Diakonie Rhineland Westphalia Lippe
Download Success StoryEfficient desk sharing and room management
The Diakonisches Werk Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe e.V. – Diakonie RWL has introduced resource management solutions from the dataglobal Group with the aim of increasing the efficient use of shared desks and premises and promoting teamwork. Employees now benefit from simple booking and greater transparency in an appealing working environment.
About Diakonie RWL
Diakonisches Werk Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe e.V. – Diakonie RWL is the largest regional diaconal organization in Germany, representing around 5,000 Protestant social institutions with 390,000 full-time and voluntary employees in North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. The central administration of Diakonie RWL with more than 250 employees is located in Düsseldorf.
During the coronavirus pandemic, mobile working was also established at Diakonie RWL and is now an integral part of everyday working life. As a rule, employees work in the office two days a week and work remotely the rest of the time. For example, Diakonie RWL introduced open-space areas with attractive zones for sharing ideas.
This redesign of the working environment went hand in hand with the dissolution of fixed workstation assignments in favor of flexible desk sharing and more meeting rooms. Diakonie RWL was looking for an intuitive solution for managing shared desks and rooms to make it easier to use these resources. The solution needed to optimize the processes for booking and administration, offer detailed evaluation options for usage and generate little technical maintenance effort for internal IT. It also needed to support collaboration in organizational units and cross-functional teams, promote acceptance of the new room concept and integrate seamlessly into the existing technologically modern working environment with the various possibilities of the Microsoft Modern Workplace.
Diakonie RWL opts for vysoft
After a comprehensive evaluation of various products, Diakonie RWL opted for the vysoft solutions from the dataglobal Group. It first introduced the Desk Sharing Management (DSM) and later added the Room Management System (RMS). The close contact with the dataglobal Group experts enabled optimal support during implementation.
As the vysoft solutions are also very intuitive in terms of configuration, a large part of the implementation tasks could be handled internally – for example, the room plans were created independently using Microsoft Visio. In the event of future changes, these can now be updated and maintained internally. This increases flexibility and promotes independent expansion by Diakonie RWL. A particular focus from the outset was on involving employees and their representatives. The fact that they were closely involved in the project greatly facilitated the acceptance and successful implementation of the new solutions.
Challenges
- Creation of new workplace concepts and more efficient use of space following the merging of locations.
- Ensuring close collaboration in organizational units and cross-functional teams despite a high proportion of remote work.
- Generate enthusiasm among employees and increase their productivity
through modern office infrastructure and intuitive solutions. - Integration of the new IT solutions into the existing Microsoft SharePoint landscape, while internal IT is not burdened by complex administration.
Teamwork is encouraged
With vysoft DSM, organizational areas and interdisciplinary teams can also organize themselves optimally in shared desk environments. To this end, around 40 percent of workstations have been assigned to individual organizational areas as a home base. These workstations can therefore be booked primarily by employees from the respective organizational areas. This also establishes familiar contact points in open-space areas with shared desks and facilitates access to department-related paper documents. The remaining 60 percent of workstations can be booked freely. Bookings can be made up to four weeks in advance in Microsoft SharePoint or ad hoc using a mobile app and alternatively via a QR code at the workstation. In future, this will also be possible at kiosk terminals in the foyer of the building and in the entrance areas of the individual floors.
Colleagues can be quickly located via the booking overview and cross-functional teams can come together more quickly. The meeting rooms and their occupancy are integrated into the overview by vysoft RMS and can be booked in a similarly convenient way. Displays next to
the entrances show the booking status at a glance, even beyond Microsoft SharePoint.
“With vysoft, intransparency and paperwork in the management of shared desks and meeting rooms are a thing of the past. Today, booking is done with just a few clicks. This allows us to optimally manage our workplace resources at all times. For us, this is also a question of resource efficiency and sustainability.”
Rooms are used efficiently
vysoft DMS and RMS have not only significantly simplified and optimized the processes involved in managing and booking shared desks and meeting rooms. They also provide detailed actual data on the use of these resources. The data is processed by vysoft using Power BI for numerous analyses. This allows occupancy rates to be evaluated across different levels and bottlenecks or excess capacity to be identified. In this way, the use of space and buildings
can be further optimized based on data. This creates space for further workforce growth or potential savings.
“Thanks to the well-founded usage data of workstations and rooms, we can not only make further adjustments, but also explain them plausibly. This promotes the acceptance of such measures
among the workforce.”
A modern office infrastructure promotes
productivity and creativity
Diakonie RWL attaches great importance to an innovative and appealing working environment for its employees. To this end, various investments have been made in modern technology such as Microsoft Surface Hubs or the Microsoft Modern Workplace for collaboration. With their integration into Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, the vysoft solutions fit seamlessly into this modern user experience. Following the introduction of the vysoft solutions, Diakonie RWL conducted a dedicated employee survey. This revealed a high level of satisfaction with the system: it is easy to use, very user-friendly and clearly laid out.
“Our work today is much more project-based than it was a few years ago. This makes it all the more important for us to perfectly support team collaboration with a correspondingly flexible working environment. The vysoft solutions are an essential tool for this.”
Robust solution integrated in SharePoint and Teams
Cloud First is the IT strategy of Diakonie RWL so that the small internal IT team can concentrate on strategic tasks. Diakonie consistently relies on Microsoft as its central platform. An important criterion for the decision in favor of the vysoft solutions was that they run as SaaS solutions integrated in
Microsoft SharePoint and Teams. In productive use, they impress with their stable operation and minimal technical support requirements.
Benefit
- More efficient use of office space and premises through data-driven optimization and further development
- High employee satisfaction with a modern working environment in the shared desk model
- Supporting collaboration and communication in a mix of office and home office work
Key figures
– 250 users
– 3 kiosk terminals
– 224 shared desks and 20 meeting rooms
– 5,368 seat bookings in 2024 (existing bookings)
– 27 booking levels
Modern resource management
increases efficiency
in an innovative working environment
With dataglobal’s resource management solutions, Diakonie RWL was able to significantly improve the efficiency of its shared desk environment across all stages – from administration and booking to continuous optimization. Planning and decisions can now be made on the basis of real occupancy data. At the same time, employees are delighted with the simplicity of the solution and the transparency it creates. They benefit from improved support for collaboration both within their organizational areas and in overarching projects. The vysoft solutions are therefore an important building block for motivated working in a modern environment and are used with pleasure on a daily basis. The introduction of an advanced resource management system for shared desks and rooms at Diakonie RWL was a great success for the company and is to be extended to other areas of application.
About the customer
Diakonisches Werk Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe e.V. – Diakonie RWL – is the largest diaconal regional association and one of the largest umbrella organizations of independent welfare work. The association’s territory includes North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. Diakonie RWL represents around 5,000 Protestant social institutions, in which 390,000 employees work on a full-time or voluntary basis.
www.diakonie-rwl.de