In my role working with enterprise organizations and global Fortune 100 companies, there's a principle that consistently reframes how workplace strategy is approached:
1% energy and operations, 9% real estate, 90% people.
It’s a simple breakdown, but it carries significant implications. While most workplace decisions have historically centered on cost optimization - reducing footprint, consolidating space, or improving building efficiency - the reality is that the vast majority of value (and cost) sits with people. Salaries, productivity, collaboration, and experience all fall into that 90%.
Recent insights from CBRE’s 2026 Global Workplace and Occupancy Report reinforce this shift. Organizations are no longer just asking, “How much space do we need?” but rather, “How effectively does our space support how our people work?”
This is where utilization data, and more importantly, how it is interpreted, becomes critical.
Moving Beyond Occupancy: Understanding Behavior
Traditional workplace data has focused on occupancy: how many people are in the office, how often desks are used, or how frequently meeting rooms are booked. While useful, these metrics only scratch the surface. They tell you that space is being used, but not how or why. For Fortune 100 organizations navigating hybrid work, that distinction matters.
What we increasingly see is a need to understand:
Which teams are collaborating regularly and how far are they travelling to find collaboration spaces?
What would collocating project teams do to productivity and efficiency or even project outcomes?
What changes should we make to our floor plan, across individual workspaces and meeting rooms, to better support how our teams work and improve productivity and employee experience?
What layout changes would reduce congestion and improve overall flow through the office?
Which days should we design for peak team attendance, and how do we better align in-office schedules across teams?
This behavioral layer is what transforms utilization data from a reporting tool into a strategic input.
For example, a meeting room that appears “highly utilized” based on bookings may, in reality, be underused or misused. Similarly, collaboration may be happening informally in areas never designed for it, while purpose-built spaces sit idle. Without understanding movement patterns and interaction dynamics, these nuances remain invisible.
The Engineering team may be asking for more space, but the issue may actually be that their current workspace lacks the right mix of focus desks and small meeting rooms - meaning targeted adjustments could resolve the problem without adding additional space.
The Hybrid Workplace Has Changed the Equation
CBRE’s report highlights a fundamental shift: the workplace is no longer a place people go - it’s a resource they choose to use. That shift introduces variability that static metrics can’t capture.
Attendance patterns fluctuate by day. Teams cluster around specific collaboration windows. Individual work often happens differently depending on role, function, or even personality. This creates a new challenge for CRE and workplace leaders: How do you design and manage a workplace that adapts to behavior that is inherently dynamic?
The answer lies in continuous, high-fidelity utilization data that reflects real-world behavior over time - not just snapshots.
Identifying Friction Points in the Workplace
One of the most valuable applications of utilization data is identifying friction - the subtle but impactful moments where the workplace fails to support people effectively.
These can include:
Overcrowded collaboration zones on peak days
Under-utilized areas that indicate mismatched space design
Bottlenecks in movement patterns (e.g., elevators, corridors, shared amenities)
Meeting room shortages that occur only at specific times
Discrepancies between intended and actual use of space
Individually, these issues may seem minor. But collectively, they shape the employee experience and influence productivity in meaningful ways.
What’s important is that these insights are rarely visible through traditional tools like booking systems or surveys. They require observing patterns at scale, how people actually interact with space, not just how they say they do.
From Space Optimization to Experience Optimization
Historically, workplace strategy has been framed around efficiency: maximizing utilization, minimizing cost per square foot, and ensuring space is not “wasted.”
While still relevant, that lens is incomplete.
A more effective approach, one increasingly reflected in leading enterprise strategies, is experience optimization. Rather than focusing solely on efficiency, organizations are evaluating whether the workplace truly supports how people work: enabling meaningful collaboration, providing access to the right spaces for different tasks, minimizing friction and inefficiencies, and adapting to evolving work patterns.
When applied correctly, utilization data becomes the foundation for answering these questions, offering a clear, evidence-based view into how well the workplace aligns with real employee needs.
For example, by analyzing collaboration patterns, organizations can determine whether their space mix aligns with actual behavior. If collaboration is concentrated on certain days, space planning and services can be adjusted accordingly. If focus work is happening in collaboration zones, it may indicate a shortage of quiet spaces.
These insights enable a shift from reactive adjustments to proactive design.
The Importance of Continuous, Behavioral Data
Another key takeaway from both enterprise experience and industry research is that point-in-time data is no longer sufficient. Manual studies, periodic audits, and static reports provide snapshots, but the workplace is dynamic. Patterns evolve based on policy changes, team behaviors, and external factors.
Continuous data allows organizations to:
Track trends over time
Measure the impact of changes (e.g., policy shifts, redesigns)
Distinguish between temporary anomalies and structural issues
Build a more accurate understanding of demand and usage
This longitudinal perspective is essential for making confident, data-driven decisions - particularly at the scale of Fortune 100 portfolios.
Bridging the Gap Between Data and Decision-Making
One of the challenges I often see is not a lack of data, but a lack of actionable insight.
Raw utilization metrics can be overwhelming or ambiguous. The real value comes from translating data into clear, decision-ready guidance:
Where should space be reallocated?
Which areas should be redesigned or repurposed?
How can services be aligned with peak demand?
What changes will have the greatest impact on employee experience?
This requires connecting utilization data to business outcomes - productivity, engagement, and operational efficiency.
When done well, it enables CRE and workplace leaders to move beyond descriptive analytics, such as “what is happening”, to prescriptive strategies like, “what should we do next”.
Designing for the 90%
Returning to the 1-9-90 framework, the implication is clear:
The greatest opportunity for impact lies in how we support people.
Real estate decisions still matter. Cost efficiency still matters. But optimizing the 9% without understanding the 90% risks missing the bigger picture.
Utilization data provides a way to align workplace strategy with how people actually work:
Supporting collaboration where and when it happens
Reducing friction that impacts productivity
Ensuring resources are accessible and appropriately scaled
Creating environments that employees choose to use
Ultimately, this is not about maximizing occupancy - it’s about enabling effectiveness.
A People-First Future for Workplace Strategy
The enterprise workplace is at an inflection point. Hybrid and RTO policies have introduced complexity, but it has also created an opportunity to rethink long-standing assumptions.
The organizations that will lead in this next phase are those that:
Treat the workplace as a dynamic system, not a static asset
Use data to understand behavior, not just measure space
Prioritize employee experience alongside efficiency
Make decisions based on evidence, not assumptions
Utilization data - particularly when it captures movement, interaction, and behavior - plays a central role in this transformation. For CRE and workplace leaders, the mandate is evolving. It’s no longer just about managing space - it’s about enabling people.
And when 90% of the equation is people, that’s where the focus should be.
About Brennan Stang
Brennan Stang is the Director of Client Success at InnerSpace, where he leads the delivery of strategic workplace insights to some of the world’s largest enterprise organizations. In his role, Brennan works closely with corporate real estate, workplace, and executive teams to translate complex utilization and behavioral data into actionable strategies that improve how workplaces function. Drawing on years of experience in client success and deep exposure to global workplace trends, Brennan plays a key role in ensuring organizations move from assumptions to data-driven, people-first workplace strategies.