AI tools helping staff plan in-office time better
It’s starting to look like AI tools may answer some of the thorniest hybrid-working challenges.
For all the talk of in-person collaboration being a productivity and culture driver for organizations and their people, half the time employees are left high and dry when they arrive at an office only to find the people they need to see aren’t there.
It’s usually only a matter of time before a tech firm swoops in to plug a gap, and Microsoft is among the first out of the gate with an AI tool that’s aimed squarely at making it easier for coworkers to coordinate and synchronize their in-person time. The tech giant continues to integrate AI into its products that aim to solve current workplace needs, in contrast to rival Meta, which beat a hasty retreat by announcing plans to ax its Workplaces product last week.
The Microsoft Places app integrates with existing Microsoft Office accounts to streamline scheduling and handle messy logistics to make in-office time more valuable — a key goal within employers’ return-to-office plans.
Microsoft partnered with JLL, a global commercial real estate firm, which started a pilot program in March offering the AI-powered app to staff at its global headquarters at the Aon Center in Chicago.
Kelly Spinola, executive director for strategy and partnerships at JLL, now habitually uses the Places app and says it’s cut down the time she previously wasted coordinating meet-ups and in-office days with coworkers.
JLL doesn’t have a standard set of days employees are required to come in but lets teams make those decisions to allow more flexibility based on their own day-to-day — whether that entails more time working at a desk or spent outside the office at client sites. Spinola lives in Florida, but flies the 1,038 miles to Chicago by airplane frequently, to work out of JLL’s headquarters.
For that reason, it’s essential she maximizes her time with people when in the office, to ensure the time and money she spends traveling to the office is well used and productive.
“Before we started the pilot, if I was going to go into the office, I would spend quite a bit of time emailing colleagues, friends that I want to see and connect with, asking them what days they’re going to be in the office, asking them what floor they’re going to sit on,” said Spinola. The tool helps her and other staff better plan their entire weeks and which days are worth making the commute.
Despite the rise in desk-booking tools after the peak years of the pandemic, many employees still find that they’re left disappointed when the trade-off of the long commute isn’t rewarded by a productive, collaborative day in the office. With companies still granting flexibility on which times to come in, the onus is typically on teams to coordinate.
“You might go in for that connection and find that the office is empty, and if it’s not going to serve your needs for doing your job better then it’s really not going to be worth the cost and effort of commuting to get there for a lot of folks,” said Caitlin Duffy, HR senior research director at Gartner.
The Microsoft Places tool uses AI to recommend the best days to come in, the best rooms or spaces to hold meetings in, and automatically book those before they fill up. It also collects data on occupancy and space use to help employers make future decisions and adjustments about allocating shared physical resources.
“We are seeing that AI is already improving on how people work, and see a huge opportunity for AI to help our customers improve where they work,” said Lars Johnson, general manager of collaboration copilot at Microsoft.
The app will roll out later this year to Microsoft Office users, though about 30,000 Microsoft employees have already been given access to use the offering, said Johnson.
Beyond making scheduling easier for employees, the tool also aims to help employers make better decisions about how they utilize their space by forecasting how it will be used. For instance, aggregated occupancy data can help inform decisions around temperatures and lighting in certain areas, and cleaning schedules. If it’s a Friday and a five-floor office is nearly empty, employers can essentially close down unused floors and bring staff together on one floor to make the office feel less empty and actually worth coming into, he said.
Like other AI tools, data privacy is an ongoing concern, especially for staff who fear giving their employers more information will lead to greater individual surveillance. Places allows users to control what information they share individually while anonymizing and aggregating that data for employer use, added Johnson.
As it stands today, hybrid is now the most prevalent working arrangement, with employees globally working about three days a week in-person on average, according to data from JLL. And many aren’t required to come in on set days, but can rather pick which days they’d like to come in.
“I think there’s there’s a lot of variety still and there are a lot of organizations that are trying to give that balance of flexibility without it being as strict because they know that the stricter it gets, the more they risk damaging retention,” Duffy said. “So coordination is not built into the policy which is great for flexibility, but hard for making that connection really predictable,” Duffy said.
And connection and a feeling of belonging are some of the most valuable aspects of on-site work, “but it’s still tough when everyone has a different schedule and preference,” she said.