Occupancy is exclusive as a result of it may be a precious metric for a lot of departments in a big enterprise. Some can use it to enhance house planning and improve worker expertise, whereas others want it to optimize upkeep scheduling and useful resource allocation. The present problem is how useful resource intensive it’s for groups to generate actionable insights. 37% of companies use 11 or extra staff to collate, analyze, and report on knowledge, based on Eptura’s 2025 Office Index report. The answer is a unified worktech platform that helps automate knowledge seize and centralize the sharing of insights.
Why occupancy metrics matter to enterprise groups
Occupancy is a key metric for groups throughout the enterprise. Occupancy knowledge helps the actual property group optimize house and guarantee cost-effectiveness by offering insights into how staff are utilizing house. Company providers can use occupancy knowledge to plan and handle amenities extra effectively, making certain they meet the wants of the workforce. The finance division advantages from occupancy metrics by incorporating space-related prices into budgeting and forecasting.
Though there are various groups leveraging the identical metric, they’re working with it in numerous methods, together with:
- Info expertise (IT): Allocate assets extra effectively, for instance making certain there are sufficient community ports, energy retailers, and Wi-Fi entry factors in areas with excessive occupancy. Optimize the cooling and energy utilization in knowledge facilities, decreasing vitality prices and bettering effectivity.
- Human assets (HR): Design workspaces that higher meet worker wants. For instance, if knowledge reveals sure areas are underutilized, they are often repurposed for collaboration areas or quiet zones.
- Upkeep and operations: Schedule routine checks and repairs throughout low-occupancy intervals, minimizing disruptions. Optimize heating, air flow, and air-con techniques, decreasing vitality consumption and prices.
- Company actual property (CRE): Optimize house utilization by figuring out areas that may be repurposed or downsized, and high-traffic areas which will want enlargement. Present leverage in lease negotiations, serving to the corporate justify its house necessities and probably negotiate higher phrases.
Stronger house planning and lease negotiations
With correct knowledge on how and when staff use areas, the division can uncover inefficiencies and alternatives for enchancment. For instance, if staff don’t use sure areas of the workplace, the CRE group can alter the structure to higher meet the wants of staff, enhancing the general workspace and maximizing the worth of the leased house.
Actual-time occupancy insights are particularly precious in predicting future house wants. By analyzing developments in house utilization, the CRE division could make knowledgeable selections about whether or not to broaden, downsize, or keep the present footprint. A forward-looking strategy helps scale back the chance of over-leasing, which generally is a vital supply of pointless prices. Utilization metrics, for instance, can spotlight peak utilization occasions and areas which can be constantly busy, permitting the CRE group to barter leases which can be each cost-effective and aligned with the group’s development plans.
Improved worker expertise
By leveraging knowledge on how staff use the workplace house, HR could make knowledgeable selections that foster higher collaboration and productiveness. For instance, understanding which areas are most continuously used for impromptu conferences can information the position of collaborative areas, making certain they’re accessible and conducive to teamwork.
Occupancy insights can assist HR monitor the relative reputation of assorted facilities, equivalent to break rooms, health facilities, and quiet zones. By figuring out which facilities are most continuously utilized, HR could make data-driven selections to reinforce or broaden these choices. For instance, if the information reveals that the break room is a hub of exercise, investing in additional comfy seating and higher refreshments can considerably enhance the worker expertise.
Maximized upkeep scheduling
Occupancy insights assist assist a strategic strategy to upkeep, making certain assets are used effectively and points are addressed proactively. By understanding which areas of a facility are most continuously used, groups can prioritize their efforts, specializing in high-traffic zones which can be extra prone to expertise put on and tear. This strategy not solely ensures that important areas stay in prime situation but in addition helps in stopping small points from escalating into main issues.
Occupancy insights may also play a job in decreasing downtime. By scheduling upkeep throughout low-traffic intervals, amenities can decrease disruptions to day by day operations. For instance, if knowledge reveals {that a} explicit assembly room is never used on Friday afternoons, upkeep actions will be scheduled throughout that point with out affecting productiveness. Strategic planning enhances the power administration course of and improves the general person expertise by making certain that areas are all the time in optimum situation when wanted.
Groups may also leverage occupancy knowledge to assist establish underutilized areas, which might result in price financial savings. Areas which can be not often used don’t require the identical stage of upkeep as these with excessive foot visitors. By reallocating assets to extra important areas, amenities can scale back upkeep prices.
