How to Leverage the Future of Workplace Analytics

Introduction

In the last decade, large corporations came to the realization that there is an enormous opportunity to transform the way they allocate, use, and manage office space. Many of these companies have millions of square feet distributed across the globe in high-rent districts, yet space was allocated using legacy principles that assigned space inefficiently by today’s standards. (e.g. 1:1 assignment, private offices).

Actual utilization of the assigned space historically had been assessed through floor walks (ie: bed checks) by the facilities teams. These floor walks were typically conducted to validate demands for additional square footage by business units. In some cases, this process was outsourced to hourly workers which created concerns with the quality of the information.

Clearly we've evolved past this mindset given the events of 2020.  These legacy processes simply will not sustain the workplace evolutions required to enable hybrid workforces to remain productive and continue to deliver. In this free guide you'll discover a deep-dive into the core challenges that workplace professionals face today as it relates to having the data they need to make informed design decisions.  We'll also introduce a glimpse into a future where workplace analytics platforms, like VergeSense, are fueling the critical growth and innovation enterprises need to transform their workplace experience across the globe. 

NEED FOR BETTER DATA

They want a dataset that quantitatively informs how they use space within their portfolio, to identify areas for optimization.

DATA ANALYSIS

They want to quickly identify excess, unused capacity so that they can shed cost, consolidate their footprint or repurpose those square feet.

DATA-INFORMED DECISION MAKING

They want data points that validate a current design or inform necessary changes to maximize productivity in the workplace.

OPTIMIZING THE WORKPLACE

They want to enhance the experience of employees in the workplace by providing them with proactive insights on space availability, amenities, busyness etc. Post-COVID, this use case has become even more important, as employees are expecting their employers to solve challenges related to social distancing, cleaning, and capacity management before they return to work.

NO SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH

Capabilities are fragmented, and there is a requirement to work with many vendors, multiple data sets, and see through many panes of glass to get the full picture.

NO TRANSPARENCY ACROSS SYSTEMS

There is a visible lack of feature-driven software integration between the systems that support space allocation/assignment, lease administration, occupancy analysis, and asset management. This is a fundamental issue in this space, because this “capability fragmentation” cannot be solved without a single vendor willing to be the agnostic “plumbing layer” that consolidates disparate data sets into a cohesive, value-generating feed.

INSUFFICIENT DATA COLLECTION

There is a need for technology that supports rapidly deploying data collection solutions in retrofit scenarios as well as new builds.

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

There is a gap in addressing “Front of the house” use cases with tenants, as well as “Back of the house” issues with Space Managers, simultaneously.

CRE professionals have collaborated with their internal IT teams to explore repurposing existing in-house systems, such as access control systems and wifi systems as solutions to collect data on human movement and utilization of the office. These systems are, however, nuanced.

Badge Data contains personally identifiable information, and typically these ACL systems do not have a cloud API, so data collection requires ETL expertise. Badge data needs to be anonymized or “de-identified” so the information can be used for monitoring workplace activity in a compliant manner. Additionally, this data typically provides information on “attendance”, or who has been within a building or on a given floor (if badge swiping is required to access a floor). But, what badge data cannot deliver is room-level or desk-level utilization. This level of granularity is critical for companies that are looking to do detailed analyses of space utilization.

VergeSense data allowed the company to get surgical about their space utilization modifications.

Working with the data from VergeSense, the company was specifically able to:

MONITOR EMPLOYEE MOBILITY

Identify the high level of employee mobility in certain departments and implement desk-sharing on those teams.

TRACK OFFICE USAGE

Determine which offices barely got used, enabling the Facilities team to assign shared offices as appropriate.

OPTIMIZE MEETING SPACES

Understand the use of meeting space, which informed the types of spaces that were used regularly and what they needed to build more or fewer.

BETTER IDENTIFY "IN USE" DESKS

With our Signs of Life™ feature, personal items left behind at desks, such as backpacks, laptops, and clothing, register as spaces that are passively occupied.

The point is that the granularity of data makes a huge difference; with badge data alone, companies do not have the necessary data/insights to implement targeted strategies.  Most of the insights discussed require the ability to drill down to utilization at the work point level and also collect data at intervals that allow the calculation of the duration of stay.

Other systems like wifi triangulation, also have the same limitation as badge data; they are useful to determine the relative density of people within space, but cannot provide specificity around the assets that are in use when.