As hybrid work continues to evolve, office and facility leaders are going through new pressures. Workers are returning to the workplace extra continuously, expectations for expertise are rising, and operational complexity is rising, based on Eptura’s 2025 Office Index. The truth is, the report reveals desk bookings of greater than three days per week are rising, whereas 34% of companies plan to extend in-office days in 2025.
The answer isn’t extra know-how, nonetheless. It’s higher integration.
Key takeaways
- The 2025 Office Index highlights a pattern of accelerating desk bookings and extra frequent in-office days, reflecting a renewed give attention to connection, tradition, and collaboration as corporations carry workers again to the workplace
- Higher integration of office programs is crucial for managing the rising operational complexity and growing expectations for the worker expertise. Many companies nonetheless depend on a number of standalone options, resulting in inefficiencies and knowledge silos
- Integration of office, facility, and asset administration programs creates a worth chain that improves productiveness, reduces prices, and permits smarter decision-making
When programs work collectively, organizations unlock a series of worth that improves productiveness, reduces prices, and permits smarter decision-making.
The brand new pressures: Extra folks, extra complexity
The Office Index highlights how shifting hybrid work tendencies are placing new stress on facility and office leaders to ship higher house utilization, useful resource planning, and the general worker expertise.
These insights echo throughout business analysis. Based on CBRE’s 2025 World Office & Occupancy Insights, organizations at the moment are viewing the office as a strategic asset, not only a price middle, and the main focus is shifting from effectivity to effectiveness, with occupancy methods designed to assist productiveness, collaboration, and worker well-being.
Forbes additionally stories a rising variety of corporations are bringing workers again to the workplace, pushed by a renewed emphasis on connection, tradition, and collaboration. The transfer is going on alongside a broader office transformation, the place expectations round flexibility and function are reshaping how organizations function.
Constructing occupancy knowledge highlights the complexity of the change. Workplace attendance has stabilized at round 50% of pre-pandemic norms, based on MIT Sloan Administration Evaluate, however the best way folks use house has modified. Peak occupancy now tends to cluster mid-week, creating uneven demand throughout services and growing the necessity for dynamic house planning.
For facility and office leaders, the tendencies imply managing environments which might be not predictable. They have to now stability fluctuating occupancy with the necessity to optimize house, assist worker expertise, and preserve operational effectivity.
Answer fragmentation is holding many again
Regardless of the rising demand for smarter workplaces, most organizations are nonetheless caught working from inside silos. Half of companies use a median of 17 standalone worktech options, and solely 4% have a completely built-in platform, based on the Office Index.
Knowledge is scattered, reporting is handbook, and groups spend extreme time reconciling programs.
When programs don’t discuss to one another, it’s more durable for groups to trace occupancy, handle belongings, or reply to upkeep points. Leaders lack visibility into how their areas are getting used, and workers face friction when making an attempt to navigate the office.
Funds constraints are sometimes a serious barrier to integration. Based on the report, 67% of organizations cite budgetary constraints as the highest impediment to integrating office options. Different vital obstacles embrace contractual commitments to legacy software program (19%), and a scarcity of perceived worth in built-in options (23%), which makes it more durable for groups to safe funding.
Integration unlocks the worth chain
Integration is about connecting programs to unlock a worth chain that transforms how organizations function.
When organizations consolidate office, facility, and asset administration right into a single system, they get rid of silos and allow knowledge to move freely throughout departments. Connectivity permits for built-in use instances, reminiscent of elevating asset work orders straight by means of worker expertise apps or linking occupancy knowledge with cleansing schedules and vitality utilization.
From there, the subsequent hyperlink within the chain is cross-platform knowledge analytics. With centralized knowledge, companies can analyze tendencies throughout house utilization, asset efficiency, and worker habits. Better visibility helps leaders make knowledgeable choices about every little thing from actual property technique to upkeep planning.
The report notes that 37% of organizations at present depend on 11 or extra full-time workers simply to collate and analyze operational knowledge. It’s an inefficiency that integration helps a corporation tackle straight.
The final hyperlink within the chain is embedded AI, which turns into actually highly effective when fed by clear, related knowledge. AI can assist organizations automate routine duties, predict upkeep wants, optimize house allocation, and even assist emergency response.
It’s a type of intelligence that’s solely attainable when programs are built-in, and knowledge is unified.
What a contemporary built-in office workplace seems like in observe
When your group connects office programs by means of a unified platform, you acquire greater than comfort. You acquire visibility, management, and the power to behave with precision, proactively managing house, sources, and alter throughout your total portfolio.
Actual property planning: Make smarter portfolio choices
Managing a posh actual property portfolio includes always balancing price, occupancy, and long-term technique. A unified platform offers you an correct, centralized view of your total footprint, permitting you to simulate future situations earlier than committing to main choices.
For instance, when evaluating whether or not to resume a lease or consolidate places, you may mannequin the operational and monetary influence of every possibility. These forecasts draw from headcount projections, house utilization knowledge, and value variables, so your planning is grounded in real-world circumstances, not assumptions.
Built-in lease administration instruments additionally assist you to keep compliant by monitoring crucial dates and obligations throughout properties. With real-time occupancy knowledge layered in, you may establish underused or overbooked areas, monitor utilization tendencies, and perceive how worker habits is shifting.
Your choices usually are not solely financially sound however operationally efficient, with out the necessity to reconcile knowledge throughout disconnected programs.
House planning: Design environments that work
When you’ve made strategic actual property choices, the subsequent step is optimizing the house you have got. A unified platform offers you the pliability and insights it’s essential adapt environments to wants.
Throughout a departmental reorganization, for instance, you should use interactive ground plan instruments to check layouts, visualize crew proximity, and plan for collaboration zones, all earlier than making any bodily adjustments.
Occupancy sensors and reserving knowledge present a transparent image of how workers and guests use areas. A gathering room that’s continuously booked however not often occupied, or a quiet zone that’s persistently overcrowded, are indicators it’s time to make adjustments.
Transfer administration: Make adjustments confidently
Operational change is inevitable, however it doesn’t should be disruptive. Whether or not you’re relocating a single crew or reconfiguring a whole ground, a unified platform helps you coordinate transitions with effectivity and readability.
In a multi-phase transfer involving a number of departments, bulk transfer planning means that you can group requests, assign duties, and visualize the whole course of by means of a shared calendar. This eliminates reliance on spreadsheets and reduces the danger of missed steps.
As transfer requests are available, automated workflows assist you to deal with logistics. You possibly can notify stakeholders, set off work orders, and observe progress, all inside a centralized system. As a result of transfer knowledge is built-in with house planning, ground plans replace in actual time, so everyone seems to be aligned, decreasing the danger of errors.
The result’s a smoother transition for workers, better operational management for facility groups, and a extra agile office general.
A brighter future is extra clever
Integration isn’t nearly connecting programs. It’s about remodeling how your group operates. By changing into extra related, extra knowledgeable, and extra clever, you may make smarter choices, ship higher experiences, and unlock the complete potential of contemporary worktech.
Because the calls for on house, folks, and belongings proceed to develop, organizations want platforms that carry every little thing collectively. Eptura’s Office Index makes a transparent case that integration is the important thing to unlocking worth, enhancing productiveness, and constructing a office that works.
Learn the full report.
Regularly requested questions
By Erin Sevitz
As Vice President of Content material and Buyer Advertising and marketing at Eptura, Erin Sevitz oversees groups answerable for offering worktech insights and fascinating 25 million Eptura customers worldwide. With over 10 years in thought management on office administration and the constructed surroundings, Erin brings deep business data to her position. 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.