Balanced useful resource allocation and energy cooling in knowledge facilities
By leveraging occupancy knowledge, the IT group can higher perceive server utilization patterns, enabling them to foretell energy wants extra precisely. The method not solely helps scale back vitality waste but in addition ensures the information heart operates at peak effectivity.
Conventional cooling techniques usually function at a set fee, which might result in pointless vitality consumption. With real-time occupancy knowledge, knowledge facilities can implement dynamic cooling methods that alter primarily based on precise demand, saving on fast prices and increasing the lifespan of cooling gear by avoiding pointless put on and tear. By optimizing cooling primarily based on server exercise, knowledge facilities can keep optimum temperatures, which is crucial for stopping {hardware} failures and making certain knowledge integrity.
The challenges of interdepartmental collaboration
Firms usually face obstacles when attempting to implement after which scale collaboration between departments. Typically, the bigger the group, the broader the gaps between groups.
Challenges can embody:
- Information silos: Departments usually function with their very own knowledge techniques and processes, resulting in remoted info that’s not simply shared or accessible.
- Communication obstacles: Completely different departments could use totally different communication instruments and channels, making it troublesome to share info and coordinate efforts.
- Know-how integration: Combining totally different applied sciences and techniques throughout departments will be complicated and time-consuming.
- Geographic distances: In giant enterprises, departments could also be in totally different areas and even international locations, making face-to-face communication and collaboration more difficult.
When totally different departments can’t work collectively, it turns into tougher to make progress on bigger initiatives. In truth, based on the 2025 Office Index report, over half of organizations reported that one of many greatest obstacles to deploying AI was “inadequate cross-platform integration/knowledge comfort.”
How a single platform for upkeep and office administration enhances cross-departmental collaboration and knowledge sharing
Implementing a single platform for upkeep and office administration can assist deal with cross-departmental collaboration challenges. By centralizing all upkeep and office knowledge in a single platform, departments can entry a unified and constant view of occupancy and utilization metrics, making certain everyone seems to be working with the identical, up-to-date info, decreasing the chance of redundant knowledge entry and inconsistencies. For instance, the actual property administration group can share house utilization knowledge with the finance division to tell budgeting selections, whereas the IT division can use the identical knowledge to optimize useful resource allocation. Seamless knowledge sharing fosters a extra cohesive and aligned group.
A single platform additionally enhances communication and collaboration by offering a centralized hub for all related info and instruments. An organization can use the platform to effectively handle useful resource constraints by offering real-time insights into house and useful resource utilization, enabling extra environment friendly planning and allocation. By streamlining expertise integration and offering a unified answer, a single platform helps a corporation deal with the complexities of integrating totally different knowledge, making it simpler for all departments to collaborate successfully and obtain their shared targets.
Buyer success: Cell telecommunications big improves a number of workplace areas with a single answer
Vodafone Group, primarily based in Berkshire, England, is the world’s largest cellular telecommunications community firm, working in 25 international locations and partnering in 42 extra, with annual revenues of $121 billion. Management needed to chop prices, significantly by optimizing their in depth workplace house. Mission targets included:
- Sustaining occupancy charges at set targets
- Accelerating house and worker audits
- Enhancing knowledge visualization
Vodafone carried out Archibus by Eptura, permitting them to effectively generate quarterly house and occupancy studies, combine knowledge with AutoCAD drawings, and handle particular person and group strikes.
Facility managers can now shortly generate an outline of their UK campus, monitor buildings with occupancy charges beneath 95%, and handle about 7,000 worker strikes yearly. The software program answer has helped the corporate reduce the price of managing over 1.4 million sq. toes of workplace and phone trade websites. It’s now additionally attainable to conduct quarterly censuses throughout the UK in simply someday — beforehand a weeks-long course of. The corporate optimized operational processes and enhanced strategic decision-making, contributing to their organizational objective of decreasing general administration prices.
Learn the full success story.
By Jonathan Davis
Jonathan writes about asset administration, upkeep software program, and SaaS options in his position as a digital content material creator at Eptura. He covers developments throughout industries, together with fleet, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality, with a give attention to delivering thought management with actionable insights. Earlier in his profession, he wrote textbooks, edited NPC dialogue for video video games, and taught English as a international language. He holds a grasp’s diploma in journalism.
