3 simple steps to creating a data-driven workplace

As a workplace manager, you juggle a lot—planning onsite programs, optimizing spaces, creating a welcoming experience for visitors… The list goes on and on. While the sheer volume of your responsibilities is impressive, it’s the impact of your work that matters most. 

That’s where workplace data can help. By leveraging data, you can make a compelling argument for more autonomy in your role, a larger budget, a broader scope of responsibilities—even a promotion. Data provides the evidence you need to showcase the value of your work, while also empowering your team to create a more productive and comfortable environment for employees onsite. In this post, we’ll show you how to harness workplace data to build a data-driven strategy, prove your impact, and optimize your space. Let’s get started.

What is workplace data?

Workplace data is the information organizations collect to understand how people use its physical space. Examples include employee and visitor foot traffic, meeting room bookings, desk reservations, and delivery volumes. By analyzing this data, companies can gain a clear picture of space utilization and traffic patterns, enabling them to identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions about optimizing their work environment.

Why is workplace data important?

Think of workplace data as your crystal ball, offering insight into how people use your space and enabling you to make smarter, data-driven decisions. With the right workplace data, you can:

• Measure the success of your in-office policy. Let’s say you expect employees to work onsite three days a week. By analyzing foot traffic data, you’ll know if folks are sticking to the plan or if you need to try new strategies to help boost attendance.
• Improve your workplace strategies. Data allows you to be confident in the efficacy of your strategies and show off your wins to executives. When something isn’t working as planned, workplace analytics can help you pinpoint the issue and make improvements to your strategy. This agility keeps your team from wasting time on ineffective strategies.
• Gain a competitive edge for your business. Workplace data can help you build the optimal environment for employees to work. The result? They’ll be able to collaborate more effectively leading to higher profitablity, according to a recent Gallup study.
• Become a trusted financial steward. With data, you can justify real estate investments, identify cost-saving opportunities, and show executives that their costly investments are in good hands.

It’s important to note that not all data is created equal. To unlock these benefits, you need accurate, unified, and comprehensive data. Relying on fragmented sources instead of an all-in-one workplace platform can lead to discrepancies and unreliable insights—a topic we’ll explore in more detail below. 

3 steps to creating a data-driven workplace

Using workplace data to your advantage shouldn’t be a ton of work. With thoughtful planning and tools that deliver actionable insights, you can design a space where employees are effective, productive, and happy. Ready to begin? Just follow these three simple steps.

Step 1. Consolidate your disparate data using a workplace platform

The first step to creating a data-driven workplace is having a single source of truth. Relying on multiple sources of information is not only time consuming and frustrating, it can also lead to untrustworthy data. On the other hand, workplace platforms like Envoy provide:

• A unified view of your data. You can access real-time data whenever you need it from a single platform. Rather than waste time consolidating fragmented data, you can quickly gather data on foot traffic and space usage across all of your locations.

• Data consistency. A single source of truth ensures that there is only one authoritative and accurate version of the data. It eliminates inconsistencies and discrepancies that can arise from multiple sources, reducing the risk of errors and misinterpretation.
• Improved collaboration and communication. When everyone within an organization refers to the same source of truth, it fosters better collaboration and communication. Teams can rely on consistent and reliable data, which helps ensure they’re aligned and can focus on using the data to solve company problems.
• Better decision-making. Having a single source of truth provides decision-makers with accurate information to base their choices. The result? Better outcomes for your workplace and organization.
• Time and cost savings. Using one platform eliminates the need to merge disparate data sources, which can be a lengthy, frustrating process. It also streamlines the process of managing workplace data, which can reduce the number of tools your organization needs and, ultimately, save on costs.
• Scalability and agility. Relying on one platform can help your teams and executives respond quickly to changing space and real estate needs, as well as new business requirements. If you have multiple locations, you can access centralized insights on foot traffic, capacity, and space utilization for each location all in one place.
• Actionable data insights. A single source of truth provides not just data, but insights that can be turned into action. Platforms like Envoy can help your team identify trends, measure success against goals, and take proactive steps to optimize space usage and workplace strategy.

It might be tempting to think that more tools means more and better data. But the truth is, multiple sources of data can make it less reliable, harder to collect, and more difficult for your organization to use effectively.

Step 2. Establish your goals and baseline metrics

The next step is to get clear on the purpose of your workplace. First, define your workplace objectives. For example, you might aim to boost collaboration by encouraging employees to work onsite a certain number of days each week.

Next, gather baseline data to track progress. This gives you a clear starting point, helps identify trends, and evaluates the success of your strategies.

Finally, refine your goals to make them specific. If you’re measuring foot traffic, for instance, you might aim for an average weekly attendance of 80% over a quarter. Ensure your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

• Specific. What exactly do you aim to achieve?
• Measurable. How will you know when you achieve it?
• Attainable. Is it truly possible to achieve?
• Relevant. Does it align with the business’s broader objectives?
• Time-bound. When do you aim to achieve it?

Related article: 5 workplace occupancy metrics to optimize your space

Step 3. Look at reports regularly to spot trends and improve

Regularly reviewing workplace data helps your team track progress toward goals, identify improvement areas, and resolve challenges proactively. It’s also a great tool to use to maintain an ongoing conversation about the workplace with your stakeholders. Your workplace platform should make it easy to download and share reports, facilitating regular discussions with stakeholders.

Pro tip: Consider scheduling a regular meeting to discuss your workplace data each period, how your team is pacing toward its goals, and what you’re doing to meet them. Call out any patterns and trends you see—and don’t forget to celebrate your wins!

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Simply having access to workplace data isn’t as powerful as knowing how to put it to work. To do this, you need to adopt the right tools and processes. This doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, keeping things simple—using a single platform to gather your data, establishing a handful of North Star metrics, and checking in regularly—will help you make the most of your workplace data.

Ready to learn more? Find out how Envoy can help you gain valuable insights into your workplace data.

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