Is #lovewhereyouwork still relevant when employees work from their homes first and offices second?

We think so. And most people (employers and employees alike) we talk with agree. The workplace still matters — or at least it can. But make no mistake, change is necessary. Not just in what the workplace looks like, but with who should have a seat at the table when you talk about and create the workplace experience.

Culture and workplace experience

Culture can be tangibly expressed through the workplace environment. People can connect to their environment, identify with it, and take ownership of it. When culture and environment are intertwined, loyalty and commitment grow and strengthen corporate culture.

To address the entire workforce experience, you need to have an ongoing conversation with workers about what is important to them and why it matters. You must banish the harsh lines of hierarchy.

Companies that view hierarchy as the only way to map and structure formal relationships — or, the only way to get things done — are finding the current environment paralyzing. These challenges have created new ways to look at what works and doesn’t within workplace experience.

Creating an inclusive work environment requires addressing factors beyond the physical space. Feedback from your people is a critical part of building inclusive spaces.

“It’s not surprising to me that people and workplace [teams] are now merging,” says Density Workplace Innovation Lead Nellie Hayat, “because we do need data from both categories to help design better than ever before.”

Bringing more to the table

Every major stakeholder in your business has some skin in the workplace-experience game. Building a better strategy will require members from various departments to connect and collaborate to develop and execute scalable plans. But once you do, the benefits are clear.

Moving beyond a survival mindset to a thriving mindset requires recognizing that disruption is continuous rather than episodic. To thrive requires a willingness to use disruption as a catalyst to drive your organization forward.

Those who adopted a thrive mindset were 3x more likely than their peers to bring human strengths to the forefront — leveraging worker adaptability and mobility to navigate disruption. Leadership sets strategies and vision, but managers throughout the organization are the ones getting things done, and they know what’s really going on with their team as they execute.

Co-creation goes beyond merely soliciting workers’ input. It’s about workers having influence and decision rights over what the organization stands for, how the organization defines its workplace culture, and how to better the employee experience. You can create an environment employees want to be in and engage in and set them up to perform their best.

Transforming the workplace starts by gathering different approaches.

Create an “experience board” with team members of varying management levels to give insight into what will work best and/or combine HR people with operations people to create a cohesive effort of different perspectives.

Your IT team should be at the table too. They’ll be better equipped to inform and support everyone when they’re a part of the creation process. IT can provide teams with digital tools to help them work effectively while ensuring security and enablement across adopted services. IT needs a role in educating staff to ensure flexibility in a hybrid workplace so that teams can continue working together, whether in the office, on Zoom, or collaborating in a shared doc.

Effective decision-making is one of the most critical elements of the post-pandemic organization. Being aware of how to accelerate decision-making processes can help minimize unnecessary noise — ensuring people are clear about their roles, responsibilities, and ability to make decisions — and empowering the front lines to make decisions within guardrails.

The reality is, anyone and everyone can have a voice if their workplace lets them. What level of co-creation style reflects the culture you’re cultivating? Ask your team what they want, what they don’t want, and the changes they expect.

Team members bring a lot to the table, and their opinions need to be valued. They are the ones experiencing the challenges, victories, and everything in between. They offer insight into how they feel, how their teammates feel and can opine on what didn’t work in the past. Measuring space utilization will help you see where employees prefer to spend their workdays. But unless you seek feedback from your employees, you won’t gain the critical context needed to make informed decisions.

Once you have people at the table, find out their vision of the new workplace. Determine who needs to — and will — come to the office and how often.

Match these responses to utilization data to close the gap between intent and behavior.

“As we move into the future, I think the employee experience comes front and center,” says Density Strategy & Insights Manager Darren Graver. “I think we transition from this sort of anecdotal feedback to much more of a dynamic feedback loop where technology and data can really help.”

The proof is in the pudding

When a company’s ‘hierarchy of bosses’ becomes less significant than other more flexible structures, a flatter organization emerges naturally — making way for effective changes.

