Optimizing office space: the role of passive occupancy

What the paper says

Purpose This study aims to examine how active occupancy, passive occupancy and clean desk policy impact the optimal size of a desk-sharing office. Passive occupancy refers to a situation where a desk remains occupied because workers have left personal items on it, even though they are not present. This occupancy state makes it unavailable for others, but presence sensors do not detect it as occupied. Clean desk policy defines how long these workers may be absent without cleaning their desks. Design/methodology/approach Desk-level occupancy data from 10 sites in the Nordics was collected and used to calculate office utilisation with different clean desk policy time delays. The data was gathered over 6 months from 7,522 sensors. Findings Clean desk policy time delay had a significant impact on the office utilisation. Considering passive occupancy with a 120-min clean desk policy time delay added, on average, 86.4% on the calculated utilisation, almost doubling it. Research limitations/implications Data was focused on three Nordic countries. The implications should be tested in other regions as well. Practical implications If organisations neglect passive occupancy, they may consider their office less occupied than it is. Accurate data can help organisations to confidently right-size their office space. Originality/value Passive occupancy has not been considered in terms of office sizing, despite its significant impact on desk availability. Clean desk policy has been discussed in previous literature, but its impact on office sizing remains unknown.