How Cushman & Wakefield uses automation to improve productivity & work/life balance

Fewer interruptions, more connections

When was the last time you worked on just one thing for an hour? What about for just 30 minutes?

For many of us, even watching 30 minutes of TV without context-switching to our phone feels impossible.

And at work? While the modern world includes amazing digital tools, our screens paradoxically often impede our productivity. As we traverse from one app and task to another, it can be hard to make focused progress.

For Ayat, a Cushman & Wakefield employee contracted by UiPath as a Workplace Experience Coordinator at our office in Bellevue, Washington, the challenge was particularly acute.

"I love office management and giving a good experience to people. But there can be a lot of distractions. Even seemingly small ones can add up. For example, people want help validating parking tickets. That might “just” take a minute or two per person but imagine 20 people throughout the day…"

An automated end to disruptions?

Ayat sits at the front of the office, graciously and cheerfully greeting and engaging everyone. And yes, she often does help people validate their parking. But that’s not actually her main responsibility. She spends the bulk of her time managing expenses, budgets, and engagement plans for a hybrid workforce.

As more of that workforce returns to the Bellevue office, there’s been a constant line of people asking to get their parking validated.

"Often, if I'm doing something requiring focus, someone will understandably come by and ask for help validating their parking. That context switching takes time away from me finishing the task at hand."

While many of Ayat’s office management peers accept these kinds of well-intentioned interruptions as part of the job, Ayat wasn’t content with the status quo. Luckily a workplace experience coordinator at UiPath, she knew a ton of automation professionals.

She developed strong bonds with employees in the Bellevue office, particularly the UiPath Apps team. More than 1,000,000 people have used UiPath Apps’ engaging interfaces for their automations. Ayat would soon be 1,000,001.

"I spoke to the Product Manager of UiPath Apps, Evan, and he shared an entire realm of things I didn't know existed. He showed me the power of low code."

What does the app do?

As Ayat explored UiPath Apps and the world of user experience (UX) design, she quickly built a time-saving prototype, and learned about the promise of AI-powered automation in her team and beyond.

"Even without a technical background, it was simple to create something amazing that frees me from mundane tasks.

I started with parking ticket validation, and then things like managing inventory, managing ticketing for facilities, and vendor management."

She built an incredible automation-powered app to accelerate her process of requesting validated tickets.

Just by automating the parking validation process alone, Ayat saved 1-2 hours a day.

That significant of a time-savings would be enough for most citizen developers to go home happy, but Ayat didn’t stop at time savings for herself. She realized she could adapt her app so that anyone in UiPath could use it for self-service, no matter where they were. She could scale her time-savings, company-wide.

Ayat decided to build a self-service version of her app. This would be particularly impactful for any employees who forgot to validate their parking in the office, and were used to trudging back to get validated (a particularly unpleasant trip in Washington State’s winters), or just eating the cost.

Ayat envisioned a mobile-friendly website where any UiPath employee could request parking validation from anywhere: even the parking garage.

The self service version of Ayat’s app just launched, and early impressions are very positive.

“I am thrilled that Ayat has created an application for Bellevue parking validation. It is effortless to use and demonstrates how UiPath can streamline business operations. I am looking forward to seeing what other innovative ideas Ayat has in store” Chris Dollar, Senior UX Designer, UiPath

Is remote office management next?

When I ask Ayat what’s next she brings up a provocative topic: remote work for office managers.

At first glance, one might imagine that of any role an office manager has to be in the office, all the time.

But as Ayat shares reflections from her peers in similar roles, it seems that assumption may be wrong.

"So this is honestly a big, big conversation, right? How do we make work more flexible for everyone? Many peers in office management tend to burnout much faster than people who have a more flexible work environment. There is a big turnover rate in facilities management in nursing, for example.

The reality is that even in office management there are certain elements of our jobs that we could do from anywhere. Automation opens the door to creating self-service options for the most common office tasks, which frees me up to do more strategic work like brainstorming engaging in-office activities. While the eventual event is in the office, the brainstorming for it doesn’t have to be!

In the pandemic, we all became way more aware of the set of tasks that require being in an office, and the universe of those that don’t. Technology plays a huge part in the work that can be done anywhere, and I think it's very important for employers to offer technologies like UiPath that enable better work/life balance."

Could your team use UiPath Apps for better work/life balance?

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