We can see this progression in a variety of companies:

• Twitter moved the workplace team from reporting to the CFO to reporting to their Head of People.
• Slack merged their two teams and created a new name for this team: People and Places leaders.
• Palo Alto Networks is building the future cohesively with a forum called Flex Work, which is being led by the People Leadership Team.
• Zoom, Inc is being represented by Lynn Oldham, their Chief People Officer, at most conferences to talk about the future of work.
• Nerve center at McKinsey was created as a crisis response to give autonomy to their managers to implement creative, pragmatic solutions for their teams’ workplace experience.

What does fluidity look like?

While several types of leadership are recognized in the professional world, two specifically help create a more fluid workspace.

• Helix: The secret of the helix lies in disaggregating the traditional management hierarchy into two separate, parallel lines of accountability — roughly equal in power and authority, but fundamentally different.
• Flatter structures: Removes layers of middle management and encourages greater communication and collaboration between employees.

Adopting an ecosystem mindset is key to either choice. All companies rely on the support of an extensive network of people, vendors, and partners working together to create value, regardless of their structure.

Embracing data-rich technology platforms to gather, organize, interpret, and create an impact on data and analytics will be a defining competitive differentiator of our lifetimes. Companies that embrace it will have an edge.

Learn how to learn. Organizations that equip their teams with the meta-skill of learning how to learn, change, and adapt quickly will be better able to thrive and succeed — and very few are good at it today.

It is crucial to create hybrid and multifunctional spaces and combine the benefits of both the home office and traditional offices for your workplace experience.

Conclusion

The workplace experience is a reflection of culture, structure, and office space. Its creation is your opportunity to reinforce your values.

The pandemic has jolted leaders and organizations into action, accelerating trends already in play and triggering new ones. Companies launching on a journey to organize for the future will need to address the organization as a dynamic system where all elements affect and reinforce each other.

While no one can predict when or how the pandemic will end, the lessons these companies learn as they organize for the future will give them clear advantages as the next “normal” takes shape.

Having a hybrid workforce can make cohesion and effective communication problematic.

Meetings are a prime example. In a pre-Covid world we relied on conference rooms. During lockdown we saw everyone dialing in remotely to video conferences.

But what does a hybrid conference room look like?

With existing technologies designed for either fully on-site teams or fully remote workers, hybrid teams have to cobble together collaboration solutions. But perhaps not for long.

The technological gap hybrid teams experience is rapidly being filled by emerging technologies and — more frequently — tech that isn’t new but has been rethought to create solutions to hybrid working problems.

Virtual reality

Savvy innovators have taken advantage of recent advances made in VR technology to create solutions for hybrid and remote-first teams.

As Oculus would say, sometimes you just need to get in the same room, even when you’re miles apart.

Virtual reality is fully capable of scanning your workspace — and you — into a virtual reality that can be occupied and experienced by all members of your team.

Whether your team members are in a conference room, sitting at individual desks, working from home, at your favorite cafe, or a combination, everyone experiences a single, virtual room. The team interacts and sees each other virtually through a simple headset.

VR is opening up a new realm of possibilities, giving workers a more engaging, interactive, and memorable working experience, regardless of location. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is at the forefront of this new wave of VR with Microsoft Mesh.

Spatial chat app

After the pandemic led to the failure of their original startup, the folks at Wonder started thinking about what people really needed in the face of the new world order. While online group chats are a long-established and handy tool, it’s not yet possible to physically meet online.

This robs us of a seminal part of the meeting experience, leaving us inherently disconnected. To solve this, they created Wonder, a prototype browser-based spatial chat app.

They asked, “How do we make up for a lack of physical team connection?”, and answered with Wonder.

Simple but effective thinking like this will shape how we work in the future.

Rethinking online collaboration

Online team collaboration tools like Slack have been around for years. But they can be clumsy (particularly if misused) when you’re working as a hybrid unit. A handful of companies are looking to optimize this legacy technology for the hybrid era.

Zoho Cliq, Miro, Mural, and GitLab are all great examples of this type of ‘old into new’ thinking that’s seeing existing technology repurposed and refined specifically for the hybrid workplace.

Sustainable business travel

Travel solutions like TravelPerk are making business travel smoother and more sustainable. With real-time updates on COVID restrictions, travel safety advice, and information, you can ensure a simple, safe travel experience for your team, no matter where they are.

