverage data and automation to prevent wasted resources, dollars, and space—making them more sustainable.
Let’s look at four ways an IWMS solution can help you achieve the coveted triple bottom line in sustainability: success in profit, people, and the planet.
1. Support safe, healthy work environments
Employees want to work in environments that support well-being—especially following the pandemic.
To meet this demand, an IWMS can help you design workspaces to support social distancing. It can also track occupancy levels to make sure attendance is safely and evenly spread throughout the week.
These platforms can also collect environmental data, such as indoor air quality, to ensure workplace health and productivity. According to Verdantix’s “Global Corporate Survey 2021: Smart Building Technology Budgets, Priorities & Preferences,” 75% of firms are now using internet of things devices to monitor space utilization and social distancing after COVID-19.
By integrating this data with an IWMS, maintenance and janitorial services will know which common areas are heavily used and require more frequent cleaning and sanitization. You’ll also be able to see which spaces are unoccupied and available for cleaning without disrupting employees.
2. Achieve better, more automated management and control
After integrating your IWMS with your building management systems (BMS), behavior and activity data can be captured to provide precise, automated control of indoor conditions and building equipment. This conserves resources, reduces utility bills, and boosts employee comfort.
Workplace data can also inform strategies around systems such as lighting and HVAC. Your IWMS can work with analytics from space-booking software or a BMS to tailor heating, cooling, and lighting to occupancy levels.
For example, integrating your HVAC systems with real-time occupancy information from an IWMS can support automatic airflow adjustment based on when and how the space is being used. Likewise, integrating lighting-fault alerts into an IWMS can help adjust maintenance priorities and reduce unnecessary servicing.
3. Optimize space usage and inform workplace design
By measuring and analyzing space utilization—and visualizing who sits where—you can more efficiently plan for and use existing space.
Consider this scenario: Do all marketing team members work on the second floor except one? Your IWMS can help you pinpoint ways to reconfigure spaces, create move scenarios, and bring those workers together to support better communication and collaboration.
Your IWMS can also provide a deeper look into how often specific resources are booked (and when), so you know how spaces are being used. If certain rooms are reserved frequently while others sit empty, you can investigate why these spaces are passed over.
These insights can inform decisions about how to best set up spaces to support the way employees work—and update inefficient space designs.
4. Make educated decisions to reduce operating costs
When you use your IWMS to reduce operating costs, such as insurance, utilities, and maintenance, funds can be redirected toward strategic business initiatives and asset acquisitions. The data may also reveal opportunities to reduce operating and utility costs by decreasing inventory—or to increase productivity by expanding into new space.
Additionally, corporate real estate (CRE) professionals can analyze their existing portfolios and identify other cost-saving opportunities.
Are hoteling areas more in demand than assigned workstations? Perhaps dedicated office spaces could be repurposed to better meet changing employee needs. Are certain offices, zones, or floors being over- or underutilized? Are you below expected occupancy levels in any of your properties?
Is your IWMS driving value?
With an IWMS working behind the scenes, CRE leaders have access to valuable data that supports their smart, green building strategies.
By connecting to and monitoring data from other building systems and platforms, an IWMS can take building performance, employee productivity and satisfaction, and resource efficiency to new levels.
JLL Technologies helps you get the most impact from your IWMS investment in the shortest amount of time—so you can capture and act on data related to your people, assets, and buildings.
If you think your IWMS might be holding your organization back from achieving its sustainability goals, consider an IWMS health check to get back on the right path. You can also reach out to us directly to speak with an expert about ways to make your IWMS as relevant as it was when you bought the tool.