How data can track the success of your hybrid work strategy

With the right data at your fingertips, you can track occupancy patterns, predict demand for office space and personalize the office experience for employees. When combined with the AI capabilities of a robust occupancy management platform, space allocations that once took weeks or months to restack can be transformed into dynamic zones that change as frequently as the occupancy patterns or predictions.

JLL’s Dynamic Occupancy Management provides organizations with a variety of data sets that facilities planners can adopt to get a deeper understanding of how employees are using the office.

Here's just some of the data available and how it can help you make strategic adjustments to your hybrid work model.

Presence and utilization data

It's tough to set effective policies to support hybrid work and measure your success if you have a weak grasp on when and how your people are coming into the office. That's where presence and utilization data can help – giving you insights into attendance patterns as well as hard numbers into whether or not your employees are actually embracing the hybrid workplace.

Do you offer free lunch to encourage workers to come to the office? Do you host in-office celebrations to promote company news or product launches? With a dynamic occupancy platform, you can track occupancy trends to better understand which events or other return-to-work efforts are boosting occupier attendance and make decisions accordingly.

A dynamic occupancy platform provides a full view of your portfolio’s space by combining readily available data sources alongside other collection methods. The resulting insights could lead to more effective use of your existing assets and better alignment between occupancy demand and your available office space.

Scheduling data

More than ever, people are becoming the most sought-after amenity of the hybrid workplace. Giving employees the ability to plan their day or week in terms of where they will be working, and then giving them the option to share that data with colleagues, can help drive meaningful in-person connections in the workplace that otherwise wouldn’t happen.

A dynamic occupancy platform provides this valuable data, giving your employees visibility so they can change their schedule to take advantage of the opportunity to meet and collaborate in-person. This simple adjustment solves one of the biggest challenges of hybrid: Why would anyone go into the office if no one else you work with is there?

Scheduling data can also predict occupancy levels. When schedules indicate that maximum occupancy thresholds are met at a particular location, employees can be diverted to another site, a flex location, or encouraged to adjust their schedules to another day when occupancy levels are lower. Distributing demand across the work week promotes vibrancy every day of the week versus only on select days.

Lastly, the “demand signal” provided from scheduling data can help others adjust their occupancy dependent services. The cafeteria can adjust the amount of food they prepare on specific days based on the fluctuating demand. And the cleaning staff can be adjusted and prioritized based on anticipated usage, as seen with JLL’s Dynamic Cleaning service.

Reservation data

The means by which employees determine what space to use when returning to the office are quickly changing and evolving. Providing an easy tool for an employee to reserve space and book amenities and experiences can help your organization better implement its hybrid work strategy.

When enabled, both historical and real-time reservation data can personalize an employee's overall home-to-office journey. For example, at the point a reservation is made, it’s simple to collect additional information related to the worker’s in-office preferences. Someone may prefer a seat that’s more private for deep focus work versus one within a bustling open space. If reserving collaborative space, the worker can identify other resources needed, such as video capability, a whiteboard or other collaboration tools.

Employee data

“Digital exhaust” is a term used to describe the trail of information created by a person using the Internet or other digital activities. The rapid digitalization of organizations has created a wealth of this data around employee interactions. For example, information from digital collaboration tools can provides insights into how and with whom different teams are communicating with.

If your building offers a tenant engagement app, data from employee surveys and attendance data from company events can help organizations further customize the work experience for their employees.

The hybrid workplace should be a destination that attracts employees by making their experience at the office “worth the commute.” By embracing a more dynamic approach to occupancy management, you can leverage the wealth of data generated by your workforce to adapt your hybrid approach, and your physical spaces, to better serve the needs of your people and your organization.

Is your organization fit for hybrid? Contact us to learn more about how Dynamic Occupancy Management can help you implement hybrid successfully in your workplace.