Sv 
En Share with
Blog
Many workplace strategy decisions still start with a borrowed number: a desk-sharing ratio lifted from a benchmark, a case study, or a pre-hybrid project. A decade of activity-based working evidence suggests that is the single number least safe to reuse. This article explains what the research actually supports about hybrid attendance and shared-space utilisation, and what a stronger team measures before it commits to a ratio or a footprint cut.
What the evidence actually says, and what it does not
A ten-year review of activity-based working does not deliver a verdict that the model works or fails. Its real finding is more useful for practice: outcomes are conditional. They depend on how a workplace was implemented, how teams behave, and how the study defined and measured success in the first place.
That distinction matters. The source states that results vary with context; it does not prove that a given sharing ratio is efficient anywhere it is applied. Reading the evidence as permission to reduce space is overclaiming. Reading it as a warning that utilisation is context-dependent is what the research supports.
Why utilisation is the least transferable number in workplace strategy
Utilisation looks like a hard metric: a percentage you can measure, benchmark and copy from one organisation to the next. In practice it is one of the softest numbers a workplace team works with, because it is a behavioural result rather than a property of the floor plate.
Whether a shared setting is used as intended depends on how teams coordinate their days, whether people trust they will have somewhere to work, and how predictable attendance is week to week. Change those conditions and the same desks produce a different figure. A utilisation number is therefore a reading of one organisation’s behaviour at one moment, not a constant you can transplant.
What organisations still get wrong
The most common mistake is importing a ratio. A figure that worked in another building reflects that organisation’s attendance rhythm, culture and measurement definitions, none of which transfer cleanly.
The second mistake is trusting the average. Mean occupancy can look comfortably efficient while specific days, floors or neighbourhoods are oversubscribed and others sit empty. That uneven pattern is exactly what hybrid attendance produces, and it is invisible in a single headline percentage.
What stronger workplace teams measure instead
Better teams treat utilisation as something to measure under their own hybrid conditions, not a number to inherit. In practice that means three habits.
They measure attendance and space use across their real working week, not a representative day. They read peaks at day and neighbourhood level rather than the building average, because the peak is what determines whether people can actually find a seat. And they revisit the data as attendance patterns settle, instead of treating an early hybrid reading as permanent.
This is the difference between a footprint decision built on local evidence and one built on a borrowed assumption.
Separating the three claims that usually travel together
Workplace strategy arguments often compress three separate claims into one chain: that hybrid lowers attendance, that lower attendance justifies more desk-sharing, and that more desk-sharing improves cost and experience. The evidence treats these as distinct questions, each needing its own data.
Attendance may fall without the drop being stable. A lower average does not automatically justify a higher sharing ratio if peaks are sharp. And a tighter ratio can erode the very experience it was meant to fund if people regularly cannot find appropriate space. A stronger team tests each link rather than assuming the chain holds. Our workplace strategy framework is built to keep these decisions separated rather than bundled.
What this means for workplace strategy capability
The practical implication is that the capability worth building is not "knowing the right ratio" but knowing how to measure and interpret utilisation in your own context. That is a method and a habit, not a benchmark.
Teams that can read their own occupancy data, distinguish peaks from averages, and connect space decisions to employee experience make better calls and can defend them. Teams that rely on imported numbers are repeatedly surprised by the same problem. This is why utilisation literacy belongs in workplace strategy training and capability building, not only in a one-off project. You can see how we approach this in our workplace insight tools and methods.
What not to overclaim
Even a decade of review evidence does not tell any specific organisation how much shared space it needs. Review articles are evidence signals, dependent on the scope and comparability of the studies behind them, not final proof.
The honest conclusion is not that desk-sharing is validated or discredited. It is that hybrid attendance and shared-space utilisation need a clearer, locally grounded measurement standard before activity-based working evidence is used to justify a fixed ratio or a footprint cut.
Source
Source: Marzban et al., A review of research in Activity-Based Working over the last ten years: lessons for the post-COVID workplace, Journal of Facilities Management, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JFM-08-2021-0081
Next step
Build a stronger basis for your hybrid utilisation decisions
If your team is setting desk-sharing ratios or footprint targets, the stronger next step is to build the capability to measure and interpret utilisation in your own context rather than import a number. Explore our courses and practical methods at /learn/, and get in touch with Workplace Strategist if you want help turning your occupancy data into defensible workplace strategy decisions.
FAQ
Can I reuse another organisation’s desk-sharing ratio?
Usually not with confidence. Utilisation is behavioural and context-specific, so a ratio that worked elsewhere reflects that organisation’s attendance patterns and definitions, not yours. Treat it as a hypothesis to test, not a target to copy.
Why is average occupancy misleading under hybrid work?
Because uneven attendance concentrates demand. A healthy-looking average can sit on top of oversubscribed Tuesdays and near-empty Fridays, so day-level and neighbourhood-level peaks tell you far more than the mean.
What should we measure before setting a sharing ratio?
Measure attendance and space use across your real working week, read peaks rather than the building average, and test the link between sharing and employee experience separately instead of assuming it holds.
How does this connect to workplace strategy capability?
The durable capability is knowing how to measure and interpret your own utilisation, not memorising a ratio. That literacy is what lets a team make and defend footprint decisions across changing attendance patterns.
================================================================
