ServiceNow transforms hybrid work with new solutions to help offices reopen smoothly

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) today announced updates to its Workplace Service Delivery solution to support employees and facilities teams in an increasingly hybrid work environment that demands flexible, agile workplace service management applications. ServiceNow gives employees a consumer-grade mobile experience to reserve workspaces, conference rooms and services and navigate workplaces. For businesses, ServiceNow’s Workplace Service Delivery solution provides the data and insights needed to better inform real estate costs and optimisation.

ServiceNow’s Workplace Service Delivery solution addresses a rapidly growing and urgent need for companies and employees to reopen offices and return to workplaces smoothly. Multi-channel, native mobile solutions automate requests, reservations and repairs so employees can focus on meaningful work.

New features of Workplace Service Delivery include:

• Intelligent and intuitive reservation capabilities in the Workplace Reservation Management application for a consumer-grade reservation experience. With many organisations prioritising workspace hoteling over permanent seats in the new hybrid work environment, employees need to be able to easily make reservations for workspaces and workplace services.
• Workplace Reservation Management already makes it simple for employees to reserve workspaces, desks and conference rooms. New native mobile capabilities make it even easier for employees to request these spaces. The updates also improve the self-service experience for employees as they book workspaces with single-click reservation capabilities. Additionally, a new prompt feature recommends adding requests and services – like catering or room configurations – while making a reservation.
• New space utilisation capabilities within the Workplace Space Management application help facilities teams optimise real estate spend. In the hybrid workplace, it's critical that facilities teams have real-time access to data about space utilisation to efficiently design workspaces and maximise real estate investments. If facilities teams understand how many employees are coming into a workplace on a given day, month or year, they can make more informed decisions about the office layout, how many buildings or floors need to be open, how much food and drink should be available in a kitchen, and workplace cleaning schedules.
• With the new space utilisation capabilities, the Workplace Space Management app provides facilities teams with a single solution to measure and define spaces as flexible or permanent and retire old spaces to optimise a company’s real estate portfolio.
• Enhancements to the Workplace Space Mapping application for better way-finding throughout the office. Many employees returning to an office may be unfamiliar with new office layouts, while others who were hired during the pandemic have never set foot in the office. New mapping enhancements help employees locate permanent or reserved workspaces, find and reserve conference rooms or workspaces near teams, and navigate their work campus with ease.

“Organisations are quickly realising that work is no longer just a place, but an activity, accelerating the need to digitally transform,” said Juliana Beauvais, Research Manager at IDC. “The future of work will be hybrid and distributed. Companies need to automate complex workflows across an enterprise to improve productivity and enhance the employee experience.”

ServiceNow has been at the forefront of COVID response since the start of the pandemic, releasing Emergency Response apps in March 2020 to help ensure business continuity and the Safe Workplace Suite in May 2020 to manage employee health and safety. With Workplace Service Delivery, ServiceNow is powering the new world of work by delivering workflows that support flexible and agile ways of working.

“The pandemic accelerated companies’ digital transformation efforts as they looked to create great experiences for their employees and customers,” said Blake McConnell, SVP of Employee Workflow Products at ServiceNow. “Now companies need to leverage their digital transformation investments as they plan for a return-to-workplace that drives employee productivity and supports the hybrid workplace.”

COVID evolves ENMAX’s digital transformation journey

While Canadian-based power company ENMAX has been on a digital transformation journey for years, COVID forced the company to evolve their strategy. ENMAX built a four-phased plan to respond to COVID, including a React Phase to enable people to safely work from home, an Adjust Phase to enable a partial, safe return, and an Adapt Phase, which extended work from home while ensuring critical on-site staff could safely work in the office or in the field.

ENMAX leveraged ServiceNow along the way, including Workplace Reservation Management and Virtual Agent, to safely manage workspace reservations for more than 2 200 employees and contractors.

The fourth and final phase, the Advance Phase, will enable the workplace of the future with ServiceNow as the platform powering digital transformation across the enterprise.

ServiceNow uses Workplace Service Delivery to define the new world of work

As ServiceNow returns its own employees to the workplace, Workplace Service Delivery and the Safe Workplace Suite are essential to support a safe, frictionless return.

ServiceNow will leverage Workplace Service Delivery to help manage its distributed workforce and define the new world of work for its own employees, starting with Workplace Reservation Management to help employees reserve desks, conference rooms and other workplace services, as well as Workplace Case Management and Workplace Visitor Management. In the future, Workplace Space Mapping will give employees access to interactive floor maps to navigate office layouts.

It’s estimated that Workplace Reservation Management has the potential to help ServiceNow employees and workplace services teams save a combined 109 000 hours a year once all ServiceNow offices are at full capacity.

Availability and additional information

• Enhancements to Workplace Reservation Management and Workplace Space Management are expected to be available in Q3.
• Enhancements to Workplace Space Mapping are available now.

Read about how ServiceNow’s new integration with Microsoft Windows 365 streamlines hybrid work and provides a powerful end-to-end employee experience:

• New Microsoft Cloud PC integration optimises hybrid work by Matt Schvimmer, VP and GM, ITSM, ServiceNow.

Read more about how ServiceNow and Microsoft, together, are transforming the employee experience and improving business outcomes:

• How ServiceNow and Microsoft Teams improve the employee experience by Blake McConnell, SVP, Employee Workflow Products, ServiceNow.