Finance
Workplace investment loses to projects that arrived with a number
Not because it is worth less, but because it is usually presented in a different currency. A capital committee comparing a warehouse automation case against “improved employee experience” is not making a judgement about workplaces. It is making a judgement about evidence.
What a case has to contain
A measured baseline with a named method
“Utilisation is around 40%” invites a debate about the number. “Utilisation measured at 41% across four weeks by observation study, classified by activity” invites a debate about the decision.
A modelled change with visible assumptions
Committees do not reject assumptions. They reject hidden ones. State the policy, the peak, the sharing ratio and the growth assumption explicitly and the case becomes reviewable.
The full cost, including the part that is easy to omit
Rent saved is the attractive half. Fit-out, moves, churn and the interim period are the half that reappears in month four.
A commitment to re-measure
Offering to repeat the same measurement in twelve months is unusually persuasive, because it converts a claim into a testable one.
What not to claim
Productivity gains are the most tempting number in a workplace case and the least defensible. Productivity has too many inputs to attribute to a building, and a committee that has seen one such claim fail will discount every subsequent one.
What is measurable is how much the workplace helps or hinders the work: enablement. It is a narrower claim and it holds, which makes it worth more in a paper than a larger claim that does not.
Get the board paper template
Four sections in the order a capital committee reads them, with what to write in each, and the one claim to leave out. Written to be filled in, not to be admired.
Questions we get asked
How is it priced?
Per completed employee per month, billed annually in advance. The pricing page carries the current plans and prices and is the authoritative source.
Two things sit outside that. Occupancy is quoted per study, because a measurement round is scoped per building, period and method. Entry Pass is not sold at all: it comes free with Dynamics, because charging for the return leg removes the reason people take part a second time.
Is implementation included?
The proposal separates them, deliberately: platform access, implementation and activation, a managed measurement round if there is one, and anything a partner delivers alongside.
Advisory work is a partner line, not ours.
Can we start with a pilot?
Scope and price are agreed per case. We do not advertise a free pilot, because a free study is one nobody staffs properly and the data comes back thin — and thin data is the problem you hired us to fix. A single building at a real price is the smallest thing worth doing.
Does occupancy tell us anything about productivity?
No. Occupancy says whether a space was in use at a moment. It cannot say whether the work went well.
A desk with a bag on it is occupied and supports nothing. That gap is exactly why activity classification exists, and why the occupancy figure travels with workforce evidence rather than alone.