Deploying Occupancy Sensors Across Your Campus Office Space

From Start to Finish: A Comprehensive Guide to Initiating, Assessing, Teaming, Communicating, and Data Reporting

The average top 500 US university wastes $73M a year on unused office space.

This is based on a 24% utilization rate across 2 million square feet of office space - which is the average utilization and office space square footage numbers for the top 500 US universities.

That being said, today’s Real-Estate decision makers don’t have the information necessary to drive a positive change in office utilization.

Simply knowing the assigned occupancy of a neighborhood, department, or building isn’t enough data to efficiently allocate space anymore. Remote work has changed how we use office space, and real estate teams need to adapt.

Decision makers need to be empowered with unbiased utilization data measuring a department’s real space usage to determine proper space allocation and employee to desk ratios.

Implementing occupancy measuring tools to understand and make informed space management decisions is a positive step.

But, this process may require some strategic planning, a communications model, and deliberate stakeholder engagement.

Be prepared to address concerns about privacy, data misuse, and potential space reduction. Highlight the benefits of data-driven space management, such as cost savings, improved efficiency, and better utilization of resources.

As you evaluate the use of space utilization data, your institution is demonstrating a commitment to efficient, purposeful space management. Choosing a data-informed approach will help you leverage space to drive key priorities and conserve tuition and tax dollars.

As you consider this investment, it’s important to visualize how initial implementation will unfold. You can use the following six steps as a useful framework for approaching this worthwhile effort.

This resource was designed for you to draw on as you implement and use occupancy sensors and data.

We will explore a few topics, relating to different, yet related steps of the implementation process.

They include:

• GETTING STARTED
• CONTEXT
• PROJECT TEAM
• COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
• DEPLOYMENT
• REPORTING

THE FRAMEWORK

GETTING STARTED

• Reflect on the benefits and challenges of the project to stay motivated and be prepared for resistance.
• Understand the different stakeholder personas and tailor your communication accordingly.
• Assess your current space allocation and management practices to identify areas for improvement.
• Gather evidence of existing space needs and challenges to support your case for data-driven management.

PROJECT TEAM

• Assemble a diverse team with representatives from relevant departments and individuals with different perspectives.
• Consider including skeptics and critics to ensure a balanced approach and buy-in.
• Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of team members and committees.

COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

• Develop a clear and consistent narrative about the project’s goals and benefits.
• Identify your target audience and choose appropriate communication channels, such as town halls, roadshows, meetings, and online resources.
• Emphasize privacy protections and transparent data use practices.
• Be open to feedback and adjust your communication strategy as needed.

DEPLOYMENT PLAN

• Consider phasing the project to manage risks and build momentum.
• Share early successes and positive outcomes to gain trust and support.
• Be flexible and adaptable in your approach.

REPORTING PLAN

• Define how you will use utilization data to inform decision-making about space allocation, furniture, renovation, and construction.
• Establish a process for analyzing data, discussing findings with stakeholders, and implementing changes.
• Foster a culture of viewing space as a valuable resource that needs to be optimized for the university’s mission.

Remember, the success of this project will depend on your ability to effectively communicate the benefits, address concerns, and involve stakeholders in the process. By following these guidelines and adapting them to your specific context, you can ensure a smooth and successful implementation of occupancy data on your campus.

OBJECTIVE: Take stock of where you are.

WHY:

You’re going to lead this change. There may be opposition and gut-check moments. You should be flexible and solicitous, but it helps to keep your motivating rationale in focus and be mindful of where you are in the journey. This can help to guide your actions and articulate the reasoning behind the project to others.

HOW:

Reflect. Take a minute to focus on what has already been accomplished: a challenge was identified and analyzed, solutions were considered and weighed, and a strategy and plan were formulated and put into motion. The institution made a decision to take action and incorporate data in its decision-making. Appreciate that you are immersing your institution in best practices. This reflection can help you stay enthusiastic and strong through the rollout of the occupancy sensors and the socialization of the data.

OBJECTIVE: Empathize

WHY:

Predict others’ reactions and stay responsive.

HOW:

Think of the varying types of reactions to the deployment of sensors so that you can design and communicate your implementation well. Remember that space is a sensitive topic, a personal matter to people, and that is often reflected in how people perceive anything that could impact the quality or quantity of space they have access to. Understanding stakeholders is often an ongoing process but a fruitful and rewarding one. One approach is to sketch out the personas you might encounter.

OPPOSITIONAL (AT LEAST TEMPORARILY) PERSONAS

• Some colleagues may fear that space utilization assessment is the first step in having space taken away, downsized, or their office relocated. They often genuinely believe they have the right amount of space or need more, so the thought of losing some or being told they cannot have access to more could be alarming.
• Others are primed to mistrust this project because they do not trust the upper administration. The potential reasons for this are many and varied.
• Some might be confused or have privacy concerns. While the project team has correctly evaluated the technology to ensure privacy as a #1 priority, communicating this to stakeholders will be important. Add in the possibility of intentional and unintentional misinformation and you could be met with some loud opposition by a possibly small minority.

