The Work Place is a purpose-built conference and training centre located in Aycliffe Business Park, Newton Aycliffe. The facility offers modern, flexible spaces for meetings, conferences, and events, as well as managed office spaces for entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes.
The Work Place engaged with Builda to build a tailored no-code booking system.
The Work Place, established in September 2008, is a purpose-built conference and training centre, located on Heighington Lane in Aycliffe Business Park, Newton Aycliffe.
It offers a range of modern, high-specification flexible spaces suitable for meetings, conferences, and larger events. The facility includes a large learning zone, a lecture theatre, meeting rooms (pods), exhibition space, and breakout/social areas.
In addition to its conference and meeting facilities, The Work Place provides quality managed office spaces, including options for hot desking and day offices. These spaces are designed to accommodate entrepreneurs, small teams, or larger businesses.
The Work Place is also a registered centre with Qualsafe Awards, a leading awarding organisation recognised for its high-quality training qualifications. As an approved provider, The Work Place delivers accredited First Aid Training along with a variety of other certified courses on a weekly basis. These sessions are designed to equip individuals and organisations with essential skills, ensuring they meet both regulatory requirements and best practice standards in health, safety, and professional development.
The building is environmentally conscious, featuring solar PV panels, ground source heat pumps and EV charges to cater for EV owners visiting the building.
The admin team used a mixture of a paper-based and a single computer-installed system to take bookings from clients booking spaces for meetings and conferences. Visitor sign-in management was also managed by traditional means on paper. This brought many challenges to the business, such as loss of data, human error, duplication of data, time inefficiency, and storage of paper documentation.
The Work Place realised that a computer system was a necessity, and an ‘off-the-shelf” product was implemented, and it made The Work Place’s processes much more efficient, allowing for more accurate tracking of business performance statistics and creating a database. However, this system was not purpose-built but was designed for the hotel industry, and therefore, it did have limitations that presented challenges requiring workarounds that resulted in even more paper-based processes!
This led to The Work Place approaching Builda, a current tenant in the building, to look at implementing a tailored no-code business system that would meet the organisation’s specific requirements.
The new purpose-built, no-code business system allows The Work Place to automate and streamline previously paper-based processes and eliminates the drawbacks associated with manual paper-based systems.
Builda has also successfully replaced The Work Place’s, not fit for purpose ‘off-the-shelf’ solution that was designed as a hotel booking platform and did not have the ability to adapt to their specific business needs, with a tailored no-code business system.
The successful implementation of an electronic guest/visitor sign-in business system allows visitors to easily record their visit, along with basic information such as name, email address, and car registration. This allows The Work Place to manage visitors more efficiently and accurately, and handle emergency calls accurately.
The Work Place also manages its room booking process within the Builda built no-code booking system. The centre staff can now easily book size or specific room required, room layout, refreshments, and any other resourcing requirements. All billing information is auto-calculated, including discounts and repeat bookings.
The Work Place continue to develop the no-code business system and implement the solution into other areas of the business, ensuring continued growth in productivity.
The implementation of the new business system has significantly improved efficiency, accuracy, and sustainability at The Work Place. By reducing reliance on paper-based processes, the organisation has lowered costs, minimised storage requirements, and freed up staff time previously spent managing physical records.
The digital visitor sign-in process has eliminated manual errors, ensuring accurate and efficient recording of all visitors to the building. This not only streamlines identification in case of an incident but also enhances overall security. Additionally, the reduction in printed forms has further cut costs and decreased environmental impact.
With the implementation of Builda, the entire training course booking process has been streamlined and fully digitised.
Training course bookings are now managed centrally within the system, allowing for faster and more accurate registrations. Once a delegate is registered, the Builda built no-code business system automatically generates and sends booking confirmations and joining instructions, ensuring a smooth and professional experience for both administrators and attendees.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are now more accurately recorded, assessed, and analysed, increasing productivity and operational efficiency.
The room booking process has been fully digitalised, improving booking management speed tenfold and preventing double bookings. As a result, space utilisation has improved by 90%, optimising resource allocation. Resource and room bookings can now be viewed in a variety of formats in order to support staff decision making, including calendar, a planner view or tabular data, supporting the ability to “shuffle things around” at busy times.
In the event of a catastrophic emergency, staff can now remotely access the system and notify visitors with room bookings, preventing unnecessary travel and ensuring safety. Fire safety procedures have also been enhanced, as the system can automatically generate and print and/or display a real-time register of everyone in the building.
Lastly, The Work Place has streamlined its feedback process by introducing a digital sign-out system via Builda. As clients check out at the end of their visit, they are prompted to answer three simple questions and provide a score out of 10. This enables The Work Place to collect, store, and analyse feedback more efficiently.
Automation has played a key role in boosting efficiency, with email communications now integrated with Outlook to streamline reminders and notifications. Booking forms, previously sent manually, are now auto-generated based on staff input and sent directly to customers for signing, improving accuracy by 98% and reducing administrative workload by 90% in the booking process. The facilities team now know at a glance which rooms are required, by when, in which layout, and with what facilities provided.
The new no-code business system supports paperless and sustainable event management while providing the flexibility to adapt to the evolving needs of The Work Place in the future.
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“Working with Builda has been a game-changer for The Work Place. Our previous system, while an improvement over paper-based processes, still had limitations that required workarounds and left us still relying on manual methods. Builda took the time to understand our unique challenges, delivered a solution specifically designed for us, and that has transformed how we operate.
From automating our room booking process to implementing an efficient visitor sign-in system, Builda has given us a tailored no-code business system that streamlines our operations, eliminates inefficiencies, and improves our overall productivity. The flexibility of the system and the foundation we have created together means we can continue evolving it to meet our future needs.
The impact has been significant – we now have greater accuracy, improved data management, and a seamless experience for both staff and visitors. We’re delighted with the results and look forward to continuing our partnership with Builda.” Angela Wilkinson, Manager, The Work Place
