Office Space Utilization

Almost four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, more organizations are leveraging occupancy data and employee preferences to inform workplace space decisions and building operations as companies urge their workers back to the office. 

Thirty-three percent more companies across North America said in December that they plan to encourage more time in the office compared with six months ago, with 25% saying they plan to require more attendance, according to VTS’ 2024 Global Workplace Report. Workplace management and analytics firm Robin echoed this sentiment late last year, finding in a survey of over 500 facilities managers and business owners that 88% plan to mandate that employees work a certain number of days on-site.

Hybrid work environments dominate workplace operations

Even as executives express a stronger desire for employees to return to the office, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and preferences for flexibility have led hybrid work to dominate the landscape in 2024, VTS said. Fifty-two percent of organizations require employees to come into the office between one and four days a week, compared with 37% that require in-office work five days a week, according to the report, which surveyed over 400 business leaders worldwide. 

New JLL Research data shared with Facilities Dive reports that 68% of Fortune 100 companies have landed on a hybrid strategy for their employees in the near term, averaging three days on-site per week.

The push for a greater return to the office is already affecting how business owners and facilities managers address their portfolios, assets and operations. Office work largely was done on-site before the pandemic, remotely at the height of the pandemic, and now as a hybrid of the two. 

What has been driving change to the work model in the past year? According to a late 2023 survey of 549 business leaders by FM:Systems, 53.8% attributed work model changes to management mandates, 43.9% pointed to initiatives that incentivize employees to spend more time in the office, and 28% said office layout and decor adjustments they’ve made in the past year. Robin’s November 2023 office space survey found that 89% of respondents are changing their office layout or design to support new employee demands. 

“The No. 1 thing we see driving [return-to-office] behavior in general is … the fear of missing out,” Brian Haines, chief strategy officer for FM:Systems, told Facilities Dive. “If your co-workers are in the office and you’re not there, you’re probably missing out.” He noted that this is leading many organizations to shift the way they think about managing their real estate to tilt more heavily toward collaboration space.

The discrepancy between in-office attendance and space utilization

Office utilization rates have remained poor despite moves to optimize hybrid workplaces. According to CBRE’s 2023-2024 Global Workplace & Occupancy Insights report, office utilization rates in the Americas averaged just 31% in 2023, compared with a 64% pre-pandemic global average. At the same time, average global occupancy, or the number of people assigned to the number of seats, has surpassed 100% for the first time ever, it reports, due to a 44% increase in space sharing and a 22% reduction of the average square footage per person since 2021.

While a 20 million-square-foot sample of utilization data by FM:Systems had Haines predict in October a return to pre-pandemic levels of office attendance across the globe by the second half of 2024, CBRE’s more recent report says ongoing decreases in average office utilization suggest that office attendance has plateaued. 

Kastle Systems’ weekly 10-city Back to Work Barometer, which measures average occupancy in 10 major U.S. metro areas across a Thursday-to-Wednesday week, showed its first full measurement period of 2024, which ended Jan. 10, had an average occupancy rate of 48.5% of pre-pandemic levels. This compares with 47.3% in the first week of September 2023 and 44% in the first week of September 2022. Average occupancy rates on the busiest day of the week also rose from 42.5% on Jan. 2 — the first work day of the year — to 57.5% on Jan 9, before falling back to 40.2% on Jan. 16, according to the firm’s Peak Day Hybrid Index, which measures average office occupancy levels on Tuesdays, the day it finds office occupancy typically peaks.

Although companies are adopting increasingly efficient real estate portfolio and space planning measures, hybrid workplace models, combined with underutilized office space, have created an imbalance that gives tenants bargaining leverage, leaving building owners and operators grappling with a need to improve their spaces, CBRE said. 

This imbalance will not resolve without purposeful action such as “well-communicated changes” to hybrid policies and amenity-rich improvements that can enhance the workplace experience and draw more employees back to the office, the CBRE report notes. 

Further reductions in portfolio size could also partially offset this imbalance, which appears to be a common choice for organizations, the report states. Since January 2020, 62% of CBRE clients across over 5,000 buildings said they have trimmed their office space portfolios; an additional 63% plan to make further reductions by 2026. Globally, 43% of organizations plan to decrease their portfolio size by more than 30% in the next three years, while 20% are aiming for an office space reduction ranging from 10% to 30%, according to the report. According to Robin’s survey, 75% of respondents are planning to reduce their square footage in 2024. 

