Top 4 Occupancy Sensor Space Utilization Metrics to Improve Workplace Planning

The ability to collect accurate space utilization data and measure workplace metrics has become key to effectively maintaining social distancing at work. 

Occupancy sensors (sometimes known as utilization sensors) assist property teams with space utilization metrics and workplace planning by collecting occupancy and office space utilization data for the purposes of workplace strategy and reporting.  

Here is a look at the 4 top metrics that could help improve your office space planning with the help of an occupancy sensor.

1. Desk occupancy

With the rise of remote working and the popularity of the idea of hot-desking when people return to offices, it’s never been more important to understand how many of your desks are being used on a given day. After all,, the office may be filled with people, and on some days, it will not. With the help of an occupancy sensor, you can effectively monitor how many desks are in use at a given time as well as the occupancy levels of your office. This can help you with office space planning and will allow you to maintain social distancing in the workplace.

Tracking desk occupancy is extremely important to understand the in-office and remote working rhythm. After all, you do not want your employees to be in a situation where they arrive at the office and all the workstations are full when they are better off working from home.

There are different types of occupancy sensors you can use to measure desk occupancy. Some companies deploy individual passive infrared sensors at each individual desk but these can become expensive quite quickly if you are a large organization. Instead, you can consider an advanced occupancy sensor like XY Sense which delivers wide office coverage of up to 1000ft or up to 20 desks per occupancy sensor. That way you can measure more of your office for desk occupancy from one sensor device.

2. Occupancy in the meeting room

Flexible and remote working is the new normal, but a physical meeting is still the most appropriate option to tackle the creative challenges and to solve a problem as a team. Because team meetings aren’t going anyway, businesses need to be able to effectively manage meeting room occupancy and spaces to ensure COVID safe office practices and to effectively match supply and demand. 

By analyzing the occupancy in the meeting room with the help of an occupancy sensor or people counter, you can objectively decide whether existing meeting room spaces and configurations meet the needs of your employees or whether additional meeting rooms or room types (such as phone booths) are required. Effective use of the room occupancy sensor can also inform you which meeting room is the busiest and needs attention right away.

An advantage of real time office occupancy sensors like XY Sense is that you can capture data about meeting room occupancy in real time. This means if you want to monitor the number of meeting in a room for COVID safety reasons and send an alert if a small sized meeting room is too full, you can. 

3. Peak space utilization

An effective room occupancy sensor can allow you to track the peak timings of space utilization in your office. This allows you to effectively match the supply and demand for both desks and meetings room at popular times and reduce friction in your workplace. By using this peak space utilization data in workplace communications you can also encourage your teams and departments to schedule meetings during the less busy hours to avoid the rush in the workplace. This would also help you maintain proper social distancing in the workplace.

The basic idea behind effective space utilization is to spread out the meetings to build a solid base for appropriate occupancy on a weekly basis, rather than the sudden peak periods that amount to nothing or are inconclusive.

4. Meeting room No shows

Yes, this occurrence is common among office meetings. Just because a meeting room is booked it does not necessarily mean that a meeting will definitely happen. Things may change and plans may change too. And this could lead to the cancellation of the booking to free up the room for others.

Nothing is more frustrating than seeing empty rooms everywhere when you couldn’t book one for your own meeting. 

It’s possible to integrate some occupancy sensor solutions (such as XY Sense) into your room booking and IWMS platforms. 

With the help of an occupancy sensor, you could effectively track the wastage in meeting room timings and analyze ways to reduce such instances. The occupancy sensor helps you close the loop on ‘meeting room no shows’ and can highlight old  repeat bookings of meeting rooms and notify teams to cancel the booking at the earliest if the meeting room is booked. This will help improve office etiquette. This also aids with proper office space planning.

These 4 top metrics are just the beginning when it comes to how occupancy sensor and space utilization data can help improve office space planning and support social distancing in the workplace. 

We recommend that you talk to our experts at XY Sense to gain further insights on office space utilization or the room occupancy sensor technology as a whole. Understanding this will help you improve workplace productivity and efficiency.