TravelPerk is also one of many companies embracing a new wave of sustainability initiatives, as it allows you to reduce your business’ carbon footprint. If you’re embarking on a carbon offset journey, TravelPerk allows you to offset 100% of your business travel carbon emissions.

Automated and AI office cleaning

The pandemic has certainly raised our awareness of the need for cleanliness in the workplace. Hybrid work means the specific times and days individuals are in the office are in flux, requiring a rethink of how office cleaning is managed.

Can we rely on a ‘clean your own space’ policy? Or employing an office cleaner for a space that’s no longer used as it once was?

Neither scenario is ideal. But new smart technology is emerging that includes AI, robotics, and automated systems to support cleaning staff, or even fully handle office cleaning needs.

Apps that utilize alert systems to notify cleaning staff that a meeting has ended, or a hot desk is no longer in use, are a simple means of utilizing this type of innovative technology.

A more comprehensive way is to turn to smart technologies and robotics to physically clean office environments instead of human workers. For example, automated robots that can hoover, and UV lighting that’s capable of disinfecting the surfaces in a room.

Smart buildings

An extension of the automation/AI thinking is the construction of buildings with the latest tech fully integrated from the ground up. Smart Buildings like those from Arup, which utilize 5G, the Internet of Things, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) to collect real-time data are allowing companies to make smarter decisions.

The result is buildings with efficient HVAC systems, cleaner air, and healthier working environments, all down to automated systems.

The ‘work from wherever’ mentality has huge benefits, but also makes it more challenging to help employees see the value of coming into the office.

Creating an environment that’s as clean and healthy as possible, while requiring as little effort as possible to maintain is crucial. Meanwhile, workplace sensors can be used to give team members a real-time view of office capacity before they decide to come into the office.

This effectively eliminates the fear of returning to the office and finding it impossible to practice social distancing or maintain comfort levels. It also enables real-time updates to be sent throughout the day to notify staff if occupancy reaches unsafe levels.

Final thoughts

We’re not quite sure yet what the future of work holds. It seems certain hybrid teams are the way forward, but precisely how these will function is still being determined. An existing technological gap is driving innovative new solutions that cater specifically to hybrid teams. It is these emerging innovations that will determine the shape of work to come.

The goal is to not only make hybrid work and remote first viable but better.

In the post-pandemic workplace, workplace teams and employees alike need to strike the right balance between conducting “business-as-usual” and continuing to leverage mitigation tactics such as social distancing. We can no longer assume people feel comfortable being in close quarters with others.

Conference rooms pose a specific risk to social distancing. They are designed to enclose groups of people in a fixed space for extended periods of time. Using Density data and feedback from customers, we set to address key considerations around post-pandemic conference room use and social distancing:

1. Are conference rooms used in a way that poses risks to social distancing?
2. If so, what can workplace teams do to mitigate these risks?
3. How can workplace teams tell if these mitigations are effective?

Do conference rooms pose a risk to social distancing?

Yes, although not as often as you’d think. In our 2019 Workplace Utilization Index, Density analyzed more than 10,000 hours of meetings over 6 months across 60 conference rooms. The data yielded insights as to ways in which conference room usage may or may not pose risks to social distancing.

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• Conference rooms are often occupied by only 1 person — 36% of the time
• 85% of meetings had fewer than 7 attendees
• 6% of meetings had 10 or more attendees
• 2-4 person rooms were 2x as likely to be at overcapacity as 5 -person rooms.

This is important information. 36% of the time, conference rooms are used in a way that does not pose a risk to social distancing. Smaller meetings are far more common than larger meetings, suggesting an opportunity for smaller meetings to upsize to conference rooms without crowding out larger meetings. Smaller conference rooms (2 to 4 person rooms) are the likeliest to be at or over capacity, meaning they should be prioritized for social-distancing mitigation efforts.

How can workplace teams encourage social distancing in conference rooms?

Any given conference room poses a risk to social distancing by gathering a group of people in an enclosed space for the duration of the meeting. To counteract this, the solution is straightforward: let fewer people in so there’s more flexibility to maintain social distancing.