“I would not want to be a commercial real estate broker right now,” said Haines, noting that he expects around 900 million square feet of real estate in North America to come up for renewal in the next few years, as many clients are tied into long-term agreements that do not grant them the flexibility to resize until those agreements end. However, Haines said, numerous internal and external surveys show that the number of companies expressing an intent to increase their real estate footprint is almost equal to the count of those that intend to decrease it. “So, we’re just not seeing a massive dumping.”

While workplace preferences vary across industries and companies, one of the most common concerns is a lack of collaborative space, with 40% of North American respondents in a recent VTS survey citing limited space for team meetings and brainstorming sessions as a pain point in their current office space they hope to address in their next space.

Making space and operations decisions

In order to accurately understand how factors like office layout, indoor air quality and attendance patterns impact efficiency, productivity, costs and employee wellbeing, business leaders and workplace operators are turning to technology for insights that inform decision-making, according to FM:Systems’ January Inside the Workplace report. It found that 69% of organizations use a “workplace management solution,” which it says can work in conjunction with a workplace analytics platform to generate actionable insights. 

While the list of hard data sources has grown to include IoT sensors, employee Wi-Fi connectivity, traditional badge swipes and desk bookings fed into resource information systems, building leadership must also look at soft data, which includes how employees feel about their workplace and their relationship with going to work, Haines said in a recent “State of the Workplace” webinar. 

JLL Research underscored the importance of aligning work styles with the nature of work for each company to ensure productivity, noting that its data reveals significant variations in average attendance and office attendance strategy across industries. As a result, employee experience data is becoming increasingly instrumental in building operations and workplace management, Rob Kolar, president of JLL Work Dynamics’ technology division, said in an interview. 

Kolar noted that building operators need to get their arms around employee experiences, desires and behaviors on a more detailed level. “When people are there, what are they doing? What are the spaces that they're utilizing while they're there, and are those the right spaces? Are there enough of those spaces? Do [those spaces] need to change because of the way people work?” he asked. “I think the mix of what people are doing in the office has changed a lot, so the spaces to map to that kind of activity need to change, too.”

Organizations that have access to accurate workplace data now face the task of leveraging that data to improve space utilization, streamline workplace management and optimize building operations. 

Technology firms like Eptura and Envoy offer management platforms that aim to combine workplace experience, space planning, preventive maintenance and visitor management tools. Larger industry players are addressing these demands as well. This is evidenced by CBRE’s $100 million capital investment in and partnership with VTS — providing the real estate services behemoth access to tenant and operator data through a connected mobile application — which CBRE said will give it “the earliest indication of tenant demand versus anybody else in the market.”

JLL Work Dynamics’ Kolar noted that although he has not seen a drastic shift in the amount of amenities that owners and operators are offering occupiers, tenant experience data is playing an increasing role in amenities planning, with teams now able to curate events based on attendance. “When people are in the office — let’s just say it’s Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — there may be more offerings than there are on Mondays and Fridays. It’s not going to be anybody’s best move to be offering significant amenities on days when nobody’s in the office.” Kolar said.

In addition to being used for amenities and other soft-operations planning, this data is also playing an increasingly vital role in the way that office operators handle the energy usage of their buildings. Following its acquisition of FM:Systems, Johnson Controls plans to leverage the workplace insights its software provides to boost efficiencies in buildings through automated controls and operations management. 

“We've solved the utilization problem, or we’re one of the best in the industry [in doing so]. We are now applying that data to other operations, like all other facility operations, to optimize them based upon how people were using the building,” Haines said. “Integrating that data with the building control systems, we really believe that autonomous building controls are the future and that buildings will be able to greatly exceed performance that had recently been managed by people.”

In today’s workplace, physical workspaces play a role in a company’s culture and success, according to a Jan. 24 report from CIC, a builder and operator of innovation ecosystems and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services — but the shape of that office is still changing.

In a survey of more than 560 members of the HBR audience who are involved in their organization’s workspace decisions, respondents noted changes their company is making or has made in the past three years, such as adding more satellite locations outside of headquarters (22%), leasing an office or floor in a flexible workspace or co-working space (18%), shifting from long-term to short-term options (16%) or renting out office space to other businesses (16%).

Companies are also prioritizing connection and collaboration, according to the report. Respondents said their companies are making facility changes such as adding enhanced digital conference areas to connect remote and in-office workers (76%), adding more unassigned desks (62%) and adding more meeting spaces or collaborative workspaces (59%).

Among those who are involved in their organization’s workspace decisions, 86% agreed that having the option to come to a physical office is beneficial for employees. 

