Discovering Actual vs. Planned Space Utilization
Reserving a space does not mean that the space has been used. In fact, many organizations believe their resources are being fully utilized because they happen to be measuring planned reservations and not actual usage. Capturing actual utilization is critical to understanding how real estate and other resources are being leveraged. Once actual utilization is understood, steps can be taken to change policy or user behavior to improve utilization.
For example, a conference room that holds 20 people is only 25% utilized when being used for a meeting of 5 people. Understanding efficient utilization allows for adjustments in schedules prior to use and greatly improves the ability to forecast future usage requirements. Workplace BI, combined with our PeopleCounter solution, can combine planned usage, actual usage, and efficiency information in order to better understand the current use of space and make decisions to better align future space to needs, helping to reduce unnecessary real estate expansion or expenditures.
| This is extremely important as more organizations deploy alternative workspace programs, such as hoteling. In the past, most real-estate was assigned and allocated to a department within the organization. Today, a large percentage of space is available for use by multiple departments. When an organization looks at planned use via reservations and not actual use (taking into consideration drop-ins, no-shows, etc.) the result is a false view of the actual utilization of space. |
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Capture workplace utilization data by: |
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- Tracking true occupancy with detection devices
- Checking in/out of reservations using room displays
- Swiping security badges prior to entering a space
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This leads to inaccurate planning when developing new alternative workspace at other locations. By combining data from multiple systems such as reservations, building access, and network access within Workplace BI, a more accurate view of actual utilization can be seen, resulting in precise future space planning.