Workplace teams can execute this by setting capacity limits that are lower than current capacity limits on all conference rooms.

On average, the minimum size of a 4-6 person conference room containing a 4’x6′ table is 168 square feet. The CDC recommends that employees “maintain 6 feet and practice social distancing as work duties permit.” This translates into a 28 square-foot (i.e. a circular area with a 3-foot radius surrounding each person) allotment per person. Doubling this allotment to approximately 60 square feet to account for variable room configurations implies a recommended capacity of 2-3 people for this 4-6 person conference room, or a capacity reduction of approximately 50%.

This is a generalized example. Workplace teams should customize COVID-19 capacity limits based on the size and layouts of each of their conference rooms.  

However, further limiting capacity across the board could lead to a dearth of appropriately-sized conference rooms. As noted in our workplace index, the frequency of smaller meetings relative to larger meetings indicates that there is ample opportunity for smaller groups to take advantage of larger rooms without impacting larger group meetings that inherently need more space.

For situations where a company cannot afford to give up larger spaces for smaller meetings, workplace teams need not fret. COVID-related WFH mandates have pushed employees and managers to adopt greater familiarity with conducting remote meetings. Ideally, employees will appreciate these enhanced safety efforts and forgive the novelty of remote conferencing, albeit inconvenient at times.

How can workplace teams tell if occupancy limits are effective? 

Density customers can use a variety of reporting methods on their people-count and conference room-usage data to help evaluate the impact of capacity limits on conference rooms. They also can use this data to manage conference room allocation going forward.

Density provides detailed reporting on per-conference room usage, including:

• Utilization Against Present Capacity Limits
• Hourly Occupancy Heatmaps and Time Series reports
• Meeting Bookings vs. Attendance

Managing the post-pandemic return to work is challenged by the risk and uncertainties for workplace teams and employees alike. Person-to-person proximity is a particular challenge inherent to conference rooms. Density customers are well-equipped to leverage their people-count data to identify which conference rooms are most likely to pose a risk to social distancing and to develop and test data-driven solutions to mitigate these risks.

Ultimately, the value of this data will be in providing continuous feedback on how effectively these solutions are working. Take a deeper dive into planning with our guide: How to plan for social distancing in the workplace.

At Density we’re on a mission to reduce our footprint on the world, but that ambition starts with understanding how people use the spaces they occupy.

And to do that, we have to understand people. ‍

“There’s no escaping our spaces. They’re all around us. They impact everything we do.” – Aleks Strub, CMO — Density

On December 1st, we partnered with Pop Up Magazine to host Better Spaces, an event exploring all the ways spaces influence personalities, identities, generations, the natural world, and, of course, workplaces. Better Spaces is the culmination of creative minds working together to answer the question of “How does space shape self? And how could those spaces be better?”

Creating better spaces is about serving you and your life without barriers. It means gaining the insights necessary to provide environments that enable and support you. Spaces that unlock your true self while fostering an inclusive community.

“We’ve all been there: an environment that made us feel left out, and sometimes that’s because it was designed intentionally or not to exclude,” says Michelle Lee, Strategy Director at Gensler. “An inclusively designed built environment is an essential component of belonging.”

Better Spaces connects people stories, work stories, and environmental stories —  all to more fully understand how we’re shaped by the world around us.

Discover how the impacts of collegiate laziness and the drive to enjoy a fresh Coca-Cola created the start of what we know as the Internet of Things. Hear the personal story of Uncle Spanky, a successful Filipino musician, who left a life of excitement and fame to chase the American Dream, only to land in a 9-5 as a baggage handler at an airport.

Each of these stories vary greatly but they all encompass one theme — our spaces define us and in one way or many, those spaces can and should be better. You can relive the magic of Better Spaces and experience these wonderful stories here. ‍‍

“There isn’t a rule book for how to use a building. There isn’t a guide on the right way to use a city. Designers, politicians, city officials, and people take a best guess at what they think people might need and what they might want. And then… people just vote with their feet.” — Derek Gordon, Chief of Staff — Density

Photo credit: Jenna Garrett

Have you noticed that companies who are adopting remote-first or flexwork are also fighting over ground floor leases?

