3 reasons why sensors are your most valuable space utilization tool

The major metric most organisations are seeking is space utilization – how much a space is being used and when it is being used. Of course, we’re also interested in agility ratios, occupant data and cost centre chargeback, but at its core, we believe space management is driven by understanding utilization and allocation.

Currently, most space utilization studies are focused on tracking people – not spaces. simple.space flips this paradigm around because we’re interested in understanding and leveraging value from the office space itself, not the people.

This change removes many of the barriers around employee privacy, data security – and reduces the cost of implementing space utilization reporting significantly.

simple.space uses sensors to collect real time space utilization data for our client’s office space to provide the most accurate measurement and understanding of space. The ongoing utilization reporting provided, also gives a better understanding of workplace behaviours.

1. Sensors are excellent value for money

Sensors provide 24/7/365 coverage of your space. When compared to survey studies, where people are employed to eyeball a space for a period of time (something like 2 weeks), the value for money per unit for a sensor is absolutely unbeatable.

Our clients tend to have a particular problem they need to solve for a certain area; we will set up the sensors for a period in one space, then move them to another area to tackle the next issue.

This is an incredibly cost effective and manageable way to use sensors to undertake space utilization tracking. We can set up as little as 50 sensors to run a pilot, up to a whole building or portfolio rollout.

2. Sensors provide deep data-driven insights

Sensors can provide game changing insight, by producing repeated observations of the same space over long periods of time. Compared to a manual survey, which might capture the workplace over a period of 2 weeks, sensors are taking observations every second of every day.

This allows you to make real, evidence-based decisions with greater confidence because you know what’s really going on in your space.

The depth of reporting and understanding you’ll get is almost incomparable to the shallow reach of a survey. Sensors provide instant real time feedback.

Our clients have identified and fixed issues they didn’t previously have visibility on and are able to check things like cleaning schedules are being met simply through the data produced by the sensors.

3. Sensors are accurate

When we compared a manual people counting study for a particular building to the simple.space sensors, we found that the actual workplace occupancy rate was lower than the manual observation survey reported.

This is due to accuracy issues with manual surveys – they are often completed over a brief time frame which can give an incomplete view; they perform perhaps one or two observations an hour for each space as compared to each second using a sensor; they can’t account for staff being in meetings, out for coffee or at the printer.

Sensors give a depth of data that provides much greater accuracy that a manual survey.

Each sensor takes an observation every second of the day.  20 sensors in a team space will produce over 800,000 recorded minutes of data in a 4-week period.

Reporting is then provided for each sensor for each day as well as aggregated data to provide an overview and give you key insights into how and when the space is being used. Reporting is provided for each sensor and aggregated to provide an overview of how and when of the workplace occupancy profile.

simple.space uses a research-standard data methodology designed to give you the most sensible results.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to find out more about how sensors can support your workplace space management, please get in touch with Raf Gouel via LinkedIn or email info@simple.space.

Or, download our brochure Sensor Based Space Utilisation as a Service.

4 reasons to use a space management tool

Carefully colour coded floorplans covered in handwritten scrawl sit overflowing on your desk, painstakingly re-drawn every time you need to move team to a new location or squeeze a new part time employee into the IT team’s area.  You scroll through tab after tab of excel spreadsheet data until your eyes bleed when a new staff member is brought on board and no one can remember where the free desk is. You’re tasked with implementing “activity based working” and left to ponder all that entails.

 

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In today’s rapidly evolving workplaces we grapple daily with how to effectively manage issues that impact on our ability to manage our work spaces and our staff – like high staff turnover, increasingly flexible work patterns and accelerating technological advances that are altering the way we work  – as well as new theories of management that are moving us beyond open plan and into the brave new world of flexi desking, ABW and shared spaces.

 

Overwhelmed?  Absolutely. From this fray the concept of “space management” has evolved, transitioning beyond traditional facilities or property management to become something of an HR sub-discipline, concerned with managing the human side of changing work spaces as much as the desks within them.

 

Four things to know about space management

1. You’re already doing it

If the scene we described above of colourful floorplans cluttering your desk and causing mild panic to rise when you need to map out yet another scenario for a desk move rings a bell – congratulations, you’re already engaging in space management. If you’re talking at a high level about needing to get staff to flexi desk, or have more staff than space and aren’t sure how to manage it effectively, you’re joining the thousands of businesses are also grappling with these common space management issues.

2. Space management is about people

It’s not all desks, chairs and computer monitors. At its core, space management is about managing rapid and unrelenting change your organisation and staff are trying to cope with –  and helping your business keep up with the changing demands of its employees. Human capital is likely the largest investment and asset your business owns. Effective space management helps you manage their time and space more effectively and helps them do their jobs.

3. (simple) data is king

How often do your staff actually use their desks? How much does each space cost you? Are there more effective uses of the space? How much data do you actually need to make a good decision? Many facilities and property managment software packages offer a wealth of data wrapped in an overwhelming sea of complexity. Space management tools allows you to make an informed, evidence based decision about your staff space needs quickly and simply.

4. Excel is dead

Now we have a lot of respect for Microsoft. But when it comes to space management, we’re more on the side of Apple. Space management needs to be simple, intuitive and quick to use if your business is going to grow and gain from the process. Spending hours combing through spreadsheets is not the key to the promised land of greater efficiency.

 

If you’re interested in finding out more about space management tools, we’d love to have a chat – you can contact us on info@simple.space or tweet us.