Hybrid work has changed the economics of the corporate office.

Many businesses still operate from workplaces designed around five-day attendance, dedicated desks and predictable schedules. Their employees, however, may now divide their time between the office, home, client locations and other workspaces.

The result is often a workplace that feels crowded on Tuesday and nearly empty by Friday.

This is not simply an attendance problem. It is an office space utilisation problem involving workplace policy, employee behaviour, property commitments, office design and access to reliable data.

For corporate workplace and operations managers, the objective is not to fill every desk every day. It is to create a workplace model that supports employees without paying for significantly more fixed space than the organisation regularly needs.

What Is Office Space Utilisation?

Office space utilisation measures how much available workspace is actually being used over a defined period.

It can be calculated across:

• Individual desks
• Meeting rooms
• Private offices
• Collaboration areas
• Breakout spaces
• Entire floors
• Multiple workplace locations

A simple utilisation calculation is:

Office space utilisation = occupied capacity ÷ available capacity × 100

If a workplace provides 200 desks but only 80 are being used, its desk utilisation rate at that time is 40%.

However, one snapshot does not tell the full story. Workplace teams need to understand average utilisation, peak utilisation, daily attendance patterns and the types of spaces employees use.

CBRE reported that global average office utilisation reached 53% in its latest workplace benchmarking, while average peak utilisation reached 80%. This highlights the central hybrid-work challenge: offices can be underused across the week while still becoming heavily occupied during peak periods.

Office Occupancy and Office Utilisation Are Not the Same

These terms are often treated as interchangeable, but they measure different things.

Office occupancy commonly measures the number of people assigned to a workplace relative to its planned capacity.

Office utilisation measures how much of that workplace is actually being used.

A business may have 300 employees assigned to an office with 250 desks, producing a high occupancy ratio on paper. If only 100 employees attend on an average day, the real utilisation of those desks remains low.

Corporate workplace management should track both figures. Occupancy supports capacity planning. Utilisation reveals what is happening inside the workplace.

The Main Drivers of Underutilised Offices

1. Offices Are Still Sized for Full-Time Attendance

Many corporate offices were leased or designed when employees were expected to attend five days per week.

Hybrid work reduced average attendance, but the underlying property commitment often stayed the same. Businesses continued paying for:

• Dedicated desks
• Entire floors
• Fixed meeting rooms
• Reception areas
• Storage
• Amenities
• Building services

This creates a structural mismatch between the office footprint and the workforce’s current behaviour.

A 1:1 employee-to-desk ratio may no longer be commercially appropriate when large parts of the team attend two or three days per week.

2. Attendance Is Concentrated on the Same Days

Hybrid work does not distribute attendance evenly.

Employees frequently select the same midweek days for meetings, collaboration and social connection. This creates sharp peaks followed by quiet periods.

The workplace may be close to capacity on Tuesday, functional on Wednesday and significantly underused on Friday. Designing the entire office around the busiest day can preserve excess capacity for the remainder of the week.

The correct comparison is not simply total headcount against total desks. Workplace managers should compare:

• Average daily attendance
• Peak daily attendance
• Attendance by weekday
• Attendance by team
• Attendance by location
• Peak demand by hour

Think of it like building a stadium based on the grand final. The venue will handle the biggest day, but it may carry too much capacity for every ordinary fixture.

3. Hybrid Policies Lack Clarity

Some organisations have adopted hybrid work without establishing a clear operating rhythm.

Employees may understand that they can work remotely, but not:

• When their team will attend
• What activities should happen in person
• Which days offer the greatest opportunity for collaboration
• Whether desks or rooms need to be booked
• What the office is expected to provide

This uncertainty can reduce attendance and create inconsistent workplace experiences.

A policy that simply requires “three days in the office” may also fail to improve collaboration if team members choose different days.

JLL’s global workplace research found that more organisations are introducing structured attendance requirements, but it also warns that workplace change management has not always kept pace.

