The Occupancy Intelligence Index

Overall, the global state of occupancy is increasing from a combined impact of return-to-office mandates, fewer remote job postings, and regional efforts to boost in-office collaboration. Globally, there was a small dip in capacity usage in April, likely influenced by public holidays and employees taking time off as the northern hemisphere nears summertime.

As of the end of April, global capacity usage is averaging 12.24%, a bit over half of pre-pandemic levels. Pre-pandemic, capacity usage averaged between 18-22%, dropping to 1-2% during the pandemic. The workplace has taken great leaps in recovery, but still has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, though, with the modern hybrid work environment, it likely never will.

Globally, collaboration spaces are being used a bit more frequently than focus spaces, showing that employees are utilizing in-person workdays as opportunities to collaborate with their teammates rather than just working heads-down or attending virtual meetings.

So far in 2023, over 1 million US employees have been affected by RTO mandates, creating a larger shift towards hybrid and in-person work and leading to capacity usage increasing by 54.2% since January of this year.

North America sits just above the global average after experiencing such significant growth so far this year. As many employers continue to push for greater usage of the office, we expect this number will continue to grow throughout the year, though a slight lull throughout the summer is possible as employees take time off to enjoy the weather.

North America shows lower usage of collaborative spaces compared to other regions. All regions, but especially North America, have faced the challenge of their employees continuing to attend virtual meetings when working in-office, which could also be driving down the use of collaborative spaces.

Additionally, North America shows equal time usage in their collaborative and focus spaces. This suggests that employees of these regions may not have distinctive patterns when working from home or in-office, following similar behaviors no matter where they are working.

EMEA has seen a slight overall decline in capacity usage this year. The decline is likely temporary though as previous months of the year showed slow but steady growth. The beginning of warm weather and a larger amount of bank holidays in April are likely contributing to lower usage numbers. EMEA, due to this slight decline, is experiencing usage below the global average.

Compared to all other regions, EMEA is spending the most time in collaboration spaces, suggesting that EMEA primarily uses in-office time to collaborate versus remotely. 

EMEA also sees the highest use of focus spaces. The contrast to their lowest capacity usage may suggest that the office spaces in EMEA may still have a real estate footprint much larger than necessary for the number of employees present. However, the employees who do come to the office are spending a significant amount of time there. The lower usage of focus spaces when compared to collaborative space use further highlights that employees in EMEA may focus their individual work time on remote days and utilize in-person time to collaborate with others. 

APAC saw notable growth between January and February, but since, capacity usage has slowly dropped, leading to overall growth of 11.2% so far this year. 

In-office work is an especially important sentiment in the APAC region, some governments even incentivizing in-office work, contributing to this region being the current global leader in returning to office.

APAC has lower usage of collaborative spaces. In APAC, many meetings are held over meals, which may contribute to fewer collaborative spaces being used in-office.

APAC, similarly to North America, has equal time usage in their collaborative and focus spaces. This suggests that employees of these regions may not have distinctive patterns when working from home or in-office, following similar behaviors no matter where they are working.

Industry by industry, capacity usage rates continue to grow throughout 2023 so far. However, the rate of growth is significantly influenced by whether or not the industry manufactures physical products or on-site services. Not surprisingly, those industries have a higher capacity usage rate. In contrast, industries offering virtual products or services are experiencing lower capacity usage as employees have the ability and option to work remotely. This has resulted in a greater focus on discovering what will motivate employees to return to the office, and over 72% of these organizations have implemented RTO mandates.

The Energy, Oil, and Gas sector is pacing closely with the global average in both capacity usage and growth. This industry also saw a small dip in usage in April, as many other industries and regions as a whole did.

This industry, though historically slow to adopt new workplace technologies, is beginning to invest more heavily in PropTech. As such, we expect to see growth increase in future quarters as leaders optimize their workplaces for employee needs. 

This industry's higher use of focus spaces when working in-office suggests that in-person collaboration may be difficult due to hybrid and globally-distributed teams, or that collaborative spaces industry-wide may not be meeting employee needs. This does offer workplace leaders a unique challenge and opportunity to optimize their spaces for better means of collaboration, especially for distributed teams.

