Not long ago, if you wanted to drive to a place you’d never been before, you printed off the directions from MapQuest.com. Go back just a little further, and keeping a map in your vehicle was your best bet.

Today, it’s hard to imagine a world where you don’t have 24/7 wayfinding in the palm of your hand. But right now, that’s exactly the world many businesses are throwing their employees into. It’s one of the challenges of the hybrid workplace and reimagined office usage coming with the return to work.

The beauty of the hybrid workplace is that your company uses less square footage, but your employees still have access to space they need. They can reserve a neighborhood with their team in the morning, book a collaborative workspace in the afternoon, and schedule time at a private workstation the next day. As your employees’ needs change, your space can adapt.

But while your space becomes highly flexible, how employees actually use it may be much more limited. And that’s because the bigger your campus, and the more flexible its usage, the harder it is to navigate.

Here are three reasons you should bring automatic wayfinding to your workplace.

1. It reduces lost time

Everyone gets lost now and then. And even if you have an impeccable sense of direction, you’re not always going to select the most efficient routes to new places. In a hybrid workplace, you’ll regularly find yourself working in parts of campus you’ve never been before. Floors you’ve never seen. Buildings you never had reason to enter. Rooms you didn’t know existed.

As employees get more familiar with your entire campus, they’re going to naturally fall into efficient routes. Eventually, you would hope that any employee can easily navigate to any workspace on their own. But as they change between buildings and try new spaces, they’re going to take wrong turns, walk in circles, and go to the wrong rooms. They may need to ask around for directions, or have someone show them the workspace. And they may have to move to new spaces several times a day.

Multiply this lost time across your entire employee population over the course of a year. That’s a lot of time your employees are going to spend wandering around campus. Automatic wayfinding gives this time back to your employees by ensuring that the moment they reserve a space they’ll have clear wayfinding to guide them from where they are now to where they need to be.

With Tango Reserve, automatic wayfinding is built right into our booking system. Your employees can reserve a workspace from anywhere using an intuitive mobile app, followed by directions for how to get there.

Simplifying the journey from Point A to Point B isn’t just about making your workplace more efficient, though. It also makes for happier employees.

2. It takes the stress out of your changing work environment

Hybrid workplaces are inherently dynamic. Who uses a space and how they use it changes from day to day. But if employees don’t know how to get where they need to work, these daily changes create anxiety. Every transition has the potential to add stress to the workday. Working in a new location increases the likelihood that they’ll get lost and be late. And what if they have to ask a coworker for directions? They have to find someone who knows where to go and has the patience to talk them through it.

Automatic wayfinding reduces the stress that comes from uncertainty, giving employees greater confidence that they’ll be able to find where they need to go, whether they’ve been there before or not. Using artificial intelligence and location data, Tango Reserve provides wayfinding based on the employee’s actual position on campus. So wherever they are, the app can guide them.

3. It empowers employees to try a wider variety of spaces

People naturally develop preferences for particular environments. And when it comes to a workspace, most employees are going to prefer what’s most familiar. While this creates patterns you can learn from (such as, “these four employees always work together in this type of space”), it can also create utilization challenges. If employees aren’t willing to try new spaces, your company will have a harder time optimizing the way your space gets used.

When employees don’t have to worry about whether they know how to get to a space that meets their needs, they’ll feel more comfortable reserving any space that suits them. They may even find it enjoyable to try various spaces around campus, experiencing and evaluating the different environments you have to offer.

With a solid office booking solution like Tango Reserve, employees can filter available spaces based on type, capacity, amenities, proximity to colleagues, etc.

For your hybrid workplace to be successful, your employees need to actually use your space. Don’t let the lack of wayfinding introduce friction into adoption of your new approach to space.

Combine wayfinding with office booking

Wayfinding and office booking go hand-in-hand. When your employees reserve a space, they shouldn’t have to worry about how to get there. With Tango Reserve’s intuitive mobile app, every employee has automatic wayfinding in their hands—just like they do everywhere else.

Want to see how it works?

Schedule a demo of Tango Reserve today.