EPISODE 147 | Allison Cohen, director of strategic partnerships at Tango
Hybrid workplaces aren’t new, but they’re definitely evolving. In this episode, we dive into how data-driven reservation and occupancy systems are revolutionizing the hybrid workplace. Discover how these innovative solutions are not only making office spaces more efficient and cost-effective, but also creating a more engaging environment that attracts employees back to the office.
We explore real-world examples, discuss the technology behind these systems, and share insights from experts on how companies can leverage this data to optimize their workspaces and enhance the employee experience.
- Learn about Tango’s platform of connected real estate solutions
- Hear what works and what doesn’t work in hybrid office seating
- Understand how space utilization metrics can shape strategic decisions
- Explore how reservation systems can influence workplace happiness and culture
- Discover how you can make hybrid offices more appealing to attract employees
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Transcript
Derek DeWitt: These days, many places are using some sort of hybrid or other new form of space utilization strategy. And obviously there are technological solutions to help with all of that. Room signs, be they regular ones or electronic paper E Ink signs, native AR apps like Visix’s Choros, or a number of other ways to book and manage onsite spaces at a particular location. So, I think my guest today is perfectly suited to talk with me about this very subject. She is Allison Cohen. She is the director of strategic partnerships at Tango, and she joins me on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me, Ms. Cohen.
Allison Cohen: Thank you so much, Derek. I’m pleased to be here.
Derek DeWitt: Thank you, and we’re pleased to have you. And of course, we’re pleased to have everyone out there who’s listening as well. Don’t forget, you can subscribe to the podcast, and you can follow along with a transcript on the Visix website.
So, director of strategic partnerships, what is that? What is it that you do?
Allison Cohen: Well, thank you for asking. So, I help partners increase business by leveraging Tango solutions to address their customer’s real estate technology requirements. And I also look for partners, for example like Visix, that have a complimentary product that helps extend Tango capabilities or provides additional services that add value to our customers.
Derek DeWitt: So, you deal with customers and try and match, obviously, what Tango does with their needs, but also try and find other partner companies that can also further those aims.
Allison Cohen: Yes.
Derek DeWitt: So, okay. So, you leverage Tango’s solutions, dealing with people’s real estate tech needs. That’s what Tango does. What, exactly? Gimme more details on that.
Allison Cohen: Sure. Tango offers a platform of connected real estate solutions such as space, lease and occupancy management, among several others. Our customers primarily include retail, corporate, government and higher education. One of our modules, Tango Reserve, is actually integrated with the Visix ePaper signs. So, Tango Reserve provides hoteling solutions for the hybrid workplace, and Visix are one of the vendors that provide signage for the hybrid workplace.
Derek DeWitt: Sure, sure. And I wanna ask, I know a lot of old language out there on the web, and honestly some of our old stuff as well, talks about AgilQuest. So, for people who are still thinking of this as AgilQuest, maybe you can tell us a little bit about how Tango acquired AgilQuest and is there a difference? Are they all basically the same thing now?
Allison Cohen: I actually came to Tango through AgilQuest. So, Tango acquired AgilQuest in January 2022. So, AgilQuest is really one of the first reservation systems that was on the market. They started, you know, 30 plus years ago. A lot of people think of hybrid as being something that’s, you know, relatively new, but it’s actually been around for a long time. Many organizations, you know, even 30 years ago, especially accounting firms, professional services firms, their employees weren’t in the office every day. They were often on site with customers, but they needed a way to book a space when they were coming into the office. So AgilQuest has been doing it for a long time, and then Tango recognized their industry-leading capability and how it would help their customers, so they acquired us. And then we were renamed Tango Reserve.
Derek DeWitt: Got it. Okay. That makes sense. And it’s interesting, like you said, this tech has actually been around and been used for a long time. It’s the same with the digital signage space. You know, Visix has been around for decades, and yet now only in the last few years, really 10 years or so, have we started seeing digital signage show up in many, almost every public space, whether it’s for the general public or it’s a private place, or it’s a university campus or government offices or whatever. We’re seeing it all over the place now. And it’s always interesting to me how these tech solutions exist, but it takes so long for the market and for the companies to sort of adapt to it and start going, oh, right, oh, yeah, maybe we do need this.
