SAN FRANCISCO — Before the pandemic, Envoy, a startup
in San Francisco, sold visitor registration software for the office. Its system
signed in guests and tracked who was coming into the building.
اضافة اعلان
When
COVID-19 hit and forced people to work from home, Envoy
adapted. It began tracking employees instead of just visitors, with a screening
system that asked workers about potential COVID symptoms and exposures.
Now as companies begin reopening offices and promoting more
flexibility for employees, Envoy is changing its strategy again. Its newest
product, Envoy Desks, lets employees book desks for when they go into their
company’s workplace, in a bet that assigned cubicles and five days a week in
the office are a thing of the past.
Envoy is part of a wave of startups trying to capitalize on
America’s shift toward hybrid work. Companies are selling more flexible office
layouts, new video-calling software and tools for digital connectivity within
teams — and trying to make the case that their offerings will bridge the gaps
between an in-person and remote workforce.
The startups are jockeying for position as more companies
announce plans for hybrid work, where employees are required to come in for
only part of the week and can work at home the rest of the time. In May, a
survey of 100 companies conducted by McKinsey found that 9 out of 10
organizations planned to combine remote and on-site working even after it was
safe to return to the office.
Providing tools for remote work is potentially lucrative.
Companies spent $317 billion last year on information technology for remote
work, according to the research company Gartner. Gartner estimated that
spending would increase to $333 billion this year.
Hybrid and remote work have the potential to benefit workers
for whom office environments were never a good fit, said Kate Lister, president
of the consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics. This includes women, racial
minorities, people with caregiving responsibilities and those with
disabilities, along with introverts and people who simply prefer to work at odd
hours or in solitude.
But she and others also warned that the move to hybrid work
could make remote workers “second-class citizens.” Workers who miss out on the
camaraderie of in-person meetings or the spontaneity of hallway chats may end
up being passed over for raises and promotions, they said.
That, startup founders argue, is where their products come
in.
Rajiv Ayyangar, the CEO and co-founder of Tandem, leads one
of several software startups that have created desktop apps that help teams
better collaborate with one another and that recreate the feeling of being in
an office. He said Tandem’s product was trying to help with “presence” — the
ability to know what one’s teammates are doing in real time, even if the worker
is not with their colleagues in the office.
Tandem’s desktop program, which costs $10 a month for each
user, shows what teammates are working on so colleagues know if they are
available for a spontaneous video call within the app. The list of user
statuses automatically updates to let people know if their co-workers are on a
call, writing in Google Docs or doing some other task.
Pragli and Tribe, two software startups that have been
around since 2019, offer similar products. People can use Pragli’s product to
create standing audio or video calls that others can join. It is free, although
the company plans to introduce a paid product. Tribe’s software uses busy and
available statuses to facilitate in-platform video calls; it is currently only
accessible with an invitation.
Owl Labs, a startup founded in 2017, is also trying to
tackle “presence.” It makes a 360-degree video camera, microphone and speaker
that sits in the middle of a conference table and automatically zooms in on the
person who is speaking.
The company, which said its customers quadrupled to more
than 75,000 organizations over the pandemic, said the $999 camera was a way for
remote workers to participate in office meetings by being able to see everyone
who is speaking, rather than the limited view enabled by a single laptop
camera.
Other startups, such as Kumospace and Mmhmm, said they were
working on improving video communications for hybrid work. Kumospace, a
video-calling startup, structures calls so that users enter a virtual room.
They then navigate the room using arrow keys and can talk to people when they
are close to them.
The design is meant to replicate in-person socializing,
where people can mill around and have multiple conversations in the same room.
That contrasts with a service like Zoom, where everyone is by default in the
same conversation as soon as they enter the video call.
Mmhmm, which was created by the founder of the note-taking
and productivity app Evernote, Phil Libin, offers a variety of interactive
video backgrounds, tools for sharing slideshows and other features for live
conversations and asynchronous presentations. It has a free version and a
premium version, which costs $8.33 per employee a month.
Some companies said their products can help businesses
understand their space usage as fewer workers come in needing desks. Density, a
startup in San Francisco, makes a product that uses custom depth sensors to
measure how many people are entering an area or use an open space. Companies
can then analyze that data to understand how much of their office space they
are actually using, and downsize as necessary.
Density also plans to offer other tools for hybrid work.
Last month, it acquired a software startup that provides a system for desk and
space reservation.
Envoy said its new Desks product had attracted 400
companies, including clothing retailer Patagonia and film company Lionsgate.
“The companies that use us get much more accurate data that’s
standardized across all their offices globally,” said Larry Gadea, Envoy’s CEO.
“And then it’s around using that data to inform space planning things. Do we
need more floors? Do we need more meeting rooms? Do we need more desks? Do we
need more desks for this one team?”
Lionsgate said it had used Envoy’s products since before the
pandemic. When the coronavirus arrived, it turned to Envoy’s employee-screening
software to provide health checks to those entering the office.
Now, as more employees return to in-person work, the company
is using Envoy to manage where everyone sits, as well as to track who is coming
in. Lionsgate said the information can help determine how often teams will need
to be in the office.
“We’ll be able to know really how much space we need,” said
Heather Somaini, Lionsgate’s chief administrative officer. “So I think it’ll be
really useful.”
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