It’s odd, isn’t it? Facebook, Google, Okta, Shopify have all recently opened multipurpose spaces in New York, Austin, and Los Angeles while allowing their entire staff to work from anywhere at any given time.

Over the past few months, we’ve had the same conversations with hundreds of workplace and real estate leaders; they’re all looking for the perfect mix of work flexibility while creating curated, branded spaces for in-person interactions.

One solution might be to go retail style.

The ground floor has always been reserved for retail, but we’re now witnessing companies merging these places of sale with their places of work. They’re mixing their employees and customers inside an immersive experience that has the comfort of your cozy corner coffee shop and the excitement of a product showroom.

Imagine an immersive experience that has the comfort of your cozy corner coffee shop and the excitement of a product showroom.

There’s a trend rising here. As we step closer to the metaverse and our world becomes more digitized, we’ll need to create a reason for our communal spaces. The solution is the reincarnation of the brand experience, where employees and customers meet, mingle, and interact within a physical space.

Brand and employee experience

Happy employees make happy customers. This truth is revealed in the surveys from the Best Companies to work at.

Not only do these top companies dedicate resources to their employee experience, but they’re also the ones reporting the most revenue, growth, innovation, and engagement from their customers. There is an undeniable correlation between the employee and customer experience.‍

“Shaping employee experiences through the framework of your brand helps find and retain the best and most committed talent for your organization,” says Mark Attard, President of Livewire, and Forbes contributor. “It attracts those whose values align, who possess an intuitive understanding of the brand, and who have an ability to interpret it at every customer touchpoint. This creates an improved customer experience.”

The Apple store might be the best example.

There’s an energy when you pass through those glass doors and surround yourself with their minimalist design. Employees, or Geniuses, are troubleshooting problems with a smile on their faces while customers spend hours checking out the latest Apple Watch update or MacBook Pro. Inside, there’s a sense of belonging, a world created by the Apple brand where everything is perfect, and everyone is magic.

The reinvention of our presence inside a space

Everyone had the same thought when the pandemic started, “Well if we’re all working from home, can’t we save millions by opting out of our office lease?” During the mass WFH exodus, we saw companies like Yelp and Mckesson Corp drastically cut down on their real estate portfolio and allow their employees to work from home.

It was the obvious choice, but there may be an alternative.

Although companies can downsize their office spaces, they might be missing out on an opportunity to reinvent their brand and create an entirely new experience. It’s not about minimizing your real estate portfolio, it’s about maximizing the value you can provide for your employees and customers.

It’s not about minimizing your real estate portfolio, it’s about maximizing the value you can provide for your employees and customers.

Shopify has just opened a new space in NYC dedicated to its customers, employees, and fans. This 8,000 square-foot space is dedicated to their customers with on-hand support providing consulting and creative studios, while building pop-up shops for customers to try products. They’re doubling down on their employee experience and at the same time providing workshops, classes, and recording studios for their customers.

They are building an immersive experience bringing employees and customers together around the product, service, and brand they love. They’re providing a space where customers can touch, feel, and test-drive the brand while employees can engage and collect feedback on the product.

Mixing employees and customers in a brand new experience because both groups need a good reason to leave their homes today.

“Experience” is the best new amenity you can offer

It is motivating to see companies renovate their spaces and design for new amenities, but amenities solely won’t bring employees back to the office. It’ll be the experiences created by organizations and their teams. This is why we’re seeing an overhaul of community managers, events planners, employee experience designers, and internal communication experts.

We’re seeing a massive change in how we use our office spaces, indicating the shift and focus on the employee experience.

1. What will our employees need when they come into the office?
2. How can we re-engage and produce an experience worthwhile when they’re here?

As we adopt a more hybrid workforce and asynchronous work, we’re accepting new spaces where employees can come and go as they please — much like customers do. Companies are answering the call and are now transforming reception areas into inviting coffee shop settings, opening storefronts inside of their offices, and providing space where customers and employees can interact.

Okta’s new office space is a prime example of fusing these two worlds under one roof. ‍

“The unique space, which will cover more than 6,500 square feet, will feature advanced technology and tools to enable Okta customers, prospects, partners, and employees to experience Okta’s products while also serving as a place for them to deepen connections and build community.”

