Tuesday is always full
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the hot desk floor is packed. Members arrive after ten and find nowhere to sit, and some work from the kitchen. On Fridays, the same floor is almost empty. The sales team has been selling flexible memberships on the assumption that members come in a couple of days a week. Nobody has checked how true that is.
Members start complaining in the community Slack channel. One cancels, saying they cannot rely on getting a desk.
Why capacity is guessed
Flexible membership is a bet on members not all coming at once. That bet is sound when you know attendance patterns. Most operators do not, because the data is there but nobody joins it up.
| Data you already have | What it could tell you |
|---|---|
| Door access logs | Who arrived and when, by day |
| Desk bookings, if used | Planned attendance ahead of the day |
| Wifi connections | How many devices are on site by hour |
| Membership plans | How many members could come |
| Day pass sales | Extra demand on top of members |
None of these on its own answers the question. Put together, they show how busy each day is, and how busy it is likely to be next week.
What guessing costs
Members who cannot find a desk on busy days feel short-changed and leave. Sales keeps selling into days that are already full. Day passes are sold on busy days when they should be steered to quiet ones. And on the quiet days, you are heating and cleaning a floor for a few people, with no idea whether an offer might fill it.
Decisions about the space are harder too. Whether to convert some hot desks into dedicated desks or a meeting room, or whether to open a second floor, depends on attendance nobody measures.
Operators with more than one site feel it differently at each. One site is full by nine every Tuesday, another never passes half full. Without attendance data per site, the sales team offers the same flexible plan everywhere, and members at the busy site pay the price.
The attendance picture we build
- Door access logs are read through your access system's API, and each entry is matched to a member and their plan. Wifi connection counts can be added as a second signal.
- Attendance is shown by day of week and hour, per floor or zone, alongside the number of desks.
- A simple forecast for the coming weeks uses recent patterns and any desk bookings already made, and flags days likely to be full.
- Day pass sales are limited on days forecast to be busy, and suggested for quiet ones.
- The sales team sees the attendance picture before selling more flexible memberships, and your team decides the limits.
- Members can see how busy the space is likely to be today and this week in the member app or a simple web page.
Personal attendance data is handled under your privacy notice, and reports for decision-making are shown in aggregate rather than per member.
What the community team gets
The team knows which days will be tight and can prepare, by opening an overflow area or steering day passes elsewhere. Members can pick quieter days. Sales decisions are based on real attendance. And decisions about the layout of the space are made on evidence rather than impressions.
It also helps the conversation with members who complain. Instead of an apology, the team can show the quieter days and suggest a dedicated desk if the member needs certainty.
Is this your hot desk floor?
- Some days there are more members than desks.
- Other days the floor is almost empty.
- Nobody knows real attendance patterns.
- Sales keeps selling flexible plans without checking capacity.
- Members have left because they cannot get a desk.