Aug 4, 2025
The Art of Rightsizing: Using Data to Optimize Your Real Estate Portfolio
For most businesses, real estate is the second-largest expense after payroll. In the hybrid work era, with office attendance fluctuating daily, many companies are left wondering if they are paying for square footage they no longer need. The process of “rightsizing”—adjusting your real estate footprint to match actual demand—presents a massive opportunity for cost savings, but it must be done with precision. Making decisions based on assumptions can lead to overcrowding or a poor employee experience. The key to rightsizing with confidence is leveraging objective workplace data to inform every decision, turning
from a guessing game into a science.
Why Headcount is an Outdated Metric
Traditionally, real estate decisions were based on simple headcount. If you had 500 employees, you leased enough space for 500 desks. This model is completely broken in a flexible work environment. On any given day, your actual occupancy might be closer to 250 people. Relying on headcount alone will invariably lead you to lease far more space than you need, resulting in wasted capital on rent, utilities, and maintenance for empty floors and unused desks. The new metric for success is not headcount, but “peak utilization”—the maximum number of employees you can expect on your busiest days.
Data as Your Blueprint for a Leaner Office
Workplace analytics platforms provide the precise data needed to understand your peak utilization. By tracking desk and room bookings over several months, you can identify clear patterns. You might discover that your peak occupancy never exceeds 60% of your total employee count, and that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are your busiest days. This data provides a defensible business case for consolidating your footprint. It allows you to confidently relinquish a floor or move to a smaller office, knowing that you will still have ample space to accommodate your team during peak times.
More Than Just Shrinking: Reconfiguring for Value
Rightsizing isn’t always about shrinking; it’s also about reallocating space to provide more value. The same data that tells you how many desks you need also tells you what types of spaces your employees crave. Analytics might reveal that while individual desks are underused, your small collaborative rooms are constantly booked. This insight is gold. Instead of simply having a smaller version of your old office, you can reinvest some of the savings from a reduced footprint into building more of the spaces employees love. This allows you to create a smaller, less expensive office that is simultaneously a more effective and desirable place to work.
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