Challenges

• Lack of visibility into floor usage in HQ 
• Portfolio reduction in multi-tenant buildings without disrupting workplace experience
• Uneven occupancy patterns throughout the week, leading overcrowding and empty spaces

Prior to 2022, ABN AMRO operated with a virtually fully assigned seating model, where every employee had a dedicated workspace. As the bank transitioned to a hybrid work model, it needed detailed usage insights to allocate space and reduce overall portfolio square footage.

Badge swipe data provided building-level attendance insights, but didn’t provide insight into how individual floors were being used. This lack of visibility made it difficult to determine whether spaces allocated to teams were being used as intended, or sitting empty.

Rather than mandating employees to spend a minimum number of days in the office, the bank provides a guideline of two days with a maximum of three. While this approach gives teams and individuals autonomy to decide what’s best for them, it creates uneven occupancy distribution throughout the week. 

Occupancy was low on Mondays and Fridays, but peaked on Tuesdays and especially Thursdays. This led to congestion and employees not being able to sit near coworkers on busy days, while large swathes of office space sat empty on other days. 

“Even with screens showing where space was available, people would go to their usual spot,” says a member of the workplace management team. “We needed to provide solutions and options for when things become too tight of a squeeze, and indeed, Thursdays are fully booked, the meeting rooms are fully occupied and the parking lot is full.”

Demand for bookable team spaces was also on the rise. But without floor usage data, the workplace management team didn’t have the certainty that additional allocated spaces would be used effectively. 

The bank was already using HubStar’s space utilization software to improve facilities management efficiency, so it was a logical next step to expand the use case to optimizing occupancy on each floor.

Why HubStar

• Visibility into individual floor usage and weekly occupancy patterns

• The ability to measure the impact of behavioural changes on occupancy 

• The quality of support  and guidance from the HubStar team 

The HubStar Solution

Using anonymized data from WiFi networks, HubStar provided deeper insights into space utilization at a floor and department level. ABN AMRO’s Business Intelligence (BI) team pulled HubStar data into intuitive dashboards, which the workplace management team used for conversations with stakeholders as well as classifying and allocating space. 

As part of revamping their corporate real estate strategy, ABN AMRO introduced a more flexible seating model, reducing assigned workspaces and implementing a workspace-sharing ratio of 0.6 desks per full-time employee. 

HubStar data helped the bank identify which floors to dedicate to specific teams and which to classify as generic floors that could be used by anyone.   

HubStar also helped the workplace management reclassify some generic floors into reservable team floors following higher than anticipated demand for bookable team spaces.

The Result

• Fact-based, objective conversations with stakeholders

   

• Optimized weekly occupancy patterns and floor usage

   

• Overall portfolio reduction
  

The bank’s workplace management team used HubStar data to predict the need for additional workspaces and determine which departments should have more space allocated.

Another benefit of using HubStar has been uncovering underutilized space that would have remained hidden without granular floor usage data. 

“Finding hidden vacant office space within our portfolio was the initial objective,” a member of the workplace management team recalls. “When you look at attendance from the last two years, I think we’ve optimized the usage per square meter due to HubStar.” 

Since HubStar provides utilization data on a business unit level, the team can understand how each department is using the space dedicated to them. Walking into conversations with data helps stakeholders understand why specific space allocation decisions and suggestions to tweak attendance are necessary.

“The most valuable element of the product is the detailed insight it provides and the objective, fact-based conversations we have,” said a member of the bank’s workplace management IT team. 

For example, based on data, the workplace management team might suggest the finance team come in for their weekly meeting on Wednesday, when there’s more space available, instead of Thursday, when the office is already at capacity. 

Presenting occupancy data in a digestible way has made stakeholders more inclined to follow through on suggestions from the workplace management team, which in turn evens out occupancy across the office. Ultimately, this improves everyone’s workplace experience. 

With occupancy insights gained from HubStar in the bank’s HQ, ABN AMRO also rightsized their portfolio by reducing spaces within multi-tenanted buildings. 

“The data we’ve gotten from HubStar has been very valuable, and it has a unique proposition.”