Companies around the world waste potentially billions of dollars on under-utilised office spaces that are unfit for purpose and do not reflect the needs of modern workers, a recent benchmark study of over 100 workplaces claims. The study, Optimaze Workplace Review, from Finland based workplace analyst Rapal Oy took place during 2016, aggregates space utilisation data collected from 15 countries. The 330 observational space utilisation studies involved more than 6,600 walk-throughs of 111 buildings and 53,600 work spaces around the world to explore the working practices and environments of more than 23,000 people. It also includes a dataset of around 354 million observations of workstation use in total. The report’s main conclusion is that leadership teams are increasingly placing workplace management issues higher on their agendas, aware of the need to align spaces with new working cultures.
The study finds, among other things, that even at peak periods there were on average at least 30 percent of work seats standing empty and unreserved at any given time during the study period. The degree of constantly unused seats is even higher when it comes to temporary ‘soft’ seating and meeting seats. Meeting rooms housed generous amounts of seating, of which on average only 19 percent were actually being used. 49 percent of all studied meeting seats were never in use.