How much office space do we need?
Occupied is not the same as used
Almost every organisation can say how many people badged in yesterday. Very few can say how many of them needed the space they sat in. The gap between those two numbers is where the square metres are.
Why the usual numbers mislead
- Badge data
- Badge data counts entries to a building, not use of a space. It cannot tell a full floor from an empty one, and it counts a person who came in for a two-hour meeting the same as one who worked there all day.
- Booking data
- Booking data counts intention, not behaviour. Booked desks are not always used, and the bookings that matter most, on the busiest day, are the likeliest to be held just in case. Measure your own no-show rate before treating bookings as demand.
- Sensor counts
- Sensor counts without activity classification tell you a desk was occupied, not for what. Depending on the sensor type, a bag or coat on a chair can read as occupied, which can overstate the need for exactly the space type that is easiest to share.
The evidence a space number needs
Measured use, classified by activity
Not whether a seat was taken, but what was happening in it. This is the single measurement that changes the answer most, because it separates space that is needed from space that is merely occupied.
The peak, not the average
Desks are sized for the busiest realistic day. An organisation planning on its mean occupancy will be short of space one day a week and will hear about it.
The population you actually have
Anchored, hybrid and remote patterns distribute differently by team. A single ratio applied across a lab, a call centre and a legal department will be wrong in all three.
A stated policy, modelled
The requirement follows from the policy. Model the policy first, or you are sizing for a rule that has not been decided.
Get the sizing checklist
Four things a defensible square-metre number is built from, what each source can and cannot tell you, and the five questions to answer before anyone signs a lease. Two pages, no email chase.
PDF, in English.
Questions we get asked
How do we choose a method?
Start from the decision. A lease decision on one building calls for a short observation study. Continuous measurement across a portfolio points to sensors or Wi-Fi. A space programme that feeds the programme of requirements needs to know the activities, and observation studies record those.
Budget, the infrastructure you already have and what your works council will accept usually narrow it down further.
What is the difference between self-managed and managed?
The method is the same. What differs is who manages the observers, defines the floor-plan layouts and analyses the reports.
Self-managed: your team or a partner does all three in the app, after Workplaced brings the platform live for a one-off activation fee (also called the service fee). Managed by Workplaced: Workplaced does all three and delivers the report.
How long does it take?
Getting the platform live is quick: onboarding usually takes one to five days. A study takes longer, and how long depends on the buildings, the method and how many people take part, so we do not publish an average. Scoping takes weeks rather than months, an occupancy round runs over a measurement period agreed up front, and Dynamics closes when the response window closes.
We commit to dates per project in the proposal, and would rather be held to those than to an average.
How is it priced?
By use. You pay per employee who completes a workplace profile, per month, on a graduated rate that steps down as numbers grow, billed annually in advance. Occupancy Observations is priced the same way per measured element ($0.09 per element at 1,000 elements on a two-year term). Occupancy Wi-Fi and sensor deployments are priced on request, and measurement on site comes with a preliminary quote within 24 hours that shows whether it is self-managed or managed.
The pricing page carries the current rates, the minimum and the two-year discount, and it is the authoritative source. Passport is the exception: it is not sold alone and comes with Dynamics at no extra charge. Start from the decision you have to make and take the solutions that answer it.
What answers this
- Occupancy
Analyze: measured use, classified by activity.
- Balance
Configure: model the policy that sets the requirement.
- Taxonomy
Turn the requirement into a programme.
- Measuring workplace occupancy
What an observation study actually does, step by step.
- The hidden cost of flexibility
What sizing on the wrong day costs over a lease term.