“Over the past few years, it has become clear that the dynamics of a workspace wield a profound impact on every facet of an organization,” Tim Rowe, founder and CEO of CIC, said in a statement.

“These new findings underscore that companies are increasingly realizing the bottom line benefits that flexible office and lab space provide, and they’re evolving to prioritize not just cost but the critical value of community and culture,” he said.

When asked about reasons for reassessing the workplace, respondents said they want to improve company culture or engagement (42%), encourage employees to meet or work in person (34%) and be a more attractive employer (24%).

Employers are thinking about community, connection and proximity as well, according to the report. Respondents said their company is adding more mentoring and professional growth opportunities (53%), team bonding outings (52%) and in-person events to connect with a wider business community (77%).

Organizations plan to cut or optimize their workspace this year to accommodate hybrid work, according to a CBRE report. Office utilization rates have declined since 2020 and continue to remain below pre-pandemic levels, prompting companies to use different metrics to evaluate space decisions.

At the same time, uncertainty continues for workspace companies such as WeWork, which filed for bankruptcy while it rebuilds. As return-to-office policies shift, flexibility remains a major priority. 

Some type of hybrid model will prevail, according to an EY report. Most companies have shifted away from fully remote work, with smaller companies increasing office space and larger companies decreasing space but enhancing quality, technology and amenities.

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By ezCater

Today’s workers are frazzled. Stressed. Running on fumes. And most likely, hungry.

With mounting pressures to meet deadlines and perform at work, more people are facing a time crunch — and in many cases, that means skipping lunch to try to power through their workloads. While American hustle culture is nothing new, as data from last year’s Lunch Report by ezCater revealed, missing meals during the workday is a real trend, and it’s worsening by the year.

In the report — which surveyed 1,000 workers to learn how they eat lunch and the impact lunch has on their health, productivity, and overall happiness at work —the percentage of people who said they never take a lunch break is 40% higher than last year.

This is especially striking when juxtaposed with the report’s other major finding — that employees are happier and less stressed when they take time to eat. That means employers should be concerned if members of their workforce are routinely opting out of lunchtime, as they may not be able to work effectively. In fact, the smart business strategy is to actively encourage employees to take regular lunch breaks.

We examined the survey data to pull out the key facts you need to know about employee lunch habits. Get ready to dig in.

Lunch at work has a perception problem

If employees skip lunch because they had a really big breakfast, that’s one thing. But most people become lunch skippers because work is getting in the way. Here’s what they told us:

• 23% skip lunch so they can finish their work ASAP
• 22% fear they won’t have enough time to get work done if they stop to eat
• 20% blamed missing lunch on too many meetings

Are you sensing a theme yet? Even if workers prefer to break for lunch, they feel like they can’t or that doing so is bad for their career.

Why lunch matters

When employees do take some time for themselves to eat something and step away from their work station, the benefits are clear — both for their personal well-being and for the company’s bottom line. Here’s what they say:

• 73% say it improves job performance > 78%
• 53% say post-lunch, mental clarity increases (up from 47% last year)
• 53% say lunching makes them happier > 53% (up 15%)
• 50% say stress levels decline on days when they break (up 22%)
• 48% say they’re less burnt out (up 26%)

How to bring back work lunch

To recap, lunch breaks improve employee effectiveness — and it’s important for their mental and physical health. But employees feel like they can’t take meal breaks either because they have too much work to do, or because it makes them look bad. The result? Employees are stressed, hungry, and unable to be fully engaged at the office.

Now here’s the good news: With a few simple tweaks, employers can break the cycle and create a workplace culture that increases employee satisfaction and retention instead of depleting it. Here are a few things you can start doing:

• Treat the staff to individually packaged lunch
• Use catering to make “in-office” days special
• Model lunch breaks as a leader
• Incorporate lunch into other staff activities, like lunch and learn meetings

Pushing your employees to take lunch breaks is not only a nice thing to do for them, but it’s good for your bottom line. When workers are happier, less stressed, and can think clearly, they will be a more engaged member of the team. And, if you can sweeten the lunch pot by offering free employee meals, workers will feel even more valued — and well-fed!

Only 1% of businesses ask workers to spend one day or less in the office each week, down from 34% in 2022, according to EY’s Future Workplace Index, released Dec. 11. Eighty percent of respondents said they encourage or require employees to be in the office for three or more days a week. 

