Real estate
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 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 counts intention, not behaviour. No-show rates on desk bookings routinely run between a fifth and a third, and the bookings that matter most (the busy Tuesday) are the ones most likely to be held speculatively.
Sensor counts without activity classification tell you a desk was occupied. They cannot distinguish focused work from a coat on a chair, which means they overstate the need for exactly the space type that is easiest to share.
What a defensible number is built from
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.
Questions we get asked
How do we choose a method?
Start from the decision. A lease decision on one building is a short observation study. Ongoing monitoring of a portfolio is sensors or Wi-Fi. A brief for a fit-out needs activity classification, which observation does best.
Budget, existing infrastructure and what your works council will accept usually narrow it further.
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.
How long does it take?
It depends on the buildings, the method and how many people take part, so what we will not do is publish an average implementation time. What we can say is the shape: scoping in weeks rather than months; an occupancy round runs over a defined measurement period agreed up front; Dynamics closes when the response window closes. We commit to dates in the proposal, per project, and we would rather be held to those than to an average.
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.
What answers this
Occupancy
Measured use, classified by activity.
Balance
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.