Armen Vartanian, Senior Vice President, Global Workplace Services, Okta.

There’s no turning back.

Companies are fully aware of the changes needed in order to keep their bottom line in the green and retain their best talent. In other words, they’ll need to focus on their employees and customers. These groups are equally the two biggest assets of companies that have the greatest potential to become brand ambassadors.

By offering a space for them to gather and meet, they’re providing a foundation for brand love, new ideas, and new bonds.

But brand love relies on more than just a product or service. Today, people care about the identity of the brand, the kind of leaders behind the name, and the way they treat their employees. By focusing on creating an amazing experience for employees and customers, companies are investing in their long-term success.

A human touch

In a world becoming more and more “remote,” people are craving connection, belonging, authenticity and community.

Your best recipe: mixing fans, users, customers, employees, and even shareholders in a curated environment, allowing them to bond over barista-made latte art, testing out the new product, getting some branded goodies at the store and why not recording an episode in the brand new podcast recording studio on the first floor.

This recipe can increase your brand popularity, motivate your employees to deliver their best work,  and create a loyal customer base.

The future is now, and it’s beautiful.

Productivity is personal. Your employees perform at their best when you empower them to work when, where, and how they want.

Implementing an activity-based workplace allows employees to choose the kind of work environment they need based on the type of work they’re performing and their preferred work style.

What is an activity-based workplace?

Coined by Erik Veldhoen in his 1995 book, The Demise of the Office, Activity-based working (ABW) encourages a work style that allows employees to choose from a variety of space types that support different tasks and empowers them to utilize those spaces throughout the workday. An activity-based workplace provides flexible work settings for:

• group work
• collaboration
• brainstorming meetings
• heads-down work

Inside an activity-based workplace, you’re likely to find an office design that includes soft-seating, reservable desks, conference rooms, pods (or phone booths), and cafes (to name a few space types).

An activity-based workplace evolves from the outdated working model where everyone had assigned desks and instead provides a workplace design based on activity settings.

While these are standard space types of an activity-based working model, they’re not a mandated part of your office layout. You have to choose which spaces (and how much of each space) are best for your team. And, what’s best for your team today may not be the case six months from now, which is why informed agility is a critical component of an activity-based workplace.

Informed agility means using data to make real-time decisions. At the foundation of this informed agility is the feedback loop.

Creating a feedback loop

You can (and should) create a feedback loop through both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data provides context from the employee’s perspective.

“If people understand that you’re actually listening to them, there is a trust that is formed,” says Omar Ramirez (formerly the Senior Program Manager of Workplace R&D at Atlassian). “Then, they are more likely to give you more feedback — and that creates more data for you to work with.”

But qualitative data can be unreliable or misleading — particularly following something so cataclysmal as a pandemic.

The emotions you feel when taking any survey don’t often correlate with the behavior patterns you unknowingly showcase.

For example, remote work has proven both popular and effective. But many employees can’t wait to get back to the office for some work/life separation. However, these employees may want to choose where and when they come to the office on any given day. An employee survey won’t capture these nuances and the spaces they actually use day to day.

No matter what they say on an employee survey, people will always vote with their feet for the spaces they prefer.

Successful activity-based workplaces find a balance between these different data points. They gather clear and indisputable space utilization metrics and add context through employee feedback. They then implement those findings to improve the workspace based on how space is actually used.

ABW use cases

A perk of the activity-based workplace is it can look and feel however is best for your team and make your existing real estate work for you. That said, ABW spaces can be categorized into three use cases: informal collaborations, formal collaborations, and head-down work.

Below, we break down each use case to help you understand what answers you need to ensure each space — and your work areas as a whole — are designed for an efficient yet rewarding employee experience.

