Zoom, of all organizations, understands distributed work. But like every company with an office lease, they’re trying to figure out how to make the best use of that investment. In-person time still matters, but real estate costs are no longer formulaic. So how can companies make more data-driven decisions about what to do with offices? Here are 3 metrics Atlassian uses to make sure we’re spending on real estate in a smart way: 1. Cost-per-visit: How much does it cost each time an employee visits an office? (Divide the total cost of operating the office by the total number of visits in a quarter; compare your cost per visit from pre to post pandemic, and flag any office where the cost per visit is 3x higher than pre-pandemic) 2. Visitor Engagement: How many employees come into an office and for what purpose? Look at what type of work they’re doing (collaborative or deep, individual work), how often they’re coming in (frequency based on anonymized IP addresses), and if they’re local or traveling in for an offsite. 3. Utilization: Do you have the too much square footage? (Divide average daily number of visits to an office by the capacity of that office — to find capacity, assume 150 sq ft per person / total square footage) We used these metrics to reduce our office footprint in some places, and grow our footprint in others. By continuously monitoring our office ROI, we’re able to offer employees a cost-efficient place to collaborate, without mandating in-office attendance.
Dave C.
2y
Great bullet points to consider. However, I would say offices, for software development especially, were never formulaic. It's just now that people are coming around to the fact they can get work accomplished, in many cases more work, than previously imagined - being a truly global company opens up so many possibilites.
Thank you Annie Dean always sharing insightful and value oriented content!
Greg Wilson
2y
Echoing Kevin Killingsworth's point, it's unfortunate that the cost to employees (extra time away from family, commuting cost, increased risk of COVID exposure, etc.) isn't one of your metrics.
Erik Adler
2y
As always, excellent points Annie! How do you get a consistent, reliable insight into the type of work people are doing?
Great post! Another metric would be the amount of time lost in commuting that could be applied to working efficiently and mental well being of the employees
Shrewd metrics 👏🏻
A great set of straight forward principles...do you apply any occupancy ratio targets to your capacity planning or is it only visits based? At my last organisation the default when designing was 1.5:1 but my department ended up closer to 2.5:1 for our space own space allocation requests.
Obviously, as an Atlassian employee who is a massive WFH-er and has been since 2009 (I've left jobs where WFH was off the table), I'm biased, but to me the thing about this that is so thoughtful is that real estate, like anything else in business, is an investment based on a desired outcome. If the desired outcome is to have employees have the option to work anywhere, then real estate is not going to be something companies over invest in, right? The thing I find wild about this is Zoom making employees come to the office as a way to offset an over investment in real estate, as tho that is part of the price an employee has to pay for the company.
Karine MATHIEU, PMP® I think you would find this insightful.
Founders 👊 Roam Founder, Yext Founder, Confide Founder.
2y100% of scaled companies are distributed.