And I think maybe one of the reasons for that is that, you know, the times they are a-changin’ and, like you said, way back when there was a need in a certain type of business, when they had people who were coming in only sometimes. Now we see that has become much more, the much more common thing. Or so it seems if you read all the stuff out there on the web. How common do you think hybrid offices are becoming? Are they becoming as common as the press would have us believe? Or are we still lagging behind the technology?
Allison Cohen: Absolutely. It’s extremely common. Organizations all over the globe are adopting a hybrid policy. It’s not only what is needed for talent attraction and retention, but it’s also what companies need to remain financially competitive, because they need to reduce space and real estate costs. You know, their spaces are not being used the way they were in the past, and many companies have a lot of underutilized space.
It’s actually kind of interesting, we’re kind of in a rare time where what the employee wants, which is, you know, flexibility and choice, is actually something that will save their companies money. Because what happens is, you know, if not everyone is coming into the office every day, you don’t need what we call one-to-one seating, and a company can move to what we call many-to-one seating. So, then you might have a neighborhood of 50 seats, and you might have 75 people assigned to use those 50 seats intermittently on any given day or, you know, during the week. So, you need considerably less space to accommodate a hybrid workforce than a traditional workforce.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Which of course, you know, hey, that’s bottom line stuff. Who doesn’t like that, you know? And believe me, I understand the argument out there. There are certainly CEOs and managers who are like, well, you know, I’m, you know, on year two of a five-year lease. Yes, that’s true, but that five-year lease will expire. And when that happens, you have now maybe this opportunity to downsize your physical space. And that’s actually gonna be good for everybody.
Because I think also for people who, when they do come in, it’s a little weird. You know, I’m trying to imagine, like an office that has space for 70 people and there are only 30 of us there at any given time. It feels kind of weird and isolating and lonely, you know? Whereas if it’s a space for 50, then it doesn’t feel that bad.
Allison Cohen: You know, you’re exactly right. And I’m glad you mentioned that. That is another key aspect of this process is, for example, if a company has three floors and they’re greatly underutilized, what they’ll do is they’ll shut down one of the floors. So even though they can’t give up the lease, they can force the people who are coming in to, I wouldn’t say force, but enable the people who are coming in to be on, let’s say, you know, one floor or two floors. And then that way it creates more engagement and, kind of, enthusiasm, less lonely, and it makes it more inviting to actually come into the office. And then also, you know, they can save on HVAC and janitorial costs, you know, other costs by shutting down those floors.
And then with a reservation system, they can monitor that activity. If, for example, let’s say in the summer, you know, the space is rarely utilized, maybe you go down to one floor. But if you’re monitoring with a reservation application or other occupancy solutions that we offer, then you can see, oh, we’re ramping up. You know, it’s September, October, people are coming back – let’s open up, you know, that second floor, or let’s open up the third floor. So, it gives you the data that you need in addition to the ability to make a reservation to book just the space that you want.
Derek DeWitt: Now, one of the buzz terms you’ll find out there if you do Google searches for this sort of thing is obviously office hoteling. I’m under the impression that this has finally taken off in North America, or is it still lagging?
Allison Cohen: Yeah, hoteling is, is very similar to hybrid. Hoteling is kind of the act of making a reservation to come into the office. You could have a hybrid workplace without a reservation system, but it’s not very efficient. But hoteling is software that says, I’m going to book a space for the day. So, similar to booking an airline reservation where you log in, you see essentially like a floor plan of the plane layout, and you see which seats are available and which aren’t, and you pick the seat that you want that’s by the window, that’s, you know, near the exit row. You’ve got choice and flexibility of where you’re sitting on that airplane.
Hoteling for offices works exactly the same way. Our reservation application lets you log in, pick a building, pick a floor plan, see the floor plan, and then see what seats are already booked and which are available to be booked with a little green dot.
