Occupancy vs. Utilization: Why They Are Not the Same Thing
The fundamental problem lies in the confusion between two metrics: occupancy—that is, how many people are physically present in the office—and utilization—that is, how effectively the space is used for work. Occupancy answers the question “How many of us are here?”, but it says nothing about what is actually happening here.
Data from commercial real estate research, such as that from CBRE, has long shown that the average office occupancy rate under a hybrid work model hovers around 40–60%. However, this does not mean that offices are not functioning. It means that the way we work has changed: some activities have moved outside the office, and the office has become more of a place for coordination and collaboration than an environment occupied on a daily basis. The mistake occurs when companies interpret this situation in a linear fashion and automatically conclude that they need to downsize their office space without conducting a more in-depth analysis.
Use of space: not evenly, but in waves
The second key finding concerns the uneven use of space. An office is not a stable system with constant usage, but a dynamic environment that operates in cycles.
Typically, we see a high concentration of people on certain days of the week—most often from Tuesday through Thursday—and, conversely, a significant drop in attendance on Friday. In addition, there are natural peaks throughout the day when meetings are held. Therefore, the office does not operate in a sort of “average mode,” but rather alternates between peaks and lulls.
If we rely solely on average occupancy rates when planning a space, we overlook these peak times. Yet it is precisely during these peak times that frustration often arises due to a lack of workstations or meeting rooms, noise, or overall overcrowding.
Making Decisions Based on Behavior, Not Just Capacity
This implies a fundamental shift in how we think about the office. The most important question is not how many people the space can accommodate, but how people actually work in it.
A modern approach to workplace strategy therefore focuses on questions such as when people come to the office, what activities they engage in there, which teams need to be physically together, and where capacity issues repeatedly arise—for example, in meeting rooms or focused work zones. Data from workplace studies, such as the Leesman Index, consistently show that when evaluating an office, it is not the design itself that is decisive, but rather how well the space aligns with the actual work model.
The Office as a System
If we view an office solely as a capacity equation based on the ratio of people to desks, we reduce it to a static object. In reality, however, it functions as a system that constantly adapts to people’s behavior.
This perspective changes the way we make decisions. We shift from asking, “How many desks do we need?” to asking, “What kind of work style do we want to promote?” That is precisely the difference between simply optimizing space and truly designing a functional work environment.
