Customer stories · Government
Denbighshire County Council backed its office consolidation with occupancy evidence.
A county council replaced days of manual reporting with live occupancy dashboards, and used them to right-size its estate and its hybrid policy.
The situation
Before Kadence
- Pressure to cut real estate costs, streamline services and set a hybrid policy, with no visibility of who was using which office, when
- Manual, fragmented reporting that took hours or days to prepare for leadership
- Office sites already reduced, with no evidence to show whether the consolidation had gone too far or not far enough
- Ghost bookings inflating usage figures, and leadership working from assumptions about peak days
What changed
With Kadence
- Insights Plus dashboards giving leadership on-demand visibility of building usage, departmental movement and occupancy trends
- Past consolidation validated and further savings identified from which buildings were heavily used and which were not
- Hybrid policy set around measured attendance rather than assumed peaks
- Ghost bookings reduced through live availability and more flexible booking options
- Spaces redesigned around how departments collaborate and where privacy is needed
From days of reporting to minutes
Before Kadence, facilities managers spent hours reconciling spreadsheets and piecing together reports for leadership, and the figures were out of date by the time they were read. Insights Plus dashboards are always current, so reports that once took days are available in minutes, and the team has reclaimed staff hours every month for strategy and employee support. Leadership approvals are faster because the evidence is already there when a decision is raised.
What the data overturned
Leadership believed Wednesday was the busiest day in the office. The data showed Thursday was the real peak. Aligning hybrid policy to measured attendance rather than the assumed pattern improved fairness between teams, and adoption and trust rose with it.
The data also showed how much apparent occupancy came from desks and rooms booked “just in case”. Live visibility of availability and more flexible booking options reduced those ghost bookings, so usage figures now reflect real attendance and staff can trust that a booked space will be free.
Consolidation and redesign on evidence
The council had already reduced its office sites but could not prove whether the cuts were right. Insights Plus showed which buildings were heavily used, which were under-used and how departments moved between neighborhoods, which validated the earlier consolidation and pointed to further savings without leaving staff short of space. The same data showed how departments collaborate, where privacy is most needed and which areas consistently went unused, and the facilities team redesigned spaces around that behavior. With evidence behind each decision, the council can right-size its portfolio and adjust services as demand changes, rather than fit employees into a fixed structure.
“Kadence takes away the guesswork. We finally have the evidence to make the right decisions for our people and our spaces.”
Next step
See what Kadence would do with your floors.
Thirty minutes with a workplace strategist. Bring a floor you are unsure about.