The Financial and Professional Services industry has faced significant resistance to returning to office, leading to the use of mandates, which have not been followed by everyone, as shown by slow growth.

The backlash against RTO mandates in this industry stems from many employees' ability to work effectively from home, and an overwhelming lack of workplace optimization. Many enterprises within this industry continue to utilize traditional, cubicle-based office structures that are not meeting their employees' needs, leading to fewer employees feeling inclined to work from the office.

The financial industry is experiencing a strong balance between using focus and collaboration spaces when working in-office, suggesting that employees of this sector may alter their behaviors on in-office work days to balance their schedules for both in-person collaboration and heads-down time.

Healthcare has the lowest capacity usage among all measured industries. This low usage is due to a large prevalence of administrative and support roles in corporate healthcare that can be completed remotely. The emergence of telehealth has also created more remote and hybrid work opportunities for a historically in-person industry.

The industry is experiencing substantial and rapid growth, increasing 43.3% so far this year, due to many of the largest healthcare enterprises enacting RTO mandates and developing a greater focus on optimizing spaces to increase employee experience. The industry's continued macroeconomic growth also enables continued investments in workforce and workplace resources.

Healthcare, similar to many other industries, is seeing slightly lower usage of collaboration spaces than focus spaces. This emphasizes the greater need for workplace leaders in this space to continue to optimize collaborative spaces and experiment with new, innovative spaces. If employees are not able to effectively collaborate with others when they are working in office, there is a greater risk of attrition and difficulty getting additional employees to return to office.

Industrial and logistics organizations often rely on in-office work for the design, manufacturing, and shipping of physical products. Their work is often involving complex in-person supply chain and operations processes as well, leading to higher capacity usage industry-wide.

The slower increase in capacity usage in this sector may be attributed to many employees already returning, while those with flexible roles may prefer hybrid or remote work and resist returning to the office. This industry has not used mandates as much as others, potentially contributing to slower growth.

The industrial and logistics vertical has one of the larger differences in focus vs collaboration space use of any sector. Employees of this industry are notably utilizing their in-person time to collaborate with others, as many workplace leaders have intended, and using work-from-home days to attend virtual meetings and focus on their individual work.

Infrastructure and public enterprises traditionally offer in-person positions but temporarily embraced flexibility during the pandemic before largely beginning a return to fully in-person or four days per week.

The continued low usage is likely because jobs in this sector involve a community presence and off-site work, such as professors who teach, lead labs, and engage in campus activities outside of their dedicated office spaces.

The infrastructure and public enterprise industry has the most disparate space usage of any industry, with focus space usage nearly doubling that of collaboration spaces. This industry though tends to have more individual contributor roles that require more heads-down time in-office than other industries.

Life Sciences exhibits the highest capacity usage of any industry as the nature of their work necessitates an in-office presence for laboratory research, manufacturing, and shipping pharmaceuticals and medical technology. Key functions in this industry cannot be done remotely, resulting in consistently high usage and significant growth.

Despite a general macroeconomic slowdown, the life sciences industry, similar to healthcare, continues to thrive, enabling resource allocation for workplace development.

The life sciences industry is experiencing a strong balance between using focus and collaboration spaces when working in office. The slightly lower amount of collaboration may be due to the prevalence of laboratories in this industry, which many employees must spend the majority of their time in to complete their vital job functions.

The technology, media, and telecommunications industry has the lowest capacity usage, as their focus on non-physical products (like software) enables remote work. The digital presence of their products has led to more flexible work environments and slow industry growth.

However, RTO mandates in this industry are becoming more common, indicating potential growth in the upcoming quarters. We do expect this industry to see resistance in returning to office considering many employees feel as though they can complete the entirety of their job remotely.

Collaboration spaces are used much less frequently than focus spaces in the tech sector. This is likely due to the fact that many employees in this industry are continuing to collaborate virtually due to globally-distributed teams and a high prevalence of remote work.