During the pandemic, it became essential to measure the occupancy rate in the workplace in order to limit on-site presence. This was the principle behind the health gauge. Counting is still essential in project management, to make an initial diagnosis of uses, and in operation, to check the viability of the work environment put in place. Several methods coexist. They do not all require the same degree of involvement on the part of employees. Some require greater technological investment, but deliver more reliable results.
"We're often at 100% on Tuesdays." "There was hardly anyone in the open space today. " These assessments of space occupancy reflect individual feelings. They are far removed from the reality of occupancy rates. Several solutions exist to obtain more accurate occupancy assessments. Some require employee involvement, while others are "passive".
The manager or an assistant may be asked to manually count the number of team members present. This method requires regular visits to the various office areas. The time of day or day on which the teams are counted can influence the results, requiring the counting operation to be repeated several times to make it valid.
Manual counting has the advantage of costing nothing if carried out in-house, but is difficult to apply to large teams. It gives a very punctual and fragmented view of attendance, which can be skewed by seasonality (vacation week, generalized attendance for a particular event, etc.) and does not allow trends to be reflected.
An outside company can be commissioned to count the number of employees in a given area. Manual counting with a small metal box is no longer the norm. Nowadays, connected applications can record and validate the number of people present in real time.
As with in-house counting, it reflects one-off observations and does not reflect underlying trends.
Some companies still work with a shared Excel sheet, asking employees to enter their days of attendance. The declarative nature of the table makes it impossible to verify attendance data accurately. Aggregating shift-by-shift data is very laborious. Other solutions exist to obtain more scientific assessments of occupancy rates.
On this subject: find out how fintech Pretto went from an Excel attendance file to an integrated software to an integrated software tool to support its employees' return to the office.
Individual badges are issued when a new employee joins a hybrid or on-site organization, and are used to authorize entry to a building. They also often provide access to a range of services (print release, cafeteria access, etc.).
Badge data, collected and aggregated in the building's operating system, can be used to count the number of entries in a single day. To be viable, this system requires strict anonymization of the data collected and the agreement of the CSE. The data collected must not be used to track individual employee entries or office attendance times.
Desk booking is a solution for representing office space that allows employees to choose their location by the day or by the week. The advantage of this solution is that employees play an active role in the organization of their work. They can choose their location on the plans. The installation of such a software solution helps to reassure employees worried about not finding a position in a flex office environment.
What's more, using the data retrospectively makes it possible to consolidate information such as peak days and periods of under-utilization. Flex office management solutions, such as Deskare's, make it possible to monitor space usage, level by level, in administrator mode.
Believe, a French digital music distribution company, has implemented the Deskare solution to track the occupancy of its spaces :
"Given Believe's strong growth, we needed to keep track of workspace occupancy. Our attempts at mapping were insufficient and time-consuming, given the rapid growth of our teams," confirms Molinard Controle, Office Coordinator at Believe.
To avoid no-shows (reservations made via the software but not honored), the deployment of desk booking software can be usefully accompanied by a reference person (manager, HR, office manager). This person will provide the framework and instructions for updating the tool, so as to set in motion a virtuous dynamic.
It is possible to place thermal sensors in workspaces, under desks for example, as one of the levers of the smart office. The MerciYanis start-up offers, among other technological solutions (QR codes, connected buttons), infrared presence sensors. To be as precise as possible, you'd need to install one per workstation, which increases the cost of a workstation:
"The cost of a sensor, around €100, is relative to the total cost of a workstation," says Guillaume Blanc, CEO and founder of MerciYanis. According to data from IDET, the association of work environment directors, the average cost of a workstation will be €13,658 in 2022, so the relative investment is low.
What the startup also offers is not only the installation of the sensor, but above all the use of the data collected in real time: "The sensor is just a tool. Our real added value lies in exploiting the data and making it available to the work environment professions", adds the founder. The consolidated data can be used to produce space occupation statistics. This exhaustive approach has its limits: while it can detect presence, it cannot measure the length of time a workstation is occupied.
"The ideal is to couple the two solutions, desk booking and sensors, if we want to have the most reliable data possible," Guillaume Blanc, CEO MerciYanis.
For companies needing the most reliable access to data possible, it is possible to couple the two tools. Deploy a reservation management tool based on employee needs, and install a representative number of presence sensors for real-time space occupancy statistics.
Ledger, a company specializing in the management and security of digital assets, has opted for the complementary implementation of the Deskare solution and the installation of sensors to ensure the reliability of processed data. The two solutions can be interfaced in the same portal for an optimal user experience.
Interested in measuring your occupancy rates? Let's discuss your project, ask for a demo!
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