The Hidden Disadvantages of Hybrid Work
The latest Occupancy Intelligence Index reveals striking new trends in how employees used office space in 2024 compared to previous years. The Index report surveyed 200+ Global Enterprises across 50 countries between January and June 2024 to understand the changing behaviours of employees and building usage.
For the first time, employees choose to spend more time in collaborative spaces than at their desk. When you consider that in a lot of hybrid model organisations, desks are left empty for a large part of the week, the fact that the desks are also going unused on in-office days highlights a growing inefficiency in hybrid workplaces.
Here, we’ll explore one of the hidden disadvantages of hybrid working; how empty desks are harming your bottom line, and what actions you can take to reclaim lost efficiency in your workplace.
Understanding Hybrid Work Arrangements
Definition of Hybrid Work Model
Before we jump into the disadvantages of hybrid work models, first let’s explain what we mean by a hybrid work model. A hybrid work model is a flexible work arrangement that combines elements of remote work and traditional office work. It allows employees to split their time between working from home or a remote location and working in the office. Hybrid work models provide employees with more autonomy and flexibility, and allow employers to benefit from accessing talent from multiple locations. By adopting a hybrid work model, companies can offer their employees the best of both worlds, creating better work-life balance and enhancing overall productivity.
Evolution of Hybrid Work Environments
The concept of hybrid work environments has been around for several years, but it has gained significant traction in recent times. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of remote work, and many companies have been forced to adapt to new ways of working. As a result, hybrid work models are increasingly popular, as they offer a balance between the flexibility of remote work and the structure of traditional office work.
This shift has led to the development of more sophisticated hybrid work strategies, designed to optimize both remote and in-office productivity. Companies are now investing in technology and infrastructure to support hybrid work environments, ensuring that employees can collaborate effectively regardless of their location.
A Need to Refocus the In-Office Experience
For the last few years, organisations focused on optimising the experience of the remote participants in the hybrid work model. Huge investments were made in communication technology to ensure all employees have the remote access they need to be engaged and productive, even when working from home. This often led to enhanced productivity and improved employee satisfaction and well being for remote teams and hybrid teams alike.
In recent months, there was an increase in companies announcing return to office policies, requiring the physical presence of teams back in the office for a certain number of days each week. Team building and accelerating innovation are some of the reasons given for this return to office policy shift.
But remote workers moving back to being in-office employees have different expectations of how they want to work and engage on their days in the office. Many want to prioritise their days at home on focused work and spend their time in the office collaborating with their teams and making the most of the opportunity for in person meeting. For the first time, they do not want to spend their time in the office, sitting at their desk.
The Hidden Challenges of a Hybrid Work model
The Shift in Preference to Collaboration and Meeting Rooms
Hybrid meetings come with certain communication and collaboration challenges and because of this, employees are choosing to prioritize in-person meetings, teamwork and collaborative workshops on their in-office days. As a result, hybrid work models are starting to disrupt traditional office layouts. Employees now spend more time in collaboration rooms than at their individual desks.
Data captured over the first 6 months of 2024 show that employee behaviour has changed from 2023. On the days employees are in the office, the data shows that they are favouring collaborative spaces over individual desks and this trend is expected to continue. Collaboration Rooms (21.1%), Conference Rooms (21.7%), and Open Collaboration Spaces (14.4%) now each have a higher active time usage than desks.
The shift in preference from desk based work to collaboration based work is leaving traditional desk setups underused.
The Empty Desk Epidemic
Many hybrid offices are facing the same major challenge: a sea of unused desks taking up valuable real estate. When given a choice of which days to attend the office, Mondays and Fridays have become almost deserted with employees preferring to come in to the office mid week. When they are coming in, very little of that time is being spent sitting at their desk.
Desks that remain empty but occupy expensive real estate can quickly become financial liabilities. Even if your office is only partially occupied, you’re likely paying full maintenance costs for the space. Services like cleaning and heating apply across the entire building, regardless of how many desks are actually in use.
The Passive Usage Problem: Wasting Resources Goes Unnoticed
The shift in working preference from desk to collaboration spaces has created a hidden issue in many organisations. Even the more sophisticated companies that have embedded desk booking systems to track usage are often blind to the reality of their employee behaviour. Employees book their desk for the day but in reality, they often simply leave their bags and belongings at the desk and then spend their day in person interactions and meeting rooms.
Desks that sit passively—occupied by personal items but rarely used by employees—are misleading when it comes to tracking space utilization, especially for remote employees who may only occasionally visit the office. This can cause companies to miscalculate their office needs.
When desks remain empty but technically “occupied,” companies pay for space they don’t actually need, leading to inflated operational costs. In comparison, collaboration rooms now account for 86.6% of active office time, suggesting an opportunity to dramatically improve space optimization if office spaces were designed and managed to meet the needs of today’s hybrid workers.
The Unseen Costs of Underutilised Desks
According to the Lambert Smith Hampton Total Office Cost Survey 2023, in cities like Belfast, just 10 underutilised desks would cost your business £70,540 per year. In larger cities like London, this increases to an astonishing £217,000 per year.
To put that into context, a London based company with a floor of 150 desks that are only occupied two out of five days per week, are paying nearly £2 million per year for unused space!
Add to this the Occupancy Intelligence data that shows that passive desk usage (time when your personal items are at your desk, but you are somewhere else) now accounts for up to 33% of total in-office desk time. The true impact of underutilized desk time has substantial financial implications for all hybrid work organizations. These financial liabilities are just one of the many hybrid work challenges that organizations face when implementing flexible work models.
This particular hybrid working challenge is significant for facility managers, where space optimisation is a key objective and where hidden costs cannot be ignored.
Get Hybrid Working to Your Advantage: 4 Smart Solutions to Reallocate Wasted Space
Optimizing office space doesn’t have to mean expensive renovations. Simple adjustments can make a big difference in how you use your office:
- Add dividers and planters: Privacy concerns may be limiting desk usage. Adding dividers or planters creates semi-private areas for calls or meetings, freeing up formal meeting rooms and encouraging more desk use.
- Convert unused desks into collaboration or hot-desking areas: This flexible solution allows employees to use desks as needed, reducing the total number required.
- Reconfigure meeting rooms: Shrink underused large meeting rooms into more functional collaborative spaces.
- Use technology: Implement workspace management platforms like Ronspot to get insights on how your employees are using your workspace, equip managers with data to optimize office space effectively and empower employees to book the type of space they need and want.
How to Solves Desk and Space Underutilization
Desk booking systems and meeting room booking tools tackle the unique hybrid work challenges associated with flexible scheduling and space utilization. Combined with flexible scheduling, they allow departments to share desk on different days, ensuring that desks are always in use.
Best in class booking system offer key features like auto-release, which automatically frees up any desks or meeting rooms that haven’t been checked into, solving the issue of ghosted bookings. This ensures that all available spaces are being fully utilized, giving employees flexibility while maximizing office efficiency.
Additionally, analytics dashboard offer real-time insights into how spaces are used, enabling workplace managers to make informed decisions about redesigning workspaces in line with shifting, helping to optimize the space and driving significant cost savings.
A workplace management system like Ronspot, provides all of the above key features and more to help you maximize your space and create the type of hybrid workplace experience that your employees truly want.
See how desk booking systems can help you to maximize your office space, start your free Ronspot trial today.