While the consulting firm called the move away from full-time remote work “welcome news for the corporate real estate sector,” it said in a press release on the report that organizations are challenged with optimizing office space. Smaller companies have increased office space, while larger ones have decreased it but enhanced its quality, technology and amenities, it said.   

EY’s third annual Future Workplace Index anonymously surveyed more than 500 U.S. C-suite executives and business leaders across numerous industries. When working to optimize their space, 32% of organizations reported that their greatest challenge is creating the right kinds of workspaces by balancing individual and collaborative spaces. 

In the last 24 months, 55% of respondents from small companies — those with 250 to 1,000 employees — have expanded their office space footprint, EY said in a Dec. 11 news release. Over the same period, 47% of mid-sized companies, or those with between 1,001 and 5,000 employees, increased their office space footprint, according to Future Workplace Index data that EY reported to Facilities Dive.

“Most organizations today are still operating [on] their pre-pandemic footprint,” Francisco Acoba, corporate real estate consulting and technology practice co-lead at EY, said in an interview. “If you think about that legacy model, it was geared toward a typically 40% to 60% occupancy rate for most facilities across sectors, on average. While that model was accepted in the past, it is now seen as a 40% to 60% inefficiency rate in the utilization of assets. Now, there’s an opportunity to do some rightsizing there.” Right-sizing, Acoba said, offers a potential to “tighten up the envelope” and operate at a more optimized 65% to 75% occupancy rate, fostering a more engaging work environment.

Acoba pointed to an increased number of Class A+ buildings with strong occupancy rates. Moving into upgraded facilities that are LEED-certified and more energy-efficient can not only impact the work environment but also contribute to carbon reduction goals, Acoba said. 

Of interest to facilities managers is EY’s finding that 51% of respondents report investing in “newer, high-tech office space with enhanced amenities” and that 63% are investing in more digital and virtual collaboration resources.

Artificial intelligence is identified as a key tool for optimizing the workplace, with 44% using AI to “collect data to maximize and optimize their office space” and 38% wanting to apply AI to track sustainability and energy efficiency. 

In an ideal scenario, incorporating light sensors and daylight sensors that align with window shades can help optimize natural light usage and reduce reliance on electricity and internal LED lighting, Acoba said. Automation also plays a key role in collecting accurate data, planning space utilization and improving occupant comfort by optimizing temperature conditions, eliminating the need to “fiddle with the shades every 20 minutes to make it work,” he said. 

With the rise of hybrid work schedules, “there is now an increased spotlight on workplace investments — from AI integration to expanded office footprint and virtual collaboration resources,” Mark Grinis, EY Americas’ real estate, hospitality and construction leader, said in the release.

Office utilization rates in the Americas still lagged behind pre-pandemic averages in 2023, averaging a 31% utilization rate across all business sectors compared to the 64% pre-pandemic global average, according to CBRE’s 2023-2024 Global Workplace & Occupancy Insights report.

With square footage per person falling and space sharing increasing worldwide, the average global occupancy, or number of people assigned to a number of seats, has surpassed 100% for the first time ever, the report states. 

Forty-three percent of organizations globally plan to decrease their portfolio size by more than 30% in the next three years, CBRE said. Companies are using new performance metrics like utilization rates and employee sentiment instead of older ones, like square feet per seat, to make space decisions, the real estate services firm noted.

The report, which examined 66 global clients across 5,808 buildings representing almost 350 million square feet of space, examined trends across office occupiers that included remote work, the supply and demand of space, portfolio optimization strategies and workplace experience measurement. Despite companies using progressively more efficient portfolio and space planning, the combination of hybrid work and underutilized office space has led to an imbalance of office space, CBRE said. 

The decrease in average office utilization suggests that office attendance has plateaued, the firm said, thus it believes the imbalance will not resolve without “well-communicated changes” to hybrid policies, further reductions in portfolio size or workplace experience improvements that attract employees to the office. 

Over the last three years, hybrid work has led building owners to reduce their portfolios and operators to find planning efficiencies, CBRE said. The average square footage per person fell 22% in 2023, driven in part by a 44% increase in collaborative space globally since 2021, CBRE said. Since January 2020, 62% of survey participants said they reduced their office portfolio size, with an additional 63% expecting to make further reductions by 2026. 

Just 29% of overall respondents said they plan to expand their portfolio in the next three years, but organizations with less than 12 million square feet of space, which did not reduce much space in the past three years, are planning more significant reductions in the near future, the report noted. 

Of the firm’s clients that plan to optimize their portfolios, 75% said they plan to cut underutilized space and 82% plan to increase space-sharing, while 67% said they will accommodate headcount growth in the existing portfolio.