So, for example, when I come in, if I wanna work near a window kind of away from other people to be quiet, but maybe near, you know, the coffee station, I can pick exactly what’s comfortable to me. Other people might be coming in to collaborate, because why people come into the office these days is not necessarily for heads down work, it’s to collaborate. It’s gotta be worth the commute. So, I wanna come in and I wanna see when are my colleagues coming in, what day is the most popular day, where are they sitting? And then I’ll log in and book a space next to them.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Sort of creating a sort of ad hoc office neighborhood.
Allison Cohen: Right. So, hoteling is the act of like reserving an individual space that you’re gonna sit at.
Derek DeWitt: Right. And I like that analogy, like with airplanes. That’s something I think we’re all familiar with. That’s how you do it.
Now, obviously one of the technological solutions that helps with hoteling and the hybrid workplace, sort of, strategy is desk signage. What role does that play in all of this?
Allison Cohen: So, employees typically use their desktop application or a mobile app to remotely reserve a space for when they wanna come into the office next. But when they get into the office, a hoteling desk sign helps reinforce the concept that they’re now in a hybrid environment, and they were expected to have made a reservation to use a specific space.
Without a hybrid desk sign, the office looks the same as it did 10 years ago. So, desk signs encourage users to book a space, to check into the reservation, and all that helps capture valuable utilization data.
Derek DeWitt: Right. So, it’s almost like there’s a psychological effect.
Allison Cohen: It is a psychological effect of, oh, this is my favorite spot, I’m gonna put my stuff down. But then I look up and see, oh, somebody else has already booked it. Or maybe, I put my stuff down, this is my favorite spot, and I look up and I see it says available. Well, gee, I don’t want anybody to take my favorite spot, you know, while I go to this meeting real quick. So, I’d better book it if I wanna use this space. So, it encourages that.
Otherwise, without the signage, you know, people just might come in and squat at a space, and it becomes very awkward for other people in the office, or if that’s actually somebody’s assigned seat or if somebody had booked it. It’s less obvious that you’re taking a space, you know, that somebody had actually made the effort to book.
Some other great things about the signage, for example, with the integration we have with the Visix signs. The Visix signs present a QR code on the desk sign, and that QR code is read by our mobile app. So, what that does is when you walk into the office and find your seat, number one, it’ll have your name on it, so you’ll know quickly, yep, that’s the one I booked. And then you can scan the QR code, and it will quickly check you in.
The other thing is, if I didn’t check in and I came into the office and I realized, oh shoot, I should have booked a spot, I can scan a QR code and then it will pop up the reservation screen, and I can book that space on the spot, and that’s called hotdesking.
Or maybe that space is booked and oh wow, I like this space, I wanna book that space for next week when I come in next Thursday. So, I can scan that same QR code and then I could book it for a future date.
Another aspect is that desk signs help employees as they walk through the space, and they can readily see what seats are reservable versus those that may have been permanently assigned to someone else or already reserved. So, for example, if I walk into the office and I see you sitting there, and I know we need to talk about this podcast, so I was like, oh, you know, let me grab a seat next to you. But then I can see, oh, it’s available, great! Well, I’ll go ahead and book it and then, you know, I’ll just work there for the day. Or maybe it’s only available, you know, for the next hour, but that’s sufficient. I’ll work there for an hour and move to another space at a later time. So, it helps people kind of do some ad hoc collaboration, you know, encourages people to kinda sit together, work together when it’s quickly and readily visible what seats are available and which ones are booked.
Derek DeWitt: It’s interesting, I read recently that Americans are getting into hoteling, which is, you know, booking it in advance, but they’re not super keen on hotdesking. But like the scenario you just outlined, okay, we have this hybrid environment, we normally do a hoteling type of a system for reserving a space in advance. But you know what, for whatever reason, I forgot, or I just decided last minute, you know what, my errands have taken me near the office, I’m gonna go in for half a day. I’m here, I got the afternoon free, I might as well go in the office.
