Problem
When Sega Sammy renovated their headquarters, they wanted a modern, hybrid workplace that enhanced communication between departments. However, the two new workspaces in the building, FREEPORT and ANCHOR, made this a challenge.
The first issue was that the new workspaces created an inconvenient employee experience. Mai Omura, from the Communication Services Department, explains: “FREEPORT can be used without a reservation. Therefore, with FREEPORT, you have to actually visit the workspace to find out what seats are available, making it difficult to grasp the overall occupancy rate, which seats are being used most frequently, and at what time of the day they tend to get crowded.” This made it challenging for employees to know when to go, but it also added a privacy concern. “Some seats in FREEPORT are semi-private, and you have to look in a little to see if they are vacant, which is a problem in terms of security and privacy,” Omura adds.
Another issue with the workspaces was their layout and number of fixtures. Without an understanding of how the workspaces were being used, Sega Sammy couldn’t identify if the workspaces had everything they needed. Omura explains their initial approach: “For some time, we were counting the number of users. But, as you can guess, it was very time-consuming to visually count the number of users per hour, and then manually input the figures into a spreadsheet.”
Solution
Workplace leaders at Sega Sammy knew they wanted to improve the employee experience and office layout of their new workspaces, so they chose Nimway from Sony. Nimway allowed them to monitor seat availability and gave employees an easy way to find currently available seats.
Nimway was Sega Sammy’s top choice to monitor workspace usage. When they were first looking for a system, they were concerned about ease of use. The section manager, Bungo Hatae, worried about adding tasks for the employees. “We were concerned that employees would have to spend hours and hours just learning how to use it,” he said. “For this reason, we looked for a system that would not complicate check-in operations and that could easily be used without changing the current system.” With Nimway, checking in at a desk is a hands-free experience which requires no onboarding to learn. This allows Sega Sammy to monitor seat availability with maximum convenience. “While other companies' tools used QR codes or employee ID cards for check-in, Nimway was the easiest as it did not require an app to be downloaded or operated. The sensors detected people and checked them in automatically,” Hatae explains.
"Nimway was the easiest as it did not require an app to be downloaded or operated. The sensors detected people and checked them in automatically”
Sega Sammy also knew that the system needed to be convenient and easy to use for management, too. As a result, software integration became a key focus. “As far as ANCHOR is concerned, it was originally booked and operated on the basis of appointment management software,” Mai Omura says. “So, we also focused on whether it could be linked to the software and be booked via a website.” Naturally, with a strong emphasis on open integration, Nimway made this possible.
The pricing model was another reason Sega Sammy chose Nimway. Hongyo Hidekazu, General Manager at the Communication Services Department, explains why: “The Osaki Garden Tower, where the Sega Sammy Group is headquartered, employs around 5,500 people. Many other systems required the creation of an account for each individual to check in, and the more accounts you had, the more expensive it became. The cost was not worth it for our number of employees. After meeting with several vendors to resolve this situation, Nimway was the only one who could solve our problems.”
The first meeting was held at the end of August 2022, and the official operation of Nimway started on December 1. “We were able to start operation in about three months,” says Hidekazu. “We are grateful for the speed of the project.”
"After meeting with several vendors to resolve this situation, Nimway was the only one who could solve our problems.”
Outcome
With Nimway, Sega Sammy improved the employee experience of their hybrid workspaces, FREEPORT and ANCHOR. Bungo Hatae says, “With FREEPORT, we can now see seating availability immediately and in real time from the map, whereas before, we couldn't see it until we actually went there. In ANCHOR, where booking is required, there are about 40 meeting rooms with similar names. It was difficult to find the meeting room we wanted to use. Now with Nimway, you can visually search for the meeting room you are looking for immediately and check the booking status.” Hatae says the result is clear: “The convenience for users has improved considerably.”
Nimway also collects analytics about workspace usage which Sega Sammy uses to identify improvement opportunities for their new workspaces. “On the management side, the effect of being able to use the heatmap to understand which seats are used most frequently is significant,” Mai Omura explains. “When we actually analyzed the data, we could see that the seats we thought were great weren’t always the ones that employees used the most. This is thanks to the fact that we can visualize the occupancy status of each seat and analyze it quantitatively, rather than using our perception.” This automatically generated and visualized data was a game changer. “We could now clearly see that seats with low utilization often differed in features, such as the presence or absence of monitors. Such evidence has made it possible to take initiatives such as improving the layout and expanding fixtures.”
“When we actually analyzed the data, we could see that the seats we thought were great weren’t always the ones that employees used the most. This is thanks to the fact that we can visualize the occupancy status of each seat and analyze it quantitatively, rather than using our perception.”
“The usage rate of both FREEPORT and ANCHOR is steadily increasing, and recently we have seen an increase in team meetings,” Hongyo Hidekazu comments. In addition, communication between colleagues across departments is increasing too, in line with Sega Sammy’s overall mission with their renovated headquarters. “There is a space in front of FREEPORT called the communication area. More and more people use it. I feel that FREEPORT is increasing interaction between employees and creating a climate of unity across the boundaries of each group company, and I am certain that this has been achieved thanks to Nimway's support.”
