Winner: Matrix Booking, Hubs Network Collaboration
The government’s recent rollout of estate upgrade programmes has changed the type of workspaces available for public sector workers, which has led to the creation of several metropolitan working hubs.
UK civil servants in these departments now have a wide array of locations and working environments to choose to work from, and as such, several government departments required a booking system which offered collaborative capabilities between departments, and third party organisations, while maintaining data privacy for individual organisations and departments.
The solution, Matrix Booking, is a resource booking system, designed and configured for multi-tenant infrastructures and collaboration networks.
This particular network is currently used across multiple government hub programmes run by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Government Property Agency (GPA) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
The network manages bookings of rooms, offices, desks, car parking, transport, equipment, catering and additional services.
Results
From the initial roll out of the system in 2016, which started with a few hundred civil servants booking desks at nine work sites, there are now more than 100,000 civil servants who access more than 200 public sector sites and 1,500 meeting and desk spaces through this single web and mobile application.
Not only does the booking system improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the government estate, it also offers additional processes, such as multi-tenant visitor management for individual buildings.
Feedback from employees indicated that they were more easily able to shorten their commute by working from a site closer to home, instead of their previously designated building. The multi-departmental mix also resulted in increased collaboration between different government organisations.
The use of the platform has since been expanded to other markets, including three local government hubs, which include collaborations and the sharing of resources between county, district and borough councils. It has also expanded into Ireland.
Best practice
Usage data from the booking system can be utilised to manage the sharing of physical estates and understand where the demand for new space, or difference types of space, might be.
Due to the ever-changing estate portfolio, it was essential to include the capability to add additional organisations and hubs onto the network with no professional services costs.
Twitter: @matrixbooking