To prepare for this new level of collaboration and space-sharing, commercial real estate teams plan to increase the use of “micro level utilization data” — gathered through sensors and network activity — to measure employee work styles, reduce occupancy costs per visit and dynamically manage buildings, CBRE said. 

The report predicts that commercial real estate leaders will need to create a new scorecard that combines CRE data with HR, finance and IT to track the workplace’s impact on employee performance, operational priorities, financial goals and ESG objectives. 

While traditionally office capacity was based on the number of desks and offices that could be assigned to people for focus work, the report states that today’s hybrid employees are more likely to share a variety of space types for collaboration and focus throughout the day. 

To understand the full planning opportunity that hybrid work provides, organizations must plan for alternative work seats, spaces other than desks where employees can work comfortably for an extended period, CBRE says. By including alternative work seats in their capacity calculations, building leadership can measure hybrid workplace performance and planning efficiencies more accurately, as these seats account for the space where collaboration occurs, it says. 

The report provides four new office design concepts that incorporate current collaborative, sustainable and flexible work trends: the Boulevard, a focus-based arrangement of seats where one major thoroughfare connects curated collision points; the District, an activity-based setup where employees share desks and organize where and how they want to work; the Plaza, an event-based model that allows a higher proportion of collaboration space; and the Park, a collaboration-based hub mostly used for trainings and other events.

 

Demand for office space may finally be picking up, according to VTS’ office demand index, or VODI. This measure of U.S. demand for office space, which VTS produces quarterly, reached 55 in December for the sixth consecutive month of year-over-year growth. This index level, up 19.6% from the previous December, indicates that new demand for office space was coming in at 55% of its average pace in 2018 and 2019, the report says.

Demand was down in the technology, advertising, media and information sector as well as the finance, insurance and real estate sector, VTS says. But offsetting that decrease was an increased demand from other sectors, including government and healthcare. 

“As more employees are returning to the office, and as demand for [the] office itself grows, so does the need to manage their on-site experience,” Max Saia, vice president of investor research at VTS, told Facilities Dive.

VTS calculates the VODI based on pre-pandemic demand levels, with the average level of new demand in 2018 and 2019 equal to 100. The VODI has been “largely stagnant” since October 2021, VTS said in the quarterly index report. Even though national demand is up, Saia noted that VTS is not ready to declare the tides are turning.

“It's too soon to call it a significant sea change, as there is still a ways to go to recoup lost demand, and we feel gains will be gradual, but consistent,” he said. But, he added, the increase in demand does imply leasing activity will increase over the next six to nine months. 

Heading into this year, companies across North America said they plan to encourage employees to spend more time in the office. VTS says the return to office “appears to have reached at least a temporary conclusion.” The share of remote workdays across all industries in the 10 largest U.S. metropolitan regions reached a low of 32.7% in November 2022 and has since risen to 34.4% in December 2023, VTS notes, citing data from WFH Research

This trend, alongside a growing perception that a successful economic “soft landing” has been achieved, may be motivating employers to search for new office space, VTS says. And, as Saia put it, more demand for office space and an increase in employees returning to the office will give facilities managers more to manage. 

“Knowing the customer and having a deeper understanding of their behavior within the asset through data leveraged from tenant experience technology is something that owners are doubling down on as they see an opportunity to uniquely cater the experience in the asset to drive tenant retention in what [has] been a protracted recovery,” Saia said. 

Facilities managers have plenty of solutions to choose from when it comes to getting their hands around occupancy data that can inform space planning and operational efficiency improvement measures. Firms like Eptura and Envoy offer management platforms that combine workplace experience, preventive maintenance and visitor management tools. Robin launched a data tool for office utilization in commercial real estate. Large facilities management players are also rushing to meet these demands as evidenced by CBRE’s $100 million capital investment in VTS.

“Ghosting” — a practice in which individuals do not show up for meetings they have booked — presents a challenge to office capacity usage, according to a report by occupancy intelligence firm VergeSense. 

The company’s Q3 Occupancy Intelligence Index found that office capacity usage rose nearly 12% in the third quarter, with global peak capacity usage more than doubling on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Although the time spent in focus spaces remained fairly consistent across the week in the Americas, time spent in collaborative spaces rose to 18% in the middle of the week, compared with 14% across all weekdays.

The average number of participants in a meeting room is fewer than three, yet 47% of all conference rooms are designed for groups of 5 or more, the report states. To bridge that gap, VergeSense suggests adjusting room capacities based on actual usage data and focusing on increasing the supply of the most popular meeting room types. 

