Employees are understandably wary of being monitored in the workplace. But when used strategically, occupancy monitoring actually empowers employers to provide employees with a better experience in the workplace. And according to recent research, enterprises are highly interested in using the technology to improve employee experience—but many aren’t doing it yet.
Real estate and facility management decision makers at major enterprises were asked to rank a selection of real estate and facility management priorities, including “occupant experience,” which was defined as “creating attractive, supportive, and productive work environments.”
More than one in four respondents ranked this as their top real estate priority. An additional 20% considered it their 2nd highest priority, and 32% ranked it third. Overall, occupant experience was the second highest priority for the enterprises we surveyed. And for American firms in particular, it’s the top priority—a full 50% of American respondents ranked improving occupant experience #1.
So, how does occupancy tracking translate into an improved occupant experience? It all comes down to how you leverage your occupancy data.
Improve access to the space and resources employees need
Tracking occupancy data helps you see when the spaces and workplace assets people need are most difficult to use. While employees may intuitively understand the busiest days and times through personal experience, occupancy data enables you to speak into this directly, and help people find alternatives both ahead of time and in the moment.
For example, if particular meeting rooms are always reserved on certain days or times, analyzing occupancy data from reservation software, sensors, or network-based occupancy tracking can show you when it tends to be most available—so you can communicate that availability to employees. You could also find comparable meeting rooms that are typically available at those times of peak demand, and try to redirect some of that demand to these similar options. And this isn’t just true for reservable spaces. When you experience these issues with common areas, amenities, and other non-reservable shared spaces, your visibility into occupancy data lets you help employees find what they need.
Identify problems before employees share them
Without occupancy tracking, your awareness of space-related workplace issues comes from manual observation, complaints, and employee surveys. So you often won’t know that there are too few meeting rooms or too many people using a space at once until it has already become a disruption.
But if you have visibility into how occupants use your space and move throughout the building, you can see where average and peak occupancy levels are too high. With an advanced space management solution like Tango Space, you can even use occupancy data to build a live floor plan and see what occupancy levels look like in real time, plus get alerts when spaces are becoming overcrowded.
In addition to helping you recognize issues in the moment, occupancy data can help you foresee problems that are building over time. For example, if your peak occupancy levels are spiking, but you have certain days where occupancy is low (like Mondays and Fridays), modifying your hybrid work policy or communicating the pattern can help normalize occupancy so that the same pool of employees can continue using the same supply of space without impacting productivity or satisfaction.
Adjust your supply of space to meet demand
Sometimes there simply aren’t any adjustments you can make to policies or employee behavior that will help balance the supply and demand of office space. There just aren’t enough workstations, meeting rooms, or amenities for the number of occupants.
When you track how your space is being used, you know exactly which types of spaces you need more of—and which spaces you can afford to reconfigure or repurpose. Occupancy tracking can often help companies avoid leasing or purchasing additional space because it allows them to adjust their existing space without negatively impacting the occupant experience.
By monitoring which spaces are most utilized, you can also zero in on why their utilization is higher than other similar spaces throughout a building. Is one meeting room most popular because of its location, amenities, or aesthetics? Are certain workstations more desirable for the level of privacy their position provides, or the access they give employees to something they need? Answering these questions can help you modify existing spaces to ensure they meet demand, not just for specific categories of space, but for the types of space occupants are most interested in accessing.
Support collaboration and help coordinate schedules
One of the key arguments for the value of working in the office is that a shared workplace is necessary to foster and facilitate collaboration. But it’s especially frustrating for employees when they show up to work at the office, and all of this collaboration still happens over video conferencing.
Occupancy tracking can help mitigate this issue and improve the occupant experience by enabling employees to share their office reservation schedules with trusted colleagues. When these coworkers go to reserve a workstation and choose their days in the office, they’ll see recommendations for days, times, and spaces that allow them to work alongside the people they need to collaborate with—making their time in the office more meaningful and valuable.
Learn more about the state of occupancy tracking
In The 2025 Enterprise Occupancy Report, we partnered with Verdantix to survey North American and European enterprises from five different industries about their experience with occupancy tracking. Each of our respondents had significant influence over the organization’s adoption of occupancy tracking technologies, and shared insights including their greatest barriers to investing in occupancy tracking, their organizational priorities, and how their priorities align with use cases for occupancy tracking.
You can access the entire report for free—we won’t even ask for your email.