Customer stories · Non-profit
A UK non-profit used booking data to find out its office was 26% booked and 3% used.
A 150-person charity replaced a spreadsheet and desk-numbering system with Kadence, brought people back to the office safely, and found the evidence to rethink how its space is laid out.
The situation
Before Kadence
- A traditional way of working upended by the pandemic, and a team working out how to move to hybrid and bring people back safely and efficiently
- Hybrid work managed through a clunky spreadsheet and a desk-numbering system, which was not working for 150 employees
- A need to control how many people were in the office at once and keep the building compliant with the distancing rules in force at the time
- A requirement that whatever replaced the spreadsheet had to work for everyone across the organization
What changed
With Kadence
- Occupancy managed in and out of the office, keeping real estate costs down as headcount grew
- Teams coordinated to come in on set days to even out office traffic across the week, with specific desks blocked where needed
- Usage data showing how much of the office was booked and how much was used, which opened up a reconfiguration for more collaborative space
- Personal Kadence and the employee directory letting staff see when colleagues will be in before they book
- Positive feedback from staff, few problems, and quick resolution from support when something came up
Bringing people back
For many employees the return to the office was a daunting prospect, and the charity’s first job was to manage it safely. With Kadence it could control how many people were in the building and which desks were in use, coordinate teams to come in on particular days so traffic was spread across the week, and block desks where distance needed to be kept. Over the first three months, daily occupancy rose steadily to 46%, which the team took as a sign that people were gaining confidence in coming back.
“When evaluating different solutions, it was clear to us how easy it is to roll out with Kadence, and we were confident that our entire staff would be able to use the app without much hassle.”
What the booking data showed
The more useful finding came from comparing bookings with actual use. Over the same three months, average booking capacity reached 26%, but overall occupancy was only 3%. Desks were being reserved and not used. Rather than treat that as a problem of attendance, the team saw it as information about the office: space set aside for individual desks that nobody sat at could be reconfigured for collaboration. With Personal Kadence and the employee directory, staff can now see when colleagues will be in before deciding when to book, which is expected to bring bookings and real occupancy closer together.
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