FANS

• Some stakeholders could be driven by the hope that their own space situation could improve in the wake of the improved space management or feel that, globally, space management and allocation could be improved.
• Others might recognize that using data is a worthwhile endeavor and generally support such a practice and the individuals who are leading it.
• Fans will also likely be in support of the privacy first solution you’ve chosen and can be good allies and advocates of the project.

NEUTRAL PERSONAS

• These individuals might not take much interest in space management, perhaps because they don’t see how changed practices will impact them.
• They might also not think about space management to begin with, even if most stakeholders occupy space and are affected by how it’s managed.
• Some might not have heard much about the project.
• This crowd shouldn’t be ignored though, it could be full of potential supporters (or, at least,defenders) or opponents of the project. It’s this persona that makes it important that the project is widely communicated to ensure there are no 11th hour objections.

CONTEXT

OBJECTIVE: Assess what space allocation and management looks like at your institution now.

WHY:

To be sure the implementation and usage of utilization data improves space allocation, experience, and management to drive a positive ROI.

HOW:

Review the key components of your approach. They include:

• How is space allocated? What individuals or committees make the decisions, what is the space request process? How distributed is the process (e.g., do they provide space at the school level and the school mainly assigns it internally?)
• What CAFM system and/or other technologies are in use?
• How is space data gathered/reported and verified?
• What is the budgeting model for space?
• What are the implications of all this?

OBJECTIVE: Identify the benefits of addressing space issues with a formal, data-informed process.

WHY:

To convince stakeholders that the effort is necessary and to show that your decision-making in choosing occupancy measuring technology was sound.

HOW:

Identify the overarching reasons/key questions for managing space more intentionally and gather supporting evidence as needed.

What are reported space needs, including type, quality, and quantity of space? How much and where is the scarcity? What are the needs and pain points? Who is least and most satisfied?

• Collect and/or organize data, gather input from years leading up to the implementation showing the existence and nature of space needs. Retrospectively round such information up if needed and if possible – including finding emails from stakeholders expressing need. As requests for space and comments revealing issues with space come in going forward, be sure to compile them and draw on them as evidence that change is needed.
• Average office space utilization is ~24% during the workday. The top 500 campuses in the US have 10.4M sqft of total space on average and ~2M sqft of office space. 2M sqft of office space at 24% utilized represents $73M a year in wasted space if you assume $4/sqft annual cost of space.

Incentives

• Incentivize administration to keep hybrid work.
• Share 10-20% construction savings with departments.
• Offer new furniture for departments that give up assigned desks.

Privacy practices, data granularity, data access

• Select an occupancy measuring solution that does not specifically track any individual and does not report data for specific desks or individual rooms, but for neighborhoods and floors (CCPA, CDPR compliant).
• Occuspace is CCPA and GDPR compliant.

Other reasons to use data-driven space management.

• Hybrid work, hybrid ed, hybrid student services are changing space needs on the physical campus. The mix of demand for spaces is changing and it’s possible overall demand is decreasing. We want to make data driven decisions, especially when empowering departments to decide their hybrid work strategies department by department.
• Reducing the institution’s carbon footprint.
• Capital and space planning requires data to be effective and efficient. So does managing deferred maintenance.
• Related to capital planning but worth spotlighting is the fact that more responsible space management can save tens if not hundreds of millions on the cost of construction. Building new is generally far more expensive than better space management.

PROJECT TEAM

OBJECTIVE: Identify the individuals who will be part of the rollout. This could include the core team, committees, influencers and allies.

WHY:

This will help ensure an intentional and coordinated rollout where there is clear responsibility for different aspects of the process.

HOW:

Consider what organizational positions and entities should or might be represented, and which specific individuals will be helpful. Including some skeptics and critics can be helpful, as it shows them their viewpoint is valued and also helps to orient them towards reaching consensus rather than just opposing the effort.

It is also important to consider the governance structure. If you are including an advisory committee, who are they reporting to as the final decision maker? How specific will their input be? What’s the nature of the back-and-forth between the decision makers and the committee including in situations where a committee decision isn’t practical

Below are some ideas of stakeholders you may want to have involved in your rollout plan both for their suggestions on best practices as well as their early acceptance and evangelizing of the project.

Executive committee personnel to consider

• Head of Facilities/Real Estate
• Head of Planning
• CFO office
• Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration
• Academic leadership/Provost’s office
• DEI office
• IT
• Academic and admin unit, e.g. Associate Dean of Administration (one or two) o Make sure the above includes at least one faculty member, otherwise consider pulling one or two onto the core team.

