Before the pandemic, Spacent had a small team and a small office. However, as the COVID-19 restrictions were imposed and our team grew bigger, the office use became unpredictable. We did still use the office quite regularly, but people needed to follow the calendars of others to know if there were any desks available at the office. This wasn’t a very convenient approach, and eventually we left our own office.
For more than six months, we used only our own network of spaces without the need for an office of our own. We made sure that everyone in our team had a proper and conveniently located workspace to work in. Because of our network, we were able to cater to our employees’ needs for different kinds of workspaces all over Finland. We also launched operations in Sweden and Canada and by expanding our network, we were able to provide the local teams satellite workspaces by, again, using our own network of spaces.
“With a colleague we can decide to meet in a location we’ve never been to before, just to be inspired and get new ideas.”
In the summer of 2021 we established our HQ after realising we wanted to have a heart for our operations while continuing to use the spaces in our network. With our application users could already book a workspace from either the office, or the network with a few clicks. Now that we were using both the office and the network, we made sure to improve the experience of using them seamlessly together through the same application.
But we were missing the face-to-face collaboration, using so many different locations made meeting your colleagues even more complex than it already was. To solve our own need, we created team features to support all our employees, whether they were using the network or the office – you can read the full story of our struggles leading to team features from our blog.
“This has changed completely the way we collaborate in the remote world and is also bringing people back to the office. We’re introducing connection again.”
Quickly we noticed that collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing significantly improved with our team features. And by making our own office reservable through our application, we continuously gather data on the utilisation of the office and the network. This data will not just help us make better decisions for our company, but to understand the future of work.
“We can see from the app when our colleagues are at the office and when they are coming to my neighbourhood to work. With a colleague we can decide to meet in a location where we have never been to before, just to get new ideas. If someone is specifically looking for some company, in addition to letting them be seen in Spacent maps, they can share their reservation in the company communication channels to invite colleagues. This has completely changed the way we collaborate in a hybrid world and is also bringing people back to the office. We’re introducing connection again.”