Instructure is a leading SaaS learning technology company that helps people learn from their first day of school to their last day of work. This Utah-based company supports everyone on their journey to grow and foster their own independence.
Faced with a rapidly expanding workforce, Instructure leveraged workplace technology to create a seamless, connected employee experience while reducing administrative tasks for IT.
Rapid staff growth created a need to speed the onboarding process and make it easier for employees to find people and spaces in the workplace
Teem Room Reservations and Workplace Insights
Streamlined processes and seamless employee experience across multiple locations globally
“The culture at Instructure is very transparent. We’re filled with entrepreneurs who want to elevate learning and create the software to do so,” says Evelyn Guerra, Instructure’s Senior Director of Global Workspaces. “The mission is providing tools to succeed. At Instructure, we provide our employees with tools to succeed as well. That means giving them the environment that they need to be productive.”
Instructure partnered with Teem to create an intuitive employee workplace experience that was consistent across its global locations. Teem helped employees use new tools to find the best spaces for their style of work, while also providing leaders the data they need to answer critical real estate questions and increase productivity for all.
With a vision that inspires, Instructure’s growth was accelerating. And growth brought new demands for the organization.
“We’re sometimes bringing on 20 or more people a week consistently for three months,” says Ben Porter, IT Administrator at Instructure. “With that comes a whole set of challenges to make sure that we’re delivering a smooth onboarding process and that we’re able to give the employees an environment that they can succeed in immediately, without having a lot of downtime where they’re trying to figure out processes and figure out what kind of workspace they’re in. That’s where Teem has really helped us. We use the room booking software so that employees can quickly figure out what spaces are available and where they can meet with the other employees that they’re trying to collaborate with.”
With such rapid growth, Instructure needed to ensure it was able to support all of its employees, from new hires to seasoned managers. Although Porter and Guerra work on different teams, they collaborate often to ensure the workplace is functioning smoothly.
For a growth-oriented company like Instructure that occupies multiple buildings in several locations, real estate matters. It’s one of the most costly resources a company manages, so every decision needs to be made with precision and backed by quantified data.
It’s one thing to know when a company needs more space, but knowing what kind of space a company needs? Not so easy. That’s where Teem Workplace Insights brought real value to Instructure.
“Teem helped us with our real estate needs,” says Guerra. “It helped us assess what we actually needed for our conference room space. We were able to identify which rooms were either too large or too small, and as we started building other locations, we took information from Teem Workplace Insight reports to help decide how much square footage we actually needed: Are we over- or underutilizing our spaces? And as everyone knows, real estate can be pretty pricey, but technology has helped us lower our costs.”
For any IT team, the goal is to optimize employee productivity and remove any friction that may hinder that goal. With that in mind, Teem was built to reduce manual, time-consuming tasks so that IT can focus on effectiveness and efficiency.
Giving employees a consistent experience no matter where they’re located is also a top priority at Instructure. With multiple sites across the globe and remote workers collaborating on critical projects, it was important for employees to feel that the technology was a comfortable, effortless part of their day.
“It’s super simple to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to have a meeting in London in two weeks,’ and just go into your calendar and select a conference room to book in London,” Porter says. “That for us was the wow factor. At that point of the growth spurt for Instructure, we were growing so rapidly that we needed Teem to help us streamline everything. It came at the right time.”
There’s no perfect type of workspace that fits every time for everyone. That’s what the activity-based work model is all about. Instructure is creating an activity-based workplace that offers a variety of spaces for its employees to support different tasks and work styles so everyone can feel empowered.
“Do you want to work with a team? Do you want to work individually? Do you want to work on a sofa?” Guerra asks. “We’re trying to create an environment where we’re creating that comfort level for the individual. And we’re addressing introverts, extroverts, and people that like collaboration. There’s a bit of everything here at Instructure.”
While Guerra and Porter had put so much thought into their spaces, Teem was there to make sure everyone at Instructure could find those spaces — whether it’s a conference room, desk, phone booth, or some other space entirely. It’s important to create the right spaces for employees to do their best work, and then make sure they’re as accessible to employees as possible.
Guerra and Porter are committed to supporting their coworkers and cross-functional teams. They strive to create an employee experience that matters because their employees matter. They’re also driven by return on investment and make their decisions based on research and analytics.
Teem’s workplace ecosystem ensures they’re creating experiences in an environment that feels comfortable and functional for everyone.