Against the backdrop of uncertainty around changing space utilization due to return-to-office mandates, organizations and operators seek to understand how office spaces are actually being used. The term “utilization,” VergeSense notes, lacks a standardized definition and can vary in meaning.

According to Kastle Systems’ Back to Work Barometer for the week ending Oct. 16, the average office occupancy in the 10 largest U.S. metro areas stood 49.8%.  In other words, badge data show that office attendance, averaged weekly, was “nearly half of what it was pre-pandemic,” VergeSense states in the report. It asserts, however, that badge data cannot be used as a primary data point for making decisions on office consolidation, office redesigns, meeting room supply and occupancy planning. It has designed its index to measure capacity usage as a percentage, thus it can normalize variations in how customers define capacity. In this measure, office capacity “will always seem low in comparison to [utilization rates] being cited” in the news, it states.

“The fact that globally, offices are only at 12% capacity usage while meeting rooms are frequently unavailable represents a 'breaking point' in offices that occupancy planners and space designers can work together to address,” Dan Ryan, co-founder and CEO of VergeSense, said in the release. “There's a major opportunity to use data to inform smarter designs and technology to create a more seamless experience for our teams."

A key trend the report notes is that a significant amount of “unused time” is being left on the calendar from meetings that conclude ahead of schedule. Regardless of room size, 25% of meetings end at least 15 minutes earlier than planned, it states. The space could be reclaimed, returned to the calendar and used by other team members who require a gathering spot for a few minutes, it suggests. Automating the recovery of these unused minutes — using technology to re-release a meeting room that is not in use — can help to solve this problem, VergeSense adds. 

The report identifies “on-the-fly” sessions, or those with no formal bookings, as a dominant pattern in the current office environment — responsible for 27% of all meeting room usage hours in the third quarter, it states. It also said that employees may occupy meeting rooms with personal objects but leave the room to interact with colleagues elsewhere. 

To combat these behavioral trends, VergeSense recommends that operators conduct qualitative surveys to determine why meeting spaces are not fully utilized and implement smart lockers to give workers space for their belongings. The report also suggests adjusting room capacities based on actual usage data and increasing the supply of the most popular meeting room types, “especially for 2 to 3-person rooms.” 

The Occupancy Intelligence Index contains occupancy data from over 200 companies across 45 countries and 75 million square feet managed on VergeSense’s platform.

Seventy-five percent of businesses surveyed by workspace platform provider Robin plan to reduce their office square footage in 2024, nearly 30% more than in 2022, according to its 2023 office space report. However, 88% of the companies surveyed said they are mandating that employees work a certain number of days onsite — up nearly 20% since 2022 — the firm stated. 

Eighty-two percent of the companies surveyed expressed concern about their ability to retain their current office space due to recession or space underutilization, the report said.

Robin, which offers a platform for desk booking, room scheduling, visitor management and workplace analytics, polled more than 500 facilities managers and business owners to gather insights into how they’re using their current office space and what they are planning for 2024. 

The survey found a 19% increase in predominantly full-time office work and a 21% decline in hybrid work, since its last report in 2022. Fifty-six percent of respondents said the majority of their employees work on-site full time, while 40% said a majority of their teams are hybrid. 

The length of time employees must be in the office appears to be growing: The number of businesses with four-day-a-week in-office mandates has increased by 32% since last year, while the number of companies with three-day-a-week in-office mandates has dropped 16%, the report states. Fifty-two percent of companies reported that their employees must be in the office four days a week, while 26% and 16% said they mandate three days and two days per week, respectively. 

Despite this increase in on-site attendance, 80% of offices surveyed have downsized their space since the pandemic — a 20% increase since 2022, the report said. The growing proportion of companies that plan to reduce space next year may indicate that companies are waiting for utilization to increase before they make space-cutting decisions, Robin said. 

“As companies have leases coming due, they are trying to bring down space to a level that makes sense financially. Most of them won’t renew their lease,” Robin CEO Micah Remley said in an interview. “That means the mandate out there for facilities managers is that they've got to do more with less when it comes to office space.”

The survey found that 40% of companies are currently utilizing half of their available space or less, with only 28% of businesses using 100% of their offices. While this is more than last year, organizations are split on whether offices will ever go back to pre-pandemic levels of activity — 42% of respondents say yes and 58% say “that volume of office attendance is long gone.” 

