How to Use Data to Improve Employee Experience and Increase Productivity

Redesigning your office without workplace data is like starting a journey without a map. You get lost easily. Data can act as a guide providing you with insights needed to make changes that directly align with employee behaviors and needs. Whether you're looking to improve employee experience with innovative space design or increase meeting room availability across offices, data eliminates the guesswork and allows you to understand space usage patters, so you can make decisions that directly impact employee usage day today.

Not sure how to get started? At the second Occupancy Intelligence Summit, Nireas Kolestsos, Iot Specialist in Digital CX and Mobility at Roche, and Diane Wu, Workplace Technology and Data Manager at Gilead, each shared how they use occupancy data to make impactful decisions across their portfolios. Here are 5 takeaways and examples from their stories that can help you integrate data into your workplace optimization strategy.

1. Data Can Help Prevent Space Shortages

According to the Occupancy Intelligence Index, for over half an hour per day, meeting rooms are unavailable in the majority of offices. This is what we call a space shortage. When a space shortage occurs people can’t find a space to work, and their experience and productivity are negatively affected. That's why finding a solution is crucial, but before you make any major costly design changes, it's important to confirm you're actually running out of space. In many cases, events like ghosted meetings, ad hoc meetings, and meeting room squatting are the root cause of space shortages, not a lack of space. 

Real Life Example: Nireas noticed more employees complaining about space shortages in the office, but before expanding their space wanted to make the issue was a lack of meeting rooms. 

• Collect workplace data on people count, active occupancy, and passive occupancy, so they can truly understand how their office is being used.
• Integrate with their in-house space booking system and Google Calendar to match bookings with actual utilization.
• Enable auto-release of booked meeting rooms that aren’t being used, solving for ghost meetings and saving valuable time and resources.

2. Intelligently Adapt Design

Having the right supply of your employees' preferred space types contributes to enhanced collaboration and productivity. It also reduces the number of underused or overused spaces in your workplace — a costly problem for businesses today. 

Real-Life Example: One VergeSense customer  leverages VergeSense to align workplace design with employee demand. Using the Occupancy Intelligence Platform, they: 

• Save 3,800 hours per month that was once wasted on large meeting rooms used by just one person.
• Identified the need for more individual-focused meeting spaces, meeting workers’ demands for private, disruption-free workspaces.
• Use Space Usage Timeline, the Occupancy Intelligence Platform’s newest feature, to understand the root causes of space shortages and make design decisions based on space utilization patterns. 
  
  

3. Intentionally Transform Spaces

The most common perception occupancy planners and workplace designers hear is that they’re running out of space. Don’t immediately jump into plans to find a new building or add more floors when you hear this. The solution usually requires adding more of the right type of space to meet workers’ demands, versus adding more square footage. 

The Occupancy Intelligence Platform discerns opportunities for repurposing existing spaces and identifies in-demand characteristics and amenities that will guide your redesign. With a comprehensive view of how employees use different workspaces, you can optimize your workplace for cost savings and the employee experience. 

Real-Life Example: One of our pharmaceutical customers  used occupancy intelligence to turn a lifeless lobby into a bustling workspace. Leveraging VergeSense, they:

• Collected actual space utilization data to confirm observations about low conference room usage – and make size and ratio adjustments to open up more space in the lobby. 
• Captured activity across every space to design a workplace their employees actually want. 
• Leveraged workplace insights to overcome employee pushback, making informed decisions beyond perceptions. 

4. Gain Executive Buy-In

Whether you’re overhauling workspaces or reimagining corporate aesthetics, redesign projects can require a notable investment of time, finances, and resources. This is why the alignment and support of your organization’s decision-makers is key.

VergeSense customers use the Occupancy Intelligence Platform to convince leadership that change is needed. Its insights provide the most accurate understanding of how workspaces are utilized. This allows you to paint a narrative that articulates the nuanced demands and patterns of your workplace, while also illuminating opportunities for optimization. 

Real-Life Example: One of our pharmaceutical customers deploys VergeSense to prepare stakeholders for change. Using the Occupancy Intelligence Platform, they: 

• Present actual space usage data to gain the support of employees and executives when a redesign is needed. 
• Leverage anonymized insights to ensure the privacy of employees and workspaces.

5. Experiment

Experimenting with your workplace redesign can be incredibly valuable. 

Testing out different office layouts, meeting space sizes or designs, and even technology integrations is often needed to land on a solution that maximizes employee satisfaction and productivity. This iterative approach allows for continuous improvement and ensures that your workplace remains adaptive to the ever-changing dynamics of work culture.

Real-Life Example: Both customers  wield the power of VergeSense to unlock success through trial and error. Using the Occupancy Intelligence Platform, they: 

• Seek employee feedback in redesign projects. This enables a dynamic response to shifting employee, workplace, and organizational needs.
• Analyze occupancy data in real-time to uncover shifting space utilization patterns and make adjustments when necessary.
• Embrace new standards as employees adjust to the modern workplace. 

Understand How Your Space is Being Used with Occupancy Data

Occupancy intelligence stands as the backbone of informed decision-making in the modern workplace. In a landscape where adaptability is paramount, understanding how spaces are utilized in real-time not only enhances efficiency but also shapes a dynamic and responsive environment that aligns with the evolving needs of your workforce and your organization. This nuanced understanding empowers workplace designers and occupancy planners to optimize resources, foster employee well-being, and ultimately cultivate a workplace that thrives in the face of change.

See how our customers turned our occupancy intelligence insights into action to build and optimize data-driven workplaces. Watch our second Occupancy Intelligence Summit for real-life workplace data success stories.