Steering Committee (or Work Group) to guide deployment planning, communications, data analysis, etc. It’s possible you will want this committee to remain in existence as the institution begins to get back data, not to analyze the data but to see it, confirm confidentiality, and ensure project transparency. In choosing individuals you might overlay needs and opportunities in terms of units and in terms of individual personas – this is discussed a bit further below.

How to select which academic and administrative units to pull from?

Consider the size of the unit, which ones are most affected by space decisions (e.g., a school that is struggling to find space for its PIs), and ensure a range of vantage points.

What kinds of individuals?

Here are some personas to think about:

• Vocal stakeholders: These are the folks who often have an opinion – especially one that is critical.
• Stakeholders who have been involved in facilities and planning decisions before (e.g., having served in a building design or renovation process).
• Stakeholders who have been involved in enterprise-wide change management before.
• Veteran statespeople.
• Research administration/sponsored research leader.
• Union representation if applicable.
• Additional academic unit administration/space leaders, administrative staff, and faculty.
• Institutional research.
• Heads of Utilities and Custodial.
• Student representation.

Internal Data Analysts/data processing team

• This group is most likely already established and tasked with assessing space needs, internalizing the data points collected.

Influencers and allies

• Find ringers to attend town halls and who will be in meetings held by other groups, such as faculty senate and department chairs meetings, so they can be a voice of the project.

OBJECTIVE: Come up with framing/project narrative.

WHY:

To ensure a convincing, complete explanation can be relayed to the campus community.

WHO:

The target audience is determined by the scope of the rollout, and should be discussed with stakeholders. A broad audience, for example,includes a whole campus announcement. From there it could be tailored to include all building occupants or to an even more narrow audience including only upper administration and key building managers.

HOW:

Create goals and messages to impart.

Remember – and make it known – that the communications strategy and the feedback it creates is an attempt to tap into the community’s insights and to be responsive to suggestions.

The core message is simple: We are gathering data about how spaces are used so that we can be good stewards of our tuition, tax, grantor and donor monies.

To this point, it should be made clear that Occupancy data is not viewed in a vacuum, but rather to ensure equitable allocation of space to those in need.

Privacy is our number one priority while we gather data about space usage. We are not looking to understand an individual’s activities but intend to look at overall floor and building occupancy and use.

OBJECTIVE: Identify communications channels and strategy for timing.

WHY:

To maximize reach and clarity of message.

HOW:

Identify decision points and proceed accordingly – try to leave room for iteration along the way.

Decision points:

• What is the timing and format of messaging? Will you include post-install updates? Who will lead town halls, road shows, meetings, etc.?
• Organize town halls.
• Roadshow, e.g., to departments, meetings of department chairs, etc. o Individual or small group meetings.
• Gather/create collateral (e.g., web sites, photos, FAQs).
• UCSD example for reference: UCSD “Space Planning Density Program”
• Success examples/case studies (and, if you phase the system deployment, then you can loop in early wins from your campus as success examples/ case studies).

OBJECTIVE: Create a structure for reporting data and making decisions with the data provided.

WHY:

To ensure a convincing, complete explanation can be relayed to the campus community.

WHO:

Utilization is a metric that can help uncover how spaces offer opportunity for optimization. Simply having access to data does not directly provide direction on what should change about a space. Having a plan on how you will look at data, what questions you will ask, and what decisions you will make gives a starting point for optimization.

HOW:

What actions can utilization data help drive?

• i.e. Allocating more space or less space to a department and ensuring equitable space access across campus.
• Measuring what spaces people like and don’t like to inform future construction/renovation and furniture buying decisions.

What process will be put in place to enact those decisions?

• A culture shift of viewing space as a resource, similar to budget. If it goes unused, it’s the duty of the university to use it in the way to best serve the university mission.
• Monthly/Quarterly/Annual integration of occupancy data into your Space Management solution.
• Space Planners reviewing assigned occupancy vs real utilization data for each building/floor/department and identifying areas that need more or less space.
• Using this data to start a conversation with space stakeholders about their space, how they use it, and what they need from their space to gather qualitative context.
• After gathering qualitative information, make a decision on if that department needs more or less space.

Key Takeaways

Be prepared for concerns about privacy and potential space reduction. Highlight the benefits like cost savings, improved efficiency, and better resource utilization. Engage stakeholders to understand their needs and build trust. Develop and communicate a clear plan emphasizing privacy protections.

Assemble a diverse project team and a comprehensive communications plan. Consider including skeptics for a balanced approach. Tailor messaging to different audiences and emphasize privacy.

Get started, track progress, and foster a data-driven culture. Get your first spaces underway and share success within your organization. Illustrate how data was used to inform decisions and implement changes. And work to shift the mindset that smart space use supports your institution’s mission.

Remember, the success of this project will depend on your ability to effectively communicate the benefits, address concerns, and involve stakeholders in the process. By following these guidelines and adapting them to your specific context, you can ensure a smooth and successful implementation of Occuspace data on your campus.

For more information or to learn more about how Occuspace can help, please inquire at sales@occuspace.io.