For facility managers
You run the building on contracts sized for a headcount that no longer comes in.
Cleaning is priced per square metre, catering per cover, rooms per floor plate — all of it agreed against a building that was full five days a week. Now Tuesday is over capacity, Friday is a ghost, and every complaint about 'no rooms' arrives without a number attached. You are asked to cut cost and raise satisfaction in the same year, and the only evidence you hold is a badge count and a mailbox.
What you are measured on, and what the data has to do with it
Three things decide a facility manager's year, and each of them is currently argued about with anecdotes on both sides.
Cost per square metre, per head, per cover
Every service contract carries an assumed volume. When measured use is a third below it, the saving is in the renegotiation — and the measurement is the thing that makes the supplier accept it.
Satisfaction with the workplace
'There are never any rooms' and 'the sixth floor is dead' are both true and both fixable, but not with the same action. Booked-against-used and use-by-hour tell you which one you have.
Peaks, and what you do about them
A building sized to its Tuesday is too big; one sized to its Friday is a riot. The peak, its frequency and which teams cause it are the numbers that decide floor closures, anchor days and how many rooms is enough.
What the other tables are saying
Real estate wants to hand a floor back. HR wants to announce anchor days. Finance wants the catering contract cut. Each of those lands on you as an operational problem, and each was decided from a different number — or from none. You are the one who finds out on the Tuesday after whether the building can take it.
The data that runs the building is the same data those three decisions should have been made from. Measured use by space and by hour, booked against used, and the reason behind it by team. When you hold it, the floor closure is proposed by you with a peak analysis attached, rather than imposed on you and blamed on you.
How it runs, from your seat
The building is being run on complaints
A floor is being handed back, rooms are 'always full', or a service contract is up for renewal and the volume in it is a guess. Most facility managers first call at this point, usually with a supplier meeting already in the diary.
Check what is already known
Some buildings have been measured before. Where a baseline exists, the next step is sized against it rather than guessed; where one does not, a quick scan of current use is the cheapest way to get one.
Choose the method per building, not per portfolio
Observation, sensors and Wi-Fi trade accuracy against cost and privacy exposure differently. The method is chosen for each building, the privacy position is agreed with the works council before anything goes in, and the specification is written against the method — not the other way round.
One space model instead of four feeds
Sensor, Wi-Fi, booking and calendar signals are reconciled against one definition of a space. This is where multi-vendor deployments usually fall apart, and it is the part your technology partner and the platform do together.
Run the building on live demand
Use by hour, peak frequency, booked against used, no-show rate by room type — reported per floor and per team, never per person. Contracts, room supply, cleaning frequency and floor openings follow the number, and the number is one you can show the supplier.
Report against the business case, and re-measure
Twelve months on, the building is compared with the objective it was measured for. One building measured well is the argument for the next eleven — and for the contract you renegotiate next.
Where the products touch your work
The same six products every role sees. For facilities, two run the building day to day, two size it, and two explain it.
Booking
Desks, rooms and the gap between booked and used. The no-show rate per room type is the answer to 'we need more rooms', and the daily one-question pulse is how you hear about the cold floor before the complaint does. Runs on Microsoft or Google.
Read moreMeasureOccupancy
Use by space, by hour and by activity, to a method applied since 2001. Peak, average and frequency per floor — the figures cleaning, catering and floor closures should be sized to, and the ones a supplier cannot argue with.
Read moreDecideTaxonomy
Ninety-plus space types, each with area, enclosure and equipment. When the measured mix shows too many six-person rooms and too few two-person ones, this is where the correction becomes a costed change rather than a request.
Read moreMeasureDynamics
Why a floor is avoided. Noise, light, the type of work a team does and what it needs from the place — by team, never by person. It separates a space problem from a service problem before you spend on the wrong one.
Read moreDecideBalance
HR's policy, with its peak consequence attached. Anchor days are a facilities decision as much as an HR one; here they are priced on the building before they are announced.
Read moreKeep it trueEntry Pass
What each employee gets back: which space suits which task. For you it is fewer people on the wrong floor asking why it does not work.
Read moreWhy a supplier, a works council and a board can all work from it
Measured, not badge-counted
A badge swipe says someone entered the building. It does not say which floor, which room, or for how long. Use by space and by hour is a different measurement, and it is the one a service volume should be sized to.
Aggregation first, by design
Use is reported by space, floor and team — never by individual. The privacy position is part of the method choice, agreed before installation, and it is the answer to the first question a works council asks about sensors.
One definition of a space
Whatever the feed — sensor, Wi-Fi, calendar, booking — it reconciles against one space model. Your reports, your supplier's invoice and real estate's plan describe the same room.
Read before the meeting
Why does the office feel empty?
Utilisation can look healthy while the building feels dead. Two different measurements, two different fixes.
Measuring without monitoring people
The easiest way to measure a workplace is the fastest way to lose it. What aggregation-first means in practice.
No-show rate
What it is, how it is measured, and why it is usually the answer to 'we need more rooms'.
Peak
The number a building is sized to, and why its frequency matters more than its height.
What facility managers ask first
What is Booking?
Booking is workspace reservation for desks, meeting rooms and parking, with Microsoft and Google calendar integration and apps for iOS and Android.
It has a second job: every reservation is a signal, so the demand picture underneath the strategy stays current instead of ageing the day a study is delivered.
Can different measurement sources be combined?
Often, and it is usually the stronger answer: an observation round establishes what the sensors are seeing, and the booking record shows what people intended.
Whether they combine cleanly depends on granularity, period and how each source defines a space. We check that during scoping rather than assuming it.
Does it integrate with our systems?
Booking integrates with Microsoft and Google calendars. Beyond that, what is possible depends on the system, its interfaces, permissions and data quality, and we assess it during scoping.
We do not publish an integration list we cannot stand behind.
Managed or self-managed occupancy study?
In a managed study we design and coordinate it end to end: floor plan preparation, the measurement rounds, quality control, analysis and reporting.
In a self-managed study your own team runs the rounds using our process and tooling. It costs less and it scales: measuring twelve buildings is not twelve times the cost of measuring one. Which fits depends on internal capacity and how often you intend to repeat it.
In a managed study Workplaced staffs the measurement rounds itself; in a self-managed study a partner or your own team runs them with their own people.
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.
Bring the contract that is up for renewal
Twenty minutes. We will tell you which method fits the building, whether a baseline already exists, how long it takes to have a measured volume before the supplier meeting, and what the study costs against the contract it informs.