Tuesday morning arrives, and each focus room is booked earlier than 9 a.m. Staff take video calls from break areas, venture groups seek for locations to collaborate, and small teams occupy convention rooms designed for 20 individuals. Throughout the identical workplace, a number of personal places of work sit empty, rows of assigned desks see little exercise, and a coaching room has not hosted an occasion in months.
It’s not often a scarcity of house: 30.1% of staff say they can not discover a house that helps their work, whereas 44.6% plan their day round workspace availability, in keeping with our 2026 Office Index.
It’s a expensive mismatch. Staff battle to search out the areas they want whereas usable sq. footage sits underutilized elsewhere within the office. The excellent news is that underused workplace house creates room for alternative. Empty personal places of work can turn out to be focus rooms.
Key takeaways
- Underused house typically indicators a mismatch, not a surplus: Empty places of work, outsized convention rooms, and low-demand desk areas can create extra worth when they’re repurposed round how staff really work at the moment
- Proof ought to information each conversion determination: Reserving patterns, occupancy knowledge, utilization charges, and worker suggestions allow you to validate demand and keep away from redesigning house primarily based on assumptions alone
- Measurement issues as a lot because the conversion itself: Pilots, utilization monitoring, reservation exercise, and worker suggestions assist decide whether or not an area change solved the unique office drawback and must be expanded elsewhere
Essentially the most profitable office groups don’t repurpose house just because it’s empty. They use proof to establish what staff want, take a look at modifications rigorously, and measure outcomes over time so the office continues to evolve with altering work patterns.
Convert personal places of work into focus rooms and cellphone rooms
Office leaders typically establish personal places of work as a few of the most underused areas within the workplace. Staff often establish a unique drawback: a scarcity of locations the place they’ll focus, take calls, or deal with delicate work.
Turning personal places of work into reservable focus rooms can clear up each issues. Staff achieve quiet areas for digital conferences, doc evaluations, confidential conversations, and concentrated particular person work. As an alternative of reserving an workplace completely for one individual, you create a shared useful resource that may assist a number of staff all through the day.
Completely different places of work can assist totally different wants. Take into account a variety of choices, together with:
- Particular person focus rooms: Give staff a personal setting for concentration-intensive work
- Video-call rooms: Assist brief digital conferences with out utilizing bigger convention rooms
- Personal dialog rooms: Present house for confidential calls, interviews, and delicate discussions
- Quiet studying rooms: Create an surroundings for reviewing paperwork, getting ready displays, or working away from office noise
Earlier than changing a number of places of work without delay, search for proof of demand. Staff taking calls from corridors, occupying massive assembly rooms alone, or repeatedly trying to find personal rooms point out a potential scarcity. Verify the sample by means of reserving frequency, room-search exercise, occupancy knowledge, and worker suggestions earlier than making a bigger change.
Divide outsized rooms into smaller collaboration areas
Massive convention rooms nonetheless serve essential functions, however they typically assist teams a lot smaller than their designed capability. A room constructed for 20 individuals might host conferences with 4 attendees all through the week whereas venture groups battle to search out smaller areas.
If massive conferences happen solely sometimes, you might have a number of choices, together with:
- Divide the room into two venture rooms: Create separate areas for small workshops, planning periods, and group conferences
- Create a venture studio: Give groups a spot to collaborate for longer intervals and maintain venture supplies collectively
- Construct a planning room: Assist dash planning, development coordination, design evaluations, or different work that depends on shared visible data
- Mix assembly and breakout makes use of: Protect capability for formal conferences whereas giving smaller teams a spot to work collectively
A everlasting conversion might not make sense if the room helps essential massive occasions. Versatile configurations can protect that functionality whereas accommodating smaller teams on different days.
Use room utilization charges to find out whether or not the issue is constant. If massive convention rooms frequently host small teams whereas staff battle to search out venture house, the mismatch might justify a conversion. Examine reserving patterns with precise occupancy so no-shows or recurring reservations don’t distort the choice.
An underused desk neighborhood may also turn out to be a group collaboration space. You may consolidate some workstations and create shared house for venture groups, however first affirm that attendance and desk-demand developments assist the change. Office analytics and group coordination instruments can assist distinguish an area drawback from a scheduling drawback when groups compete for rooms solely on peak days.
Flip outdated convention areas into hybrid-ready rooms
Many convention rooms had been designed for conferences the place everybody sat across the similar desk. These rooms typically carry out poorly when some attendees be part of remotely. Staff might battle to incorporate distant contributors or lose time discovering a room that helps the assembly sort.