Informal collaborations

Spaces: Soft-seating, cafeterias, lounges

Activity: Huddles, brainstorms, and quick syncs. Casual collisions, impromptu meetings, and cross-department collaboration

What data can uncover

1. Are these the types of spaces drawing people into the office? Most work can be done from home, potentially limiting the volume of informal collaborations in-office. But spontaneity is a critical component of creativity. Do employees come to the office because these spaces make it easier to feel connected with colleagues?
2. If so, which spaces, in particular, get the most use? Knowing this can determine which space types to remove, which to expand, and which might need signage. One workplace manager, for example, told us how no one used soft-seating outside of a conference room. When he dug deeper, he discovered no one knew why those soft seats were there. Signage helped.
3. How does reconfiguring these spaces impact utilization? A/B testing is at the heart of the new workplace. The more you test, the closer you get to the truth. If a cafe with stand-up desks has high occupancy levels, replicate that design elsewhere. How does this impact utilization across both spaces? If couches outside conference rooms get little use, try relocating these seats elsewhere.

Formal collaborations

Spaces: Conference and meeting rooms, shared spaces

Activity: Group work, presentations, and detailed planning

What data can uncover

1. Is this space being used the way it was designed for? It’s always surprising to find out just how frequently a meeting room is misused. One of our customers, for example, used Density data to discover that her 10-person meeting room was primarily used by one person at a time. This data helped her choose not to expand her footprint. She reconfigured her existing footplate instead.
2. What’s the optimal size we should make our conference rooms? Data will help you determine how frequently your meeting rooms are used and by how many people at any given time. But beware of where you turn to for this data. We know one global company, for example, that used Google Calendar data to determine meeting room utilization. But Google Calendar only tells you how many people were invited; it doesn’t tell you who actually showed up and for how long. Another company required one person to swipe in before every meeting to acknowledge the meeting took place. But that doesn’t tell you how many people actually showed up. There is always a bit of disparity between who is physically present for meetings vs. who is shown on the calendar invite.

That’s a thing we’ve been trying to solve recently by working with Density. Who is physically present for meetings vs. who is shown on the calendar invite?” — Omar Ramirez, Atlassian

Heads-down work

Spaces: Reservable pods, phone booths, and workstations

Activity: Focused work, admin work, individual work

What data can uncover

1. Are these desks available now, or are they currently occupied? Reservable desks have the same data issues as meeting rooms — just because someone reserves a desk doesn’t mean they’re using it. They might not have come to the office. They might be in meetings. Knowing how often your desks are used will help you determine how best to design your space (it also helps you better understand when to sanitize workstations).
2. How long is the average dwell time and peak occupancy for desks? Gathering this data will help you understand and adapt to use patterns. Do you need 15 workstations throughout the day? Should you encourage more people to work from home to maintain your ideal occupancy level? Is human load balancing required (by reassigning teams to different floors or staggering schedules)?
3. Do we still need all these desks? How many should we take out? Twilio is undergoing this type of transformation now. Up to 30% of its office space located across the globe — previously dedicated to assigned seating — could eventually make way for hackable scrum spaces (spaces where employees can reconfigure the furniture as needed). But Twilio’s workplace team isn’t relying on hunches to make this type of widespread change.
4. “We’re going to beta this in a few of the larger offices,” says Devorah Rosner, Sr. Manager of Global Workplace Operations of Twilio, “to model it, to test it, to measure it, and to see how our spaces are actually being used, not how we think they’re going to be used.”
5. Twilio’s approach is an interesting take on ABW. Most activity-based workplaces design environments that employees move to based on their needs. With Twilio’s dynamic spaces, employees can change their current office environment to meet their needs.

Not a solution for all

Activity-based working might not be for everyone. Some companies might choose to follow Dropbox’s lead and convert every office into meeting spaces. Heads-down work can be done at home, in other words.

Other companies want the office to continue to play an integral part of the workplace experience. They still see value in those water cooler and stairwell conversations. They value how a physical space can help employees feel connected and proud of the work they do.

“Our workplace is an amplifier of our culture and our brand. It’s a brand statement.” — Peter Van Emburgh, CBRE

Regardless of whether you employ ABW as a way of working in your office, there’s no denying that the purpose of the workplace is changing. Employees don’t have to come to the office to be productive. Workplace managers need to be agile in how they design their spaces to maintain efficiency and a positive workplace experience.

Qualitative and quantitative data help you identify which spaces are working and which are not so that you can design even better spaces in the future.