As the world of work becomes more human-centered, workplace and real estate leaders are facing a new challenge: the KPIs we’ve relied on for decades aren’t enough anymore. Traditional metrics like cost and output no longer tell the full story—performance ultimately depends on people and their workplace experience.
Today, organizations are reframing how they define “success” in the workplace. Employee experience, wellbeing, space diversity, and sustainability are now critical components of a modern workplace strategy. To support this shift, companies need data-driven KPIs that reflect how employees actually use and experience their work environments.
Below are the essential metrics your organization can use to measure and improve workplace experiences.
1. Time Spent Working Remotely
Before hybrid work reshaped how and where we work, offices were consistently full. Now, flexibility is a core expectation—employees choose when, where, and how they work best. This creates an important workplace experience signal: if employees aren’t choosing to come into the office, why not?
Remote-work patterns can reveal:
- Whether the office supports the activities people prefer to do onsite
- How well hybrid work policies align with employee expectations
- Whether specific departments or roles feel underserved by on-site resources
If employees are rarely coming in, even after hybrid schedules stabilize, it may indicate the office isn’t meeting their needs. This insight can help leaders rethink space types, policies, amenities, or even office locations.
2. Meeting Room & Collaboration Space Utilization
As culture evolves, so should your workplace. The types of spaces people needed five years ago may not align with the needs of your returning or hybrid workforce today.
Key questions to ask:
- Are large conference rooms sitting empty while small meeting areas are overbooked?
- Do employees struggle to find quiet space for video calls with remote colleagues?
- Are collaboration zones being used the way they were intended?
Tracking actual utilization, not just bookings, is essential. A meeting room with high reservation rates but low occupancy signals a mismatch and an experience issue.
Utilization analytics help determine:
- Which spaces employees actually value
- Where bottlenecks or underused areas exist
- How to design or reconfigure the workplace to support evolving work modes
3. Workplace Technology Adoption
Even the most innovative workplace technology—desk booking tools, reservation systems, feedback platforms, smart lighting—only improves experience if employees use it.
Low or declining usage can indicate:
- Tools are unintuitive or create friction
- Technology is solving the wrong problem
- Employees don’t understand how or why to use the system
- Training, awareness, or change management gaps
Tracking adoption trends over time helps workplace leaders evaluate which technologies enhance experience and which add unnecessary complexity.
4. Trends in Employee Requests & Feedback
As employees reacclimate to the office, their needs, expectations, and preferences are evolving. Listening to them—directly and consistently—is one of the most powerful indicators of workplace experience.
Feedback may come from:
- Conversations with managers
- Facilities or IT service requests
- Pulse surveys
- Workplace experience apps or feedback kiosks
- Post-occupancy evaluations
Monitoring both the content and volume of requests provides valuable insights:
- Repeated themes may reveal systemic issues
- Increasing request volume may indicate unmet needs
- Declining requests could reflect better alignment between space and user behavior
Combined with space and occupancy analytics, this qualitative input gives a fuller picture of employee sentiment and experience.
The Bottom Line: Data Is the Foundation of Better Workplace Experience
Workplace experience varies widely across organizations, locations, and teams, and the return-to-office transition has only heightened the complexity. To create spaces where people want to work, businesses must rely on clear, actionable data.
By tracking the right KPIs, leaders can:
- Understand how employees actually use their workplaces
- Optimize spaces and resources for hybrid work
- Improve employee satisfaction and productivity
- Support long-term real estate and workplace strategy decisions
Want to better understand your organization’s workplace experience?
See how Tango helps companies measure, analyze, and optimize the modern workplace. Get in touch with our team to learn more!
