How Tech Companies Can Rethink Their Workspaces

When it comes to envisioning the workplace of the future, tech companies have long been pioneers, innovating workplace norms that set the benchmark for entire industries to follow. 

At least, they used to be. Ever since the pandemic, the tech sector—like most other sectors—has seen occupancy rates plummet. It’s not only costing millions but denting its reputation for efficiency, while also fueling decisions that have attracted an endless flurry of headlines amid RTO controversy.

“I’m so surprised by how little space is used,” said Annie Cosgrove, Director of Analytics & Insights at workplace analytics leader, Density, which released an illuminating report on the state of tech workplaces earlier this year, in partnership with international design firm Hassell. Examining utilization data for 1.4 million square feet of office space over one year, the report quantified what many tech leaders have been experiencing: the old ways of running workplaces just don’t work anymore.

“I feel like we've gone backwards from where we were before the pandemic,” Cosgrove said. “I think there needs to be a reckoning with this problem, and it's going to take experimenting and really pushing people to share again.”

“We Haven’t Caught Up”

Cosgrove cautioned that utilization data has limitations: it’s an objective lens into how a company’s employees use its spaces, but it doesn’t reveal whether their experiences of those spaces are positive or negative—that sort of qualitative data is typically the purview of internal surveys and focus groups. It’s not a leap to assume that people vote with their feet and simply avoid spaces that don’t deliver and revisit the ones that do. That makes the story utilization data tells a powerful one. Still, the story utilization data does tell is a powerful one. 

“Tech companies are wasting a lot of space right now,” she said. “And the design of their spaces do not accommodate the behaviors of their employees.” 

One of the report’s key revelations is that across the sector, there has been “a wholesale reimagining of where and how work gets done.” None of the companies included in the study require employees to be in the office five days a week; some require two or three in-office days, while others let the employee decide and even others are fully remote. 

Unsurprisingly, policy informs utilization habits. Employees who are required to be in an office at least three days out of the week tend to show up more frequently than those without a minimum requirement, though the net difference is ultimately only 17 percent more occupancy. More interesting, the report suggests, is the way policy informs how people use the office. 

“At companies requiring attendance, people spend more time at their desk,” it observes. “Whereas those given a choice in where they work, tend to spend more time in the meeting spaces when they visit an office.”

​​“You Have Plenty of Space”

These usage patterns have serious implications. Cosgrove highlighted a striking incongruity between the data and her conversations with Density’s customers: even though desks are widely underused—sometimes because an employee will drop off their backpack and then go work somewhere else—tech companies often feel like they simply don’t have enough space to go around. 

“We look at the data and we say, you have plenty of space,” she said. “You just need to rethink how you're using it, and you need to be brave enough to encourage your employees to share. They’re not taking advantage of the opportunity to nudge someone and say, hey, if you're not going to use a desk all day, share it with someone else”

A related problem described by the report is that tech companies over-optimized for open plan offices which are no longer suited for evolving work habits. Informal collaboration spaces like lounges and cafes may be “perfect places to run into people for a quick chat,” it explains, “but they’re less than ideal for video calls and hybrid meetings.” 

Indeed—as most overseeing workplace planning and policy will know—it’s meeting spaces that are in high demand these days—partly because there’s an increased emphasis on video calls and hybrid meetings (not to mention good old-fashioned collaborative work), and also partly because employees often camp out in them as private offices. 

“They’re serving double duty both as places for groups to come together to collaborate and as places for individuals to find some quiet and privacy,” the report notes. “This phenomenon is more pronounced in smaller meeting rooms—the average four- or six-person meeting room is occupied by a single person half the time.”

The Importance of Intentionality and Leadership

This leads to one of the biggest problems identified by the report: adapting your policies to changing times only gets you so far when your office layouts remain the same. 

“Companies have pushed ahead with the low-hanging fruit, leaving the workplace mostly as it was before the pandemic,” it states. “In the best case, the space is inefficient and awkward. In the worst case, the space actively works against the company’s policy aims.”

Density and Hassell offer a range of solutions, ranging from small tweaks to large changes. As Cosgrove pointed out, though, a few small tweaks—like adding phone booths and quiet rooms, encouraging employees to share desks, and discouraging squatting in meeting rooms—may go a very long way. 

“We're not recommending that you go back to a sea of cubicles,” she said. “It’s about that variety of spaces.”

Her comments echoed Phil Kirschner’s, a Future of Work Expert, who was most recently with McKinsey’s Real Estate and People & Organizational Performance Practices team. In a recent webinar unpacking the report, he stressed that no workplace can be everything for everyone: instead of trying to account for every possible work pattern and ending up with an office of “B-” spaces, companies should pick three to five things for their office to do exceptionally well. 

“Really defining a purpose for why you have an office to begin with is simple to say and hard to do,” he said. “What is that place supposed to do? It can't do everything. You can’t please everyone all the time.”

A deliberate approach to tackling these challenges is worth the investment. 

“The workplaces that really do well are those that have a dedicated team—whoever’s in charge of community experience, having people help you understand how best to nudge you, how to use your space,” Cosgrove observed. 

Speaking from more anecdotal data-gathering, she added that the behavior of a company’s top leadership is a factor as well. 

“We Have a Responsibility”

It’s certainly no mystery why many tech companies may be hesitant to change their workspaces. 

“They might be waiting for leases to end, or work patterns to settle down, or capital to become available, or other companies to go first,” the report acknowledges. 

Despite these valid reasons to remain in a holding pattern, Cosgrove pointed out, change is ultimately what tech companies have always been good at. 

“Companies have been agile or experimenting with agile for a long time,” she said. “This is not a new concept, and it does work.” 

She argued that what’s needed now is a willingness to be uncomfortable for the sake of innovation and experimentation.

“There has to be some amount of comfort with employees being uncomfortable a little bit in order to make change,” Cosgrove said. “We're used to having more space. We were used to taking calls at home for so long during the pandemic. In order to get us back to a place where we're sharing and more efficiently using space, it's not going to feel great.”

But on the other side of discomfort, Cosgrove added, is joy. As workers get used to being together, in person once again, connecting meaningfully with colleagues should bring a tangible enjoyment—assuming the appropriate investments in physical space have been made.

There are also other ways that embracing discomfort will pay off. Every unused desk, every underutilized floor has a cost in money and electricity—a cost not only on companies, but on the world. 

“We have a responsibility as employees of companies and users of space to share them and look for ways to be more efficient, in order to reduce our impact on the environment,” Cosgrove concluded. “We should be packing it in and helping to save the earth.”