Hotdesking is much more spontaneous, it seems to me. And yet there’s this real resistance both from the boss’s perspective and also from the employee’s perspective. And I wonder if, kind of cycling back to something you said sort of at the top about how it creates this kind of reminder, hey, we’re in this hybrid space, I wonder if it’s just a matter of people just need to get out of their old habits, and once they’ve done it a couple of times it becomes the new normal and then that kind of spontaneity and choice and control, I think would be much more appealing to people.
Allison Cohen: Yeah, and I think also as companies continue to downsize and let go of space and continue to use ratio seating, even if you didn’t make a reservation and you come into the office and you see most of the spaces are booked, or again, gee, this is my favorite space, I don’t wanna lose it, you’re gonna start to have to make a reservation, or you’re at risk of getting kicked out, you know, of a desk. You might have commuted in, you know, 45 minutes. You don’t wanna lose that spot. So as there becomes less space available, it’s definitely gonna become more popular to book in advance or at least make sure you have a reservation, you know, once you do get in the office and hotdesk it.
So, a few other things about the signs that we really like that help our customers is, as I mentioned, it encourages collaboration when you can quickly see spaces are available. Another big thing is when your name is on the desk, even if it’s just for the day, it creates a welcoming sense of place and ownership that encourages you to keep coming back to the office. So, if I’m going to an office that maybe is another city that I’m less familiar with, and I go in and I’m looking for, you know, my desk, and then I see, oh, there’s my name on the desk, you know. So, it’s welcoming, it creates a sense of place so that when you do come into the office, you feel like that space is yours. It adds to the hybrid environment.
Another thing is customers are looking to us to help them navigate the process from fixed to flexible, and hoteling signs really help augment that overall process. So, we love the relationship with Visix and the desk signs. I think the two products work really well together.
Derek DeWitt: In regards to that sense of almost ownership people have, just because their name is on that particular desk that day, it does create that sense of, hey, this is my space. I will say as someone who used to teach adults, there was this funny little thing where the very first day of class, you know, it’s open, we don’t have assigned seats, and yet people would, they just randomly choose a seat and then that would become their seat forever.
I know that some of the resistance on the employee side to this kind of hybrid model has been basically this, is that people like, but this is my seat, and I always sit here. And this concept of flexibility and even sort of a reconfigurable space is really starting to change the way that maybe they look at things. And I think back on the backend, you’ve mentioned these space utilization metrics that can help the organization understand how their people are actually using the space.
Allison Cohen: That’s exactly right. Many times, when customers first come to us, they’re thinking about the logistics of helping their employees come into the office, and they’re not necessarily thinking about the data that they can get as a byproduct of reservations. Our application has dashboards that allow organizations to monitor reservation activity and help them optimize ratio seating. So, for example, making sure they’re not underutilizing or overbooking space.
So, if you have 75 people to 50 seats and then you see, you know, it’s still being underutilized, but the neighboring department needs to grow. Well, I don’t need to add more space, I’m going to increase the ratio for the underutilized department. But then I may need to monitor that, because maybe over time, again, you know, in the fall, maybe people are starting to come back and I don’t wanna have the space overbooked or too tight where people, you know, complain that they can’t come in when they want, that there’s no place to sit.
So, you have to monitor not only for underutilized but also for overutilized space. And customers can also use the data for workplace design decisions regarding popular areas and space types.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Like, hey, for some reason this half of the room always is booked and the other half of the room not so much. Let’s go figure it out. Why is this happening? You know, maybe there’s something we can do. Oh, it turns out people like it over there because, you know, there’s a window and there are some plants. Oh, well why don’t we put some plants over here and maybe, you know? For example, I’m just spitballing here, but there are lots of little things you can do to sort of tweak and optimize the space sort of in response to the way that your people are using it.
