The last two years have seen an exponential acceleration towards hybrid working.

As a result, current space occupancy averages are just 30% of 2019 numbers - and they look set to stay that way.

So, the question arises: What value does your current office space actually bring to your business?

Workspace analytics: Once a nice-to-have, now a necessity

Right now, the need for an evidence-based approach to unlocking the current and future value your workplace offers is essential.

An effective workplace analytics strategy and plan will enable your Workspace Managers, FMs, Real Estate Managers and the Board to:

• Understand the type of workspace and space resources that are in demand in your organisation
• Reveal patterns of demand by team and function
• Map and align your desk stock and workspace assets against demand, constraints, and goals
• Identify a range of real estate and resource cost-saving opportunities
• Identify workspace restacking opportunities
• Anticipate future real estate demands
• Anticipate COVID-security demands
• Stay agile to adapt and plan for any workspace objectives, strategy, or demands that may change in the next month, six months, or, even, two years.

Getting it right the first time

Regardless of the workspace reporting tech you use, at Space Connect we recommend starting with a clear framework for effectively approaching and making the most of workspace analytics.

Through this, you will better understand how to identify the right questions to ask of your data, how to ask them, and what the answers and insights mean for your business planning.

Follow this 10-point cheat sheet to ensure you have all the boxes ticked

1. Define your measurable objectives

Do you want to save costs, bolster your CSR or sustainability credentials through reduced carbon output, or prioritise the workplace experience to improve talent retention?

2. Define timeframes

Are you facing an immediate challenge or opportunity and should you lay out a long-term goal that you would like to achieve?

3. Identify stakeholders

List out all your stakeholders and how they’ll fit into the process.

4. Budget

Plan extensively so as to avoid surprises and stay within budgetary constraint.

5. Workspace assets

Identify and specify the workspace assets you want to include in your usage analysis, for example, locations, sites, floors, room types, desk types, space type.

6. Workspace resources and facilities

Identify and specify workspace resources and facilities — These may be intrinsic to an asset, for example, the location or capacity or value-adds that can be bolted on, such as tech or lighting.

7. Time parameters

Will you need to be reporting historically, in real-time, or both?

8. Measurement benchmarks and flags

The key measurements you will be reporting on are utilisation/occupancy and capacity, and you’ll be reporting on these measurements by two distinct variables: by workspace asset and by resource / facilities (see points 5 and 6).

9. Choose metrics that matter

These may be occupancy throughout the day, desk utilisation throughout the work week, or ad-hoc versus advanced space reservations.

10. Set targets

Consider targets like actual and target ‘people-to-desk’ ratio, actual and target ‘people-to-square-meter-space’ ratio, actual and target ‘people-to-floor / site’ ratio.

To find out more about how to understand your workspace usage patterns and trends, download our full Workspace Reporting Guide - How to unlock the data secrets and value of your workspace.

Regardless of which tech you use, this 16-page guide will show you, step-by-step:

• How to identify the right questions to ask of your workspace data
• Exactly which variables and metrics to use, to get the answers you need
• What the answers actually mean for your workspace and business planning

Discover more about how Space Connect workspace reporting can help you drill down into your space usage and occupancy data to reveal the hidden restacking opportunities in your workspaces: Book a demo here.