6 ways to enrich your workplace occupancy data to drive better decisions

Running a workplace without occupancy data is like playing a game of darts in the dark. Sure, you can do it. But, with the lights on, you can play smarter, throw more accurately, and increase your chance of winning. The same is true when it comes to the workplace. With the right data, you can make smart, accurate decisions, and win big for your company. In a recent post, we covered four important workplace occupancy metrics every organization should track. Now, we’ll dive deeper to show you how to enrich this data. Better, more accurate data will empower your team to make even smarter decisions about your space. The result? A workplace that’s cost-efficient for your business and loved by your employees.

What is workplace occupancy data?

Workplace occupancy data tells you the total number of people onsite on any given day. It also shows you where people tend to work onsite, revealing popular and underutilized space. Rather than have to rely on manually tracking how many people are onsite at any given time—which is time consuming and difficult to manage—employee scheduling technologies allow you to keep track of your workplace occupancy in an easier, more automated way.

Why does occupancy data matter?

With this data in hand, you can gain a holistic view of foot traffic and space usage trends, allowing your team to optimize the workplace for your employees and business. For example, knowing when your workplace is busiest, your team can prepare the right amount of space, resources, and amenities for employees. This not only helps to reduce waste, it ensures folks have what they need to be productive and happy onsite. Likewise, understanding where employees like to work onsite empowers your team to convert underutilized areas into space folks actually enjoy.With workplace occupancy data, you can:

• Make sure you’re ordering the right amount of food for the day
• Shift your desk layout to support employee preferences
• Optimize your meeting room space for teams that work and meet onsite most

6 ways to enrich your workplace occupancy data

Even if you have a robust workplace platform, it’s important to take steps to optimize your data. After all, your workplace data is only actionable if it’s accurate. For accurate, reliable data, everyone onsite needs to be accounted for in your system. This means every employee must sign into the workplace and use your workplace platform to reserve spaces to work onsite. In this section, we’ll show you how to encourage employees to do both and, as a result, empower your team with better data to drive their workplace decisions.

1. Enable employees to sign in automatically using their location

To improve the reliability of your workplace occupancy data, you should remove barriers that prevent employees from signing in to work onsite. One way to do this is by enabling employees to sign into the workplace automatically. Along with some other great benefits, automatic sign in securely uses an employee’s location information to indicate when they’re in the workplace. This means you won’t have to require employees to sign in manually. In fact, they don’t have to take any action to sign in for work, other than show up.

2. Enable employees to sign in via the tools they already use

Another way to simplify the sign-in process for employees is by enabling them to sign in using familiar tools that integrate with your workplace platform, such as Slack and Google Calendar. They can easily sign into the workplace from within those apps—even on the go, while on their mobile device—rather than go through your workplace platform. No need to log in and switch between apps. Look for a workplace platform that meets your team where they’re already at.

3. Enable employees to sign in using their access badge

This next example is forward-looking and a great option to implement on top of the ones we’ve already discussed. Soon, employers will be able to consolidate the badge scanning and sign-in processes so employees can automatically sign in to work by scanning their access badge. This means less hassle for employees and more accurate occupancy data for your team.

4. Enable employees to check in when they access your WiFi network

Another data enrichment solution to look out for in the future is the ability to link employee presence onsite with your WiFi network. By linking the two, your employees will be able to sign in for work simply by accessing the internet in the workplace. This could be a game-changing option for your organization if your employees rely on the internet to do their work.

5. Collect data on meeting room usage

One of the goals of having reliable occupancy data is to be able to adequately prepare the workplace for employees. Beyond optimizing the sign-in process, another way to enrich your data is by looking at space usage, such as meeting room bookings. You’ll learn which days of the week employees tend to book meeting space, and which types of space they most and least prefer. With this information, you can customize the workplace to meet their needs.

6. Collect data on hot desk usage

Likewise, with desk booking data, you can see how many employees reserve this type of workspace each day and where they prefer to work onsite. This will help your team make important space decisions, such as how many desks you need and the best workplace layout. It’ll also help you reduce wasted space by converting less popular areas of the workplace into areas your employees prefer.—If you’re not already using the methods above to improve your workplace occupancy data, it’s not too late. By implementing one or more of these data enrichment strategies, you can glean important foot traffic and space usage trends. With these insights, your team will be able to drive smarter workplace decisions for your employees and business.