Underused house creates a number of sensible choices like:
- Convert vacant places of work into video-call rooms for one or two staff who frequently meet with distant colleagues, prospects, or companions
- Flip one massive coaching room into smaller hybrid rooms when brief digital conferences create a lot of the demand
- Create a hybrid workshop room for collaborative periods that embrace each onsite and distant contributors
- Use small, underused areas for transient calls that don’t require a full assembly room
Match the conversion to the assembly sample. A number of small rooms might create extra worth than one massive convention room if staff primarily attend brief digital calls. Groups that run workshops with distant contributors might have a bigger shared surroundings as an alternative.
Reservation knowledge, room-search conduct, utilization charges, and worker suggestions can reveal whether or not staff want further hybrid-ready house or just battle to search out and use present rooms. After making a change, give every room a transparent capability and function so staff can reserve the correct house with out guesswork.
Repurpose low-demand desk areas for versatile work
Rows of assigned desks can stay empty even when the workplace feels busy. Hybrid schedules, group motion, and altering work patterns might cut back demand for everlasting workstations whereas rising demand for shared seating.
Somewhat than eradicating each desk, repurpose a part of the neighborhood:
- Create reservable workstations for workers who want a desk for the day
- Add landing stations for brief duties between conferences
- Construct group neighborhoods that allow teams sit collectively once they come into the workplace
- Create venture workstations for workers who want extra floor space or specialised setups
- Reserve a customer zone for contractors, prospects, new hires, and staff visiting from different areas
- Introduce accessible workstations that assist a wider vary of worker wants
Versatile seating works finest when staff can discover and reserve an acceptable workstation. Evaluation desk bookings, occupancy patterns, peak attendance, and worker suggestions earlier than lowering assigned seating. A low common utilization charge might conceal heavy demand on particular days or constant wants for specialised gear and safe storage.
Begin with one space as an alternative of fixing a complete flooring. Monitor adoption, reserving frequency, worker satisfaction, and demand for assigned desks, then modify the shared-to-assigned seating combine primarily based on the outcomes.
Create worker areas that clear up documented wants
Not each underused space must turn out to be one other place to work. Worker providers might create extra worth, notably when the office lacks personal, inclusive, or community-oriented areas.
A bit-used workplace, assembly room, or coaching space might turn out to be:
- A wellness room the place staff can handle private well being wants privately
- A studying room for onboarding, skilled growth, mentoring, and small-group coaching
- An worker useful resource group house for conferences, occasions, and community-building actions
- A dad or mum or caregiver room that gives acceptable privateness
- A mirrored image or quiet room for private, religious, or sensory wants
- A useful resource middle the place staff can entry office data or shared supplies
- A social lounge that helps casual conversations with out disrupting desk areas
- A neighborhood house for worker occasions, celebrations, and inside applications
The most effective use relies on documented worker wants, not office design developments. Search for recurring themes in worker surveys, service requests, supervisor suggestions, and office conduct. Repeated demand can reveal a significant hole within the present office expertise.
Each time potential, give the house sufficient flexibility to assist appropriate actions. A studying room might additionally assist mentoring, interviews, and onboarding. Some areas, together with wellness and caregiver rooms, might require devoted use, so worker wants and privateness necessities ought to information the choice.
Create multipurpose rooms that adapt all through the week
Some areas turn out to be underused as a result of work has modified. Others turn out to be underused as a result of office demand continues to vary. A room designed for just one exercise can rapidly turn out to be tomorrow’s empty house.
Multipurpose rooms cut back that threat by supporting a small group of appropriate actions. One room may host worker coaching on Monday, group workshops on Tuesday, venture work on Wednesday, and a workers assembly later within the week. One other may operate as a lounge in the course of the day and a presentation house throughout worker occasions.
To create a helpful multipurpose surroundings, deal with operational flexibility:
- Outline appropriate makes use of so staff perceive what the room helps
- Make reconfiguration easy so groups can change the setup with out in depth assist
- Present shared storage for supplies used throughout totally different actions
- Doc commonplace layouts so staff can put together and restore the room persistently
- Use a transparent reservation course of that captures the exercise, anticipated attendance, and required room setup
Flexibility doesn’t imply the room must assist each potential exercise. A room for workshops, coaching, and group periods has a transparent function. A room with out outlined makes use of might merely turn out to be one other house staff keep away from.
Evaluation reserving patterns by exercise, day, and group measurement earlier than deciding on the room. After launch, monitor whether or not staff use the totally different configurations or default to a single function. These developments can present whether or not the multipurpose mannequin works or whether or not the house wants a extra centered function.
