Workplace Metrics

In order to understand how many functional workplaces there are within an office environment, Reworc works with different space metrics:


  • Primary workplaces – the number of workplaces that conform with occupational health and safety legislation such as having an adjustable chair, having access to daylight, having a minimum amount of space per workstation. Examples could include an open workstation, or enclosed offices.
  • Secundary workplaces – All other seats in the workspace, excluding the primary workplaces. To get a clear insight in how comfortable people can work in an activity-based manner, Reworc does not only calculate the absolute number of seats, but also a weighted number of seats:
    • Absolute secundary seats – the count of secundary seats, in which each seat counts as 1.
    • Weighted secundary seats – the count of secundary seats in which each seat is valued, based on its quality and actual usage.
      • Quality: How long can someone comfortably use this seat (baring in mind occupational health standards)?
      • Actual usage: How is the seat used? Many seats in an office are used below their maximum capacity, examples follow:
  1. A 6-person meeting room can be used by 4 people. The 2 remaining chairs cannot be used by others at the same time.
  2. Seats in a breakout zone are used at almost full capacity during lunch breaks. During the rest of the day people will have informal meetings in this space, but typically it won’t be as busy during the rest of the day.
  3. If someone is working at a desk in a silent zone and they receive a phone call, they move temporarily into a phone booth. During this time some of his belongings may be at the desk, and the desk is nat available for others to use: 1 person occupies 2 seats.

An example valuation can look as follows: seats in a meeting room or touchdown table can count as 0,5, a seat in a restaurant can count as 0,1.

  • Flex capacity refers to the difference between absolute and weighted number of seats, this capacity is needed to be able to work activity based with choice between different available space types.

Workplace sums

  • Primary workplace count – Sum of primary workplaces
  • Weighted workplace count – Primary workplaces (weighted as 1) + the sum of weighted secundary seats. This shows the functional number of workplaces.
  • Capacity – This is the total amount of seats in the work environment (primary + absolute secundary seats). It shows the number of seats independent of the quality of the seats, and actual usage of the space is not taken into account.

From sum to factor

The factor is calculated through dividing the sum of seats through the number of FTE assigned to the seats.


The key metrics in an example

The example on the right of this page shows how different spaces relate to one another within the key metrics. It shows that some secundary seats are partially counted in the weighted workplace count, and partially as flex capacity. All seats however fall within the total capacity.


If you’d allocate the spacetypes in the example to 16 FTE, you’d get the following factors:

  • Primary workplace factor: 8/16 = 0.5
  • Weighted workplace factor: 17/16 = 1.1
  • Capacity factor: 29/16 = 1.8