4. The Office Does Not Support How People Work

Some underutilised offices are not too large. They are simply configured for the wrong activities.

Employees may arrive to find rows of individual desks but limited access to:

• Quiet focus rooms
• Private video-call spaces
• Team project rooms
• Informal collaboration areas
• High-quality meeting technology
• Client-facing facilities

Hybrid employees are less likely to commute to an office that provides no meaningful advantage over working from home.

The office needs to earn the commute by supporting connection, concentration, collaboration and professional interaction better than alternative locations.

5. Poor Meeting-Room Availability

An office may appear underused while its most valuable spaces remain consistently unavailable.

For example, only 40% of desks may be occupied, but every meeting room and video-call booth could be booked. This indicates a space-mix problem rather than a simple attendance problem.

Corporate workplace managers should measure:

• Meeting-room booking frequency
• Actual room use
• Average meeting size
• Room capacity compared with attendance
• Cancelled or abandoned bookings
• Demand for video-enabled rooms

A 12-person boardroom repeatedly used by two people represents occupancy, but not efficient utilisation.

6. Employees Have Better Alternatives

Employees now compare the corporate office with home, local coworking spaces, client offices and flexible workspace hubs.

Their decision can be influenced by:

• Commute time
• Transport access
• Proximity to clients
• Technology reliability
• Noise levels
• Privacy
• Food and beverage options
• Workplace atmosphere
• Access to meeting rooms
• Opportunities to connect with colleagues

If the central office is inconvenient or poorly equipped, employees may remain productive elsewhere while the company continues carrying the fixed property cost.

7. Business Growth Has Become Less Predictable

Traditional offices rely on relatively stable workforce forecasts.

Modern corporate teams can expand, contract or reorganise quickly. Project teams may form for six months, contractors may join temporarily and new market opportunities may require workspace in another city.

A long-term lease cannot always respond at the same speed.

This can produce two types of inefficiency:

• Too much space after a restructure or change in attendance
• Too little space when a new team or project begins

Flexible workspace can absorb this variable demand without requiring every potential requirement to be built into the permanent office footprint.

8. Workplace Decisions Are Based on Incomplete Data

Access-card records alone do not provide a complete view of workplace efficiency.

They may confirm that an employee entered a building, but not:

• How long they stayed
• Which spaces they used
• Whether they found an appropriate workspace
• Whether rooms were booked but empty
• Why they chose to attend
• Whether the office improved their productivity

Reliable office space utilisation analysis should combine multiple data sources, including:

• Building access records
• Desk and room bookings
• Occupancy sensors
• Wi-Fi connections
• Employee surveys
• Team schedules
• Workplace service requests
• Observational audits
• Lease and operating-cost data

Quantitative data shows what is happening. Employee feedback helps explain why.

The Office Space Utilisation Metrics That Matter

Corporate workplace and operations managers should monitor a focused set of indicators.

Average Daily Utilisation

The percentage of desks or workspaces used on an average working day.

Peak Utilisation

The highest recorded use during a day, week or month. This helps identify whether the workplace can support peak attendance without oversizing the entire footprint.

Day-of-Week Variance

The difference between high-attendance and low-attendance days. A large gap may indicate poor team coordination or an opportunity to introduce flexible capacity.

Space-Type Utilisation

Usage across desks, meeting rooms, private offices, collaboration areas and focus spaces. This reveals whether the workplace mix matches employee demand.

Cost Per Utilised Workstation

The total property and operating cost divided by the number of workstations regularly used.

This provides a more meaningful efficiency measure than cost per available desk.

Booking Versus Actual Use

The difference between reserved spaces and spaces that are physically occupied. Persistent no-shows can create artificial shortages.

Employee Experience

Survey data covering productivity, collaboration, privacy, technology, accessibility and workplace satisfaction.

A smaller office is not more efficient if it makes it harder for people to perform.

