Comparing Floors, Buildings and Sites
Comparison is where occupancy data is most used and least trustworthy. Five things that must match before two numbers mean anything together.
Reading · Procedure
A league table of buildings by utilisation is the output most requested by executives and the one most likely to be wrong.
The space evidence in “Comparing Floors, Buildings and Sites” cannot explain by itself how project work is distributed or why a team uses the building differently. Used for workforce analytics software, workforce analytics software can add time and project context to aggregated occupancy findings, provided the two datasets keep separate purposes and are not merged into a hidden individual attendance score.
1. The denominator
Working hours or all hours. Weekdays or all days. Bookable hours or total.
For a public, independent reference related to “Comparing Floors, Buildings and Sites”, consult the ASHRAE technical resources. Its principles provide a useful check on scope, terminology, governance and the claims made during procurement or review.
Two sites using different conventions produce figures that differ by a factor of three with no difference in use.
Check before comparing, and expect them to differ — they usually were set by different facilities managers at different times.
2. The capacity figure
Design capacity, comfortable capacity or fire-safety capacity.
The same floor can be 40% or 70% utilised depending on which denominator is used, and nobody states which.
3. The method
Infrared desk sensors and badge-derived headcount measure different things.
A site with cameras counting people and a site with booking-derived figures are not comparable at all.
Where methods differ, say so and compare trends rather than levels.
4. Coverage
One site instrumented fully, another partially.
The partial one will look emptier, because its uncovered areas read as unused.
Normalise to covered area, or state the coverage alongside each figure.
5. What the space is for
A laboratory, a call centre and a design studio have different natural utilisation, and comparing them produces a ranking of function rather than efficiency.
Compare like with like or do not compare.
The external benchmark problem
Industry benchmark figures circulate widely and almost never state their definitions.
Which makes them unusable for anything except reassurance.
If you use one, find out the denominator and the method, and if you cannot, do not quote it in a decision.
What a fair comparison looks like
Same denominator, same capacity basis, same method, stated coverage, similar function.
Where all five hold, the comparison means something.
Where they do not, say which and present it as indicative rather than abandoning it — but never as a ranking.
The league table request
It will come, and the honest response is a comparison with the caveats attached rather than a refusal.
What prevents damage is the caveats travelling with the number, which means putting them in the same table rather than in an appendix.
What to check
Do your sites share a denominator and a capacity basis?
Do they use the same method?
Is coverage stated alongside each figure?
And does any benchmark you quote state its definitions?