Occupancy Rate

The 3 occupancy rates to distinguish

A single figure is not enough to understand how your offices are really being used. Three metrics complement each other.

The contractual occupancy rate. This is the ratio between surfaces under lease (or occupied by the company) and the total area of the portfolio. This is the indicator used by owners and investors: it measures "contractual" occupancy, not actual usage.

The physical occupancy rate. This is the ratio between workstations actually occupied each day and the total number of workstations. If you have 80 workstations and an average of 52 people are present, your physical occupancy rate is 65%. This is the indicator that reveals under-occupation and the one that matters for sizing your spaces.

The utilisation rate by zone. This is the occupancy measured space by space: open plan, meeting rooms (by size), phone booths, collaborative zones, breakout areas. This indicator identifies saturated zones and deserted zones. Your open plan may be at 70% while your small meeting rooms are at 95% and your large meeting rooms at 30%.

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How to measure your occupancy rate

Method 1: Badge analysis (free). If you have access control, your badge data gives the number of entries per day. This is the cheapest and fastest method to deploy. Limitation: it does not tell you who is where in the building, only how many people have entered.

Method 2: Presence sensors. Installed under desks (thermal or infrared sensor) or at ceiling level (motion sensor), they measure occupancy workstation by workstation, in real time. This is the most precise method and the only one that gives the utilisation rate by zone. Key suppliers: Locatee, Density, Spaceti, Disruptive Technologies. Return on investment: often less than 6 months, thanks to the optimisation decisions they enable.

Method 3: Observation. A person does a walk-around of the spaces 3 times a day (10am, 1pm, 4pm) for 4 to 6 weeks and records occupancy by zone. Less precise than sensors, but sufficient for an initial diagnosis. Ideal for SMEs that want to validate an intuition before investing in sensors.

Method 4: Booking data (meeting rooms). Compare bookings with actual occupancy. "Ghost meetings" (booked but not held) represent 25 to 35% of time slots in most companies. Set up mandatory check-in with automatic release after 10 minutes.

Recommended measurement duration: 8 to 12 weeks to capture seasonal variations and atypical weeks (holidays, bank holidays, events). Do not draw conclusions from a single week.

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Measurement errors to avoid

Measuring headcount, not presence. "We have 80 employees and 80 workstations, so our occupancy rate is 100%." Wrong. If 30 people are working remotely each day, your actual rate is 62%. Registered headcount does not predict actual presence.

Measuring the average, not the extremes. An average rate of 65% masks a Tuesday at 85% and a Friday at 40%. Sizing on the average creates saturation on peak days. Sizing on the peak creates waste on quiet days. The right approach: size on the 80th percentile (the regular peak, not the exceptional peak).

Measuring a single week. Back-to-school weeks, pre-holiday weeks, bank holiday weeks, each has a different profile. A reliable measurement requires 8 to 12 weeks of data.

Forgetting to measure by zone. A global rate of 65% can mask an open plan at 80% and meeting rooms at 30%. The optimisation actions are different for each zone.