Flexible seating arrangements are at the core of the evolving workplace because they require less square footage than traditional office layouts, Robin said.

To support evolving employee needs, 89% of offices are revamping their layout and outfitting their spaces with amenities more suited to current work behaviors, the report said. Most respondents mentioned incentivizing trips into the office as a measure to “remedy low attendance rates.”

Soft seating, such as lounges or couches, are the most commonly reported amenity organizations are offering to employees, mentioned by 60% of respondents, followed by collaboration and huddle rooms (58%), quiet rooms and booths (54%) wellness spaces (53%) and hot desking (53%). Robin noted that the most prevalent amenities mentioned enhance collaboration or focus work. 

Remley pointed to the need for analytics and data as well as on defining the goals of an office space so that facilities managers can prepare for more employees returning to work in smaller spaces. “What we’re seeing is that decisions are made by facilities managers, real estate [and] IT professionals and HR,” Remley said. “So, working cross-functionally is becoming more important as technology becomes more critical to how the office functions.”

There could be a strong push for employees to return to the office in 2024, according to a global workplace report from VTS. The report found that 62% of global companies are currently executing a hybrid work strategy, while 38% require workers back in the office full time and 52% are asking employees to come into the office one to four days a week. Only 10% of companies are taking a remote-first or office-optional approach, the report states, pointing to collaboration, community and productivity as the primary drivers in North America’s push for in-office attendance. 

However, 31% of companies believe their office is either too big or too small, according to the report. While a majority of global companies say their current space fits their needs, VTS says there is a “clear demand for expanded space,” with 13% of companies saying there is insufficient collaborative space outside the workplace suite. 

VTS stresses the importance of ongoing communication with tenant customers to understand their specific requirements. “All workplace challenges are solvable, but not in a vacuum,” the report says.

Compared with six months ago, 25% of North American respondents are mandating more time in the office, with 33% of companies “encouraging” respondents to stay on-site longer and 35% holding consistent workplace strategies over that time. Currently, 47% of North American talent is required to be in office five days per week, compared with just 29% in Europe, VTS says. 

A lack of collaborative spaces tops the list of pain points for many users of North American office spaces, with 40% of respondents citing limited space for team meetings and brainstorming sessions. Inadequate safety and security come next, with 35% expressing concerns over building access or location. Thirty-four percent of respondents reported that poor technical experience is another challenge they are grappling with, while 30% and 29% pointed to inadequate space utilization and recurring maintenance issues, respectively.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents cited environmental concerns, such as inadequate lighting, temperature controls or noise levels, and 18% listed a lack of wellness amenities or ergonomic workplace solutions as a pain point for current office space, VTS says.

Looking ahead, 21% of respondents in North America said they plan to mandate more time in the office, while 37% said they intend to keep consistent workplace strategies in the next six months. While it is “undeniable that companies are leaning toward more in-office time,” organizations are increasingly opting to encourage employees to return to the office through “softer encouragement,” VTS says. 

Building owners should be ready to offer new flex spaces to meet evolving tenant needs as organizations encourage more time on-site. However, tenants with too much space are “an obvious expiration risk,” VTS says, noting that it is essential for owners and operators to understand workplace strategies, regardless of whether tenants plan to boost in-office attendance or cut their office footprint. 

“Polling tenants and gathering insights to understand their utilization (while keeping the context of your broader relationship with the tenant company in mind) will help you create the right renewal strategy for each tenant,” the report says. 

The report emphasizes that while safety, space utilization and ESG considerations pose significant obstacles for tenants on a global scale, they do not challenge organizations uniformly. 

When asked about where employees work outside of the primary office, 58% of respondents said their employees worked from home during the week and 53% reported that their staff worked from a company-provided flex space. Thirty-four percent of respondents said employees worked from shared spaces within the office building but outside the primary office suite, and 21% stated that a coffee shop was the primary location of choice for their teams.

VTS says it will readjust its benchmarks as 58% of North American companies plan to encourage or mandate more time in the office over the next six months. The firm note that three additional sections of the report will be released in the coming months.

A package of bills aimed at addressing the federal government’s inefficient use of office space has passed the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The bills would tighten oversight of the U.S. General Services Administration’s capital projects and require monthly updates on occupancy and actual utilization rates, as well as annual reporting, in occupancy agreements, according to a Nov. 15 news release from the committee.

Pointing to agencies that use just 9%  of their office space capacity, committee Chairman Sam Graves highlighted in the release the importance of bipartisan solutions to consolidate federal space, reduce waste and save taxpayer dollars. 