Select the correct concept earlier than making bodily modifications
Profitable repurposing begins with a office drawback, not an empty room. Start by figuring out what staff can’t do simply within the present surroundings, then select a conversion that removes that impediment.
Take into account 4 sensible standards:
- Demand: Verify that staff want the proposed house and would use it frequently
- Value: Examine development, expertise, accessibility, and ongoing working prices
- Adaptability: Decide whether or not the room might assist totally different makes use of as office wants change
- Worker worth: Establish the precise frustration, activity, or expertise the conversion will enhance
Additionally take into account the traits and working necessities of the prevailing house. A room might go well with personal calls however not neighborhood occasions. A coaching space might assist a number of smaller assembly areas, however the conversion value might have an effect on the enterprise case. An open desk space might go well with a group neighborhood however fail to offer the privateness required for centered work.
Keep away from treating each empty room as an computerized conversion candidate. A boardroom that helps quarterly buyer conferences might supply extra worth than its weekly utilization suggests. Mix remark with reserving patterns, occupancy knowledge, utilization charges, worker suggestions, and space-demand developments earlier than deciding.
As Lauren Ross, NCIDQ, LEED AP and CAFM Supervisor at Aleto, defined in Inform Your Story: Office Information, Expertise and Facility Administration Methods, “Having that knowledge to inform your story and that will help you visualize it’s invaluable, and we have to see the info. We’d like to have the ability to have a look at issues and make these knowledgeable selections.”
Her level applies on to underused workplace house. A walk-through can establish an empty room, however office administration analytics can join occupancy, reservations, and utilization patterns to point out whether or not the proposed conversion addresses sustained demand.
Take a look at the conversion and measure whether or not it really works
A room can look engaging and nonetheless fail to unravel the unique drawback. Construct measurement into the venture so you’ll be able to decide whether or not the conversion creates worth and whether or not staff undertake the brand new house.
Report a baseline earlier than making modifications. Choose the measures that join on to the unique drawback, similar to:
- Utilization charge: How typically staff use the house in contrast with its availability
- Reserving frequency: Adjustments in reservation quantity after launch
- Room-search success: Staff’ potential to search out an acceptable house when wanted
- Reservation no-shows: The variety of bookings that don’t end in precise use
- Worker satisfaction: Suggestions associated to the actions the house is meant to assist
- Stress on different areas: Adjustments in convention room misuse, overcrowding, or demand elsewhere within the office
Begin with a pilot when potential. Convert a couple of personal places of work into focus rooms earlier than altering a complete flooring. Introduce one versatile group space earlier than eradicating massive numbers of assigned desks. Take a look at a coaching room as a multipurpose surroundings earlier than committing to everlasting modifications.
Evaluation each adoption and outcomes. Sturdy utilization doesn’t mechanically imply the conversion succeeded if staff nonetheless can’t discover the correct house or if strain merely strikes elsewhere. Related reservation, occupancy, utilization, and suggestions knowledge can assist you examine the baseline with the consequence and determine whether or not to retain, modify, or develop the strategy.
How Getty Photos used office knowledge to optimize workplace house
As Getty Photos transitioned to a hybrid work mannequin, the corporate moved from conventional one-to-one desk assignments to a extremely versatile office. Utilizing utilization patterns and office knowledge, the group redesigned places of work round versatile workspaces, collaboration areas, bookable places of work, and cellphone cubicles whereas right-sizing areas to higher assist worker wants.
Getty Photos supported the transition with Eptura’s workspace reserving and office analytics capabilities, giving staff visibility into who was onsite and the place they had been working whereas serving to office groups analyze utilization patterns over time.
They had been capable of leverage these insights to optimize its London workplace, right-size house round precise demand, and create a mannequin for future office selections. As Zelda Hogg, senior director of world services and actual property, defined, the info helped the group “distinguish notion from actuality and make data-driven selections.”
To see how Getty Photos used Eptura to assist a office the place solely 5% of staff have assigned desks, learn the total buyer success story.
Ceaselessly Requested Questions
By Erin Sevitz
As Vice President of Content material and Buyer Advertising at Eptura, Erin Sevitz oversees groups answerable for offering worktech insights and interesting 25 million Eptura customers worldwide. With over 10 years in thought management on office administration and the constructed surroundings, Erin brings deep trade information to her function. Beforehand, she led communications for the Worldwide Facility Administration Affiliation, a worldwide nonprofit devoted to skilled growth for office strategists and constructing managers, and served as editor in chief for IFMA’s FMJ journal.
