How important is it to understand how space is being utilized by your workforce? Increasingly businesses are collecting data to analyze how its workforce uses space within the office, how people are interacting and moving from their workspace to a meeting room or other gathering places within the office.
Monitoring Office Space
Every workplace monitors office space use in some way, either manually or through technology. Businesses use this information to make property decisions and identify trends and patterns across the workplace. Data is a powerful tool to understand what goes on in a workplace, to analyze employee’s daily performance and engagement with other staff, and how staff utilizes the office space each day. Statistics show that on average 51 percent of desks are underutilized at any given time.
Benefits of Understanding How Space is Used By Employees
Workplace data provides invaluable insight into how workers, office space and technology come together to create a healthy and productive environment. Property expenses are typically the second-largest cost for a company and understanding how employees interact with space and put it to best use enables an organization to make informed property decisions.
The most accurate measure of how space is utilized is done through the collection of real-time utilization data. An analysis is done to measure how the office space is actually used, compared to what it was originally designed to be used for. Ongoing data collection in real-time as well as static data gives an organization a way to measure employee performance and productivity, as well as ways to improve workplace engagement.
A few trends have been identified to measure how office space is utilized to reflect changing workplace patterns.
- The utilization of office space is changing as more freelancers and part-time workers are hired in the workplace. Organizations now have access to live data to understand office space utilization to make determinations about when a part-timer or freelancer can schedule time in the office and what space is available on any given day.
- Data enables a business to identify the required core space and flex space in the office building. Understanding this data helps organizations who are considering an expansion, contraction of space or an office move. It provides insight to enable decisions to be made about future workplace strategy and design in the next office.
- Sensors provide critical data about movements throughout the day of the office occupants. Data collected from sensors provide a powerful tool for the modern space manager to measure office space use since it is highly accurate.
- Data aggregation enables management to capture all the data sets to give a holistic view. Aggregating and analyzing all the data provides businesses with the necessary tools to make tangible recommendations.
Caldwell Commercial keeps abreast of global and local economic trends to best serve the needs of our clients. Contact us today to learn more about our commercial real estate properties and services.
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