The federal real estate portfolio has lacked consistent benchmarks for better space utilization. At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing in September, senators called for uniform measures and strategies that effectively align space with future needs. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which found in a survey earlier this year that 17 of 24 agencies are using less than 25% of their headquarters buildings, has recently recommended that the Office of Management and Budget take the lead in creating federal space utilization benchmarks. Since that hearing, the GSA has said it seeks to shrink its portfolio by 3.5 million square feet by shedding federal properties. Against that backdrop, T&I Committee lawmakers introduced the bills earlier in November. 

In addition to adding annual reporting requirements to occupancy agreements the GSA signs with tenant agencies, HR 6241, the Federal Use it or Lose it Leases Act, would have GSA establish written procedures that compel agencies to relinquish office space if the actual utilization rate falls below 60% for six months within any 12-month period. The bipartisan bill would also apply to agencies with independent leasing authorities, mandating that they report the utilization rates of their leases to their respective oversight committees. 

Another bill reforms the 2016 Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act, which encourages the identification and sale of unused federal properties. This bipartisan bill requires the Public Buildings Reform Board to submit a report to Congress listing federal properties that should be sold. It also allows agencies to receive sale proceeds sooner than the existing law allows.

HR 6260, the Federal Oversight of Construction Use and Safety Act, mandates that Congress be notified if the costs of a GSA capital project increase by 5% and that Congress approve an amended prospectus with utilization data and consolidation plans if cost increases exceed 10%. The FOCUS Act and a second bill in the package, HR 6261, also address crime in and around public buildings and its impact on the buildings’ maintenance and use. 

Separately, HR 6254, the Public Buildings Accountability Act of 2023, requires a GAO report that reviews and accounts for Public Buildings Service personnel, in-office attendance, historical staffing numbers, costs and an examination of the Federal Building Fund’s building operations account.

“While House leadership ultimately controls the voting schedule, I think there’s a good chance that we could see some of these bills called up for a House vote sometime in the near future,” a T&I Committee spokesperson told Facilities Dive. Federal office space underutilization is “a drag on agency and government efficiency and a waste of taxpayer dollars. Cutting government waste and improving its efficiency are House Republican goals, so we will work with them and members across the aisle on these bills to ensure they begin moving forward as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said.

Raise has launched a workplace analytics tool to provide real-time data and insights into occupancy trends, according to a Nov. 30 release. 

The real estate technology firm says that its new platform, Workplace Analytics, integrates human resource information systems and badge data to facilitate optimal real estate portfolio decision-making by delivering workplace metrics on space usage, cost and performance. 

By providing real-time insights in a singular dashboard, Workplace Analytics seeks to address the challenges real estate professionals face with tracking office usage and employee data manually, Raise CEO Justine Bedecarre said in the release.

Workplace analytics are becoming a top priority for organizations and commercial real estate owners, as return-to-office mandates, varying degrees of hybrid work and high interest rates push operators to reevaluate office footprints and usage across the U.S. 

Despite the demand to reimagine space, led in part by changing employee behavior, many companies have struggled to make decisions due to a lack of accurate workplace data. Eighty percent of executives and building managers say they would have approached return-to-office policies differently if they had better insights into office usage, according to a survey by Envoy and Hanover Research. 

To provide decision-makers with workplace utilization insights, companies such as VTS, Johnson Controls, Vector Flow and Envoy have made acquisitions and released software aimed at better integrating badge, sensor and related occupancy data. Raise now joins that list with a focus on tying together office utilization, project management, portfolio strategy and market analytics data to enhance the speed, transparency and cost-effectiveness of decisions involving workplace management. 

Raise said Workplace Analytics represents a culmination of solution integrations on its Workplace OS platform, which aim to streamline workplace processes and optimize portfolio performance. As part of its Workplace OS platform, the new solution integrates with existing human resource information systems and badge tracking systems, including Brivo, Rippling and Workday, to quickly answer questions related to future office investment decisions. The firm noted that the software has already been tested and integrated by its existing clients, including Samsara. 

Sandra Ladao, vice president of real estate, workplace and physical security at Samsara, said in the release that Workplace Analytics will help refine strategies for employee engagement with the office, saving considerable time and freeing up staff “to focus more on implementing the data we acquire, rather than spending time reproducing these dashboards on a weekly basis.”

Workplace Analytics will eliminate guesswork from real estate strategies, providing a comprehensive understanding of office utilization down to location, department and commuter, in real-time, Raise said.