When Flexible Workspace Can Improve Efficiency

Flexible workspace is not limited to replacing an entire corporate office. It can form part of a broader workplace portfolio.

Flexible Workspace as Overflow Capacity

Businesses can maintain a right-sized core office and use flexible workspace during peak periods, projects or seasonal demand.

This reduces the need to carry permanent spare capacity.

Flexible Workspace for Distributed Teams

Employees can access professional workspace closer to home, reducing travel while maintaining connection to an organised workplace environment.

This can be especially valuable for teams spread across multiple suburbs, cities or states.

Project and Team Rooms

A dedicated project space can be activated for a defined period without restructuring the permanent office.

This supports consulting teams, client projects, market-entry teams and temporary expansions.

Satellite Offices

Flexible workplace locations can extend a company’s presence without requiring a traditional lease in every market.

Teams gain access to professional offices, meeting facilities, amenities and operational support while the organisation retains flexibility.

Business Continuity

Flexible workspace can provide alternative capacity during refurbishments, building interruptions, office moves or unexpected operational events.

How to Decide Whether Your Office Is Underused

Office underuse should not be judged from one quiet Friday.

Workplace leaders should review a representative period and ask:

1. What is our average and peak office utilisation?
2. Which days and hours create the most demand?
3. Are employees using spaces differently from how they were designed?
4. What does each regularly utilised workstation cost?
5. Which teams require permanent space?
6. Which requirements are temporary or variable?
7. Are employees choosing alternative work locations?
8. Could part of our fixed footprint be replaced by flexible capacity?
9. Can our property model respond to growth, contraction or geographic change?
10. Is the office improving employee performance and connection?

The aim is to develop a workplace portfolio that can respond to the business rather than forcing the business to work around its property commitments.

Improve Workplace Efficiency Without Reducing Opportunity

An underutilised office represents more than empty desks. It can indicate that the organisation’s property model, workplace design and employee behaviour are no longer aligned.

Improving office space utilisation does not mean forcing every employee into the same building every day. It means understanding when, where and why teams work best, then matching workplace capacity to that demand.

A flexible workplace model can give corporate teams access to the spaces they need without carrying every possible requirement as a permanent fixed cost.

CorporateCubes.Co provides private offices, corporate team memberships, meeting rooms, project spaces and flexible workplace access designed to support changing workforce requirements.

Ready to build a more efficient corporate workplace portfolio?
Tour CorporateCubes.Co and speak with our team about a workspace model aligned with how your people actually work.

FAQs

What is office space utilisation?

Office space utilisation measures how much available workspace is actually being used. It can be calculated across desks, meeting rooms, private offices, collaboration areas or an entire corporate workplace.

Why are offices underutilised in hybrid work?

Common causes include reduced average attendance, midweek attendance peaks, unclear hybrid policies, outdated office layouts, poor workplace data and offices that were sized for full-time attendance.

What is the difference between office occupancy and utilisation?

Office occupancy generally measures people or workstations assigned to a location. Office utilisation measures how much of the available space is actually used. A workplace can have high assigned occupancy but low physical utilisation.

What is a good office utilisation rate?

There is no universal target. The right rate depends on the organisation’s hybrid policy, workforce behaviour, space types and service expectations. Workplace teams should assess average and peak demand together rather than relying on one percentage.

How can businesses improve office space utilisation?

Businesses can improve utilisation by coordinating team attendance, sharing desks, redesigning the space mix, improving booking systems, reviewing workplace data and using flexible workspace for variable demand.

Can flexible workspace support large corporate teams?

Yes. Flexible workspace can support corporate teams through private offices, dedicated team areas, project rooms, satellite locations, meeting facilities and overflow capacity. It can complement an existing head office or provide an alternative to additional long-term leases.

How often should office utilisation be reviewed?

Utilisation should be monitored continuously and reviewed formally each quarter. A deeper assessment should also occur before lease renewals, office expansions, restructures or major changes to hybrid-work policy.