Allison Cohen: That’s exactly right. You have to investigate why, like, is it because it’s, you know, too hot there in the afternoon? Is it because people like plants? Is it because it’s near the coffee station, you know, away from the door? So, there’s a variety of things to investigate, but at least you understand, you know, there’s something to investigate and look into it. So, reservation data is really just the beginning of understanding workplace utilization.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, and again, I just, I love this idea, ’cause I’ve worked in offices. I mean obviously, we’re probably both thinking of offices, but again, it doesn’t have to be an office. I also think of university campuses, which are sort of inherently dynamic spaces. You know, they’re constantly shifting and changing, and students will always find very interesting ways to utilize space according to their needs and their wants. And now we’re seeing that same sort of flexible and one might even call it playful, attitude towards the office environment. And now there’s this new way of approaching it, simply through something as simple as the way that we utilize the space.
Allison Cohen: Yeah, I really like what you’re saying about the fluidity and flexibility of higher education and even corporations that choose, for whatever reason, not to adopt a reservation system, the Tango Occupancy wifi technology can still get you that granular data throughout the day without having to have a reservation system.
Obviously, you and I would like a reservation system ’cause you sell the signs, and we sell also the reservation, you know, technology. But you actually don’t have to have reservation technology to get the data. Tango Occupancy gives you the data for a more fluid environment.
Tango Occupancy actually provides a full range of solutions to capture more granular and accurate utilization data from multiple data sources. One of which is using wifi data to capture activity throughout the day, not just at a reservation start. So, for example, if Joe comes into the office and he checks in, but then maybe he leaves after two hours, you would never know that. But wifi technology would. So, you get accurate data throughout the whole day. Or if Joe booked a space and then barely used it, maybe he was in conference rooms or ended up just sitting somewhere else, wifi activity gives you that more fluid, granular data that happens throughout the day.
And because Tango Occupancy is an integral part of Tango’s connected solutions, it enhances decision making capabilities across the entire suite of modules, not just Tango Reserve or Tango Space. So, for example, if you have our lease module and you also have Tango Occupancy, you can see the utilization data associated with your leases, helping you make better lease decisions. So, a lease is coming due, you can see it has very low occupancy, you choose to exit it. Or maybe it has high occupancy, you choose to exercise a clause. So, it helps you make very quick informed decisions with accurate data.
So, reservation data is a great start, and we have an analytics dashboard that comes with our application for that. But we have a whole suite of occupancy products that give you more accurate data throughout the entire day.
Derek DeWitt: And suddenly it becomes a much more dynamic, much more responsive environment, which I think is much more inviting. Now, I of course am Gen X. The younger people, millennials and especially Gen Z, who are now really starting to enter the workforce in force, they kind of, I think maybe partly ’cause, especially Gen Zers are just coming outta college, they have this kind of, not just, oh wow, that’s fun, but they kind of, they kinda want it and expect it. Like this is, for some of them, could be a deal breaker about whether or not they wanna work for someplace.
Allison Cohen: Yeah, that’s a great point. You know, Gen Z workers, they expect choice and flexibility. You know, they did not really come into the office where a traditional seat was the norm, or at least, you know, not for very long. So, they wanna choose when they come in, where they sit, who they sit with, they want that flexibility.
But they’re also young, and they wanna come into the office and learn from colleagues and mentors and enjoy the social aspects of working with their colleagues. I think it’s fair to say that, you know, many of us, you know, in our 20s, going into the office is where you made a lot of friends. You know, there was a company softball team where people went out for drinks after work. So, it’s a big part of, you know, why you stayed at a particular company, you know, when you’re that age.
But if you’re gonna come into the office, you know, they need a system to see, well, what are the popular times to come in? When are my friends or colleagues coming in? Where are they sitting? They could see on a floor plan who’s coming in and where they’re sitting, and then choose to book with them.
Another really popular aspect is knowing that, you know, the Gen Z worker needs some engagement, needs encouragement, they need to kind of be paired with others for mentoring. A manager can book a block of spaces to bring the whole team in at the same time. So, that’s another popular feature.
The other thing is, you know, reservations are not just for what you might think of as a traditional office cube or an office desk, but you can really book any type of space, different types of spaces with different types of amenities. So, if you’re a Gen Z worker, really any worker, and at home you have an adjustable height desk and two monitors, well, if I’m gonna come into the office, I want that same thing. So, a reservation system allows you to search and filter for certain types of spaces that have the attributes that you’re looking for. So, I wanna come in next Wednesday, I want a desk by the window, I want an adjustable height desk, and I want one with two monitors. I search on that, and the floor plan will then only show me spaces that meet that criteria.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, see, that’s what I mean, it’s all of this choice and flexibility that I just think is, I think is exciting. It makes me kind of wish I worked in an office, you know? It sounds fun!
Now, I think in the past one of the maybe hurdles towards this being adopted, before, say, the Covid pandemic and the changes that that has wrought, was, you know, you had to drill into the wall and you had put in cabling and you had to kind of create this whole electronic and data infrastructure for room signs and things like that. But now with really small lightweight EPS signs that have super long life, low power batteries and wireless signage solutions, that seems to me that that creates even more flexibility.
And since we were talking about Gen Z, we know that sustainability is really top of mind for that whole cohort. I think having those things, as soon as you see those wireless EPS signs, it immediately kind of almost says, hey, we’re using a more sustainable solution here, which I think appeals to a broad range of people.
Allison Cohen: Yeah, I would say it appeals mostly to the people who have to manage the facility, but you’re absolutely right. So, we actually had many customers asking us for a battery powered option to reduce cabling, just as you said, and energy costs. So, I was tasked with, you know, Allison, you’re director of partnerships, go out and find us a partner that has a good battery powered option. So I went on a search, interviewed, you know, multiple companies, and I found Visix.
One of the reasons we chose to work with Visix was not only do you have a very high quality, long life energy-efficient battery, but you also offer a uniform suite of signage sizes and styles that enables us to address a variety of customer requirements with one integration effort. So, in other words, you know, you’ve got a lot of different options, and we were able to do one development exercise with Visix to do the integration and not have to do that exercise with, you know, multiple different companies. So, you cover a wide variety of options for those that want a battery option.
Derek DeWitt: I think one of the reasons that happened to happen is because the sustainability issue had been, it’d sort of come up some years ago with Sean Matthews and Trey Hicks, who are the CEO and COO respectively. And they had started actively searching for something like this. ‘Cause they knew. They knew that this was coming. They were like, look, we know that this is the future. And so, it’s kind of nice that they made that decision for their own reasons, and then the times kind of caught up, and then here came Tango looking for exactly what Visix offered and boom, suddenly, best friends.
Allison Cohen: Yes. Yeah, we, we love working with Visix, and I work quite closely with Trey Hicks, and he’s been a great partner to work with.
Derek DeWitt: So, the times have certainly changed. This technology has enabled a sort of a sea change in the way that people approach businesses, corporate offices and hubs, university campuses and any other space where people are gathered for professional and semi-professional purposes. The flexibility, the addition of choice where previously there really wasn’t very much choice. All of these things are really just making spaces more engaging, which then makes people happier. And as we know, happy cows make happy milk.
So, whether you’ve got employees or students, they’re gonna be happier when they are happy in their physical environment. And technology such as Tango’s various products – such as Tango Space, Tango Reserve, Tango Occupancy and others (a whole suite of solutions there) and some of the things that we at Visix create, especially with the QR codes on the EPS signs, and room signs and all that sort of thing – all of these things are sort of mix and match. You can just kind of choose what makes the most sense for your environment and for your people as well.
I’d like to thank my guest today, Allison Cohen, she’s the director of strategic partnerships at Tango, for talking to me today about sort of the more up-to-date ways that organizations are utilizing space, and the technological solutions that assist them in those endeavors. Thank you, Allison. Very interesting stuff.
Allison Cohen: Fantastic! Thank you so much for inviting me. It was a pleasure talking with you.
Derek DeWitt: Thank you. And again, I remind everybody out there that you can read a transcript of the conversation Ms. Cohen, and I just had on the Visix website under resources and podcasts.