In the shift to hybrid work, organisations rolled out workplace booking and management systems to solve a very real problem: initially, how to get people safely back into the office – then; how to give people flexible, fair access to the spaces they need – without fixed desks, assigned seating, or (sometimes) guaranteed in-office days.
The goals were clear.
👨💼👩💼For people: these tools were meant to make it easier to find a desk, meet with teammates, and get the right space for the work they’re doing whilst not being in the office every day.
🏢🏦For businesses: they promised powerful data collection, smarter space planning, better office experiences, and meaningful insight into how the workplace is actually being used.
But too often - and through no particular fault - these systems haven’t delivered.
Instead of enabling the office and real estate decisions, they’ve added friction. Many tools require too many clicks, don’t reflect how people actually move through their day, or rely too heavily on users to manually check in or book space in advance.
And even where booking tools exist, a deeper problem persists: desks are still often permanently allocated to individuals or teams who may only be in the office two or three days a week. That static assignment undermines any attempt to improve space efficiency - because it removes those desks from the usable pool, whether or not they’re actually used.
In offices with poor space management hygiene, the indicated usage can be very different than the actual usage - reducing the quality of data and office experience.
The result? Low utilization and high hidden vacancy, even in a seemingly “busy” office. People come to the office and find "busy" areas completely empty, providing a poor experience.
😐When adoption suffers — or when systems fail to adapt to real behaviour — so does the quality of the data captured. That leaves CRE leaders making big decisions on flawed information.
📊 Without reliable data inputs, it’s impossible to know how much space is really needed by which team and when, how and where teams are collaborating, or how well the office is performing as a value-add workplace.
The result is a broken feedback loop.
People don’t see the value in booking space, so they stop using the system.
That undermines the data, which makes it harder to improve the workplace — which in turn gives people even fewer reasons to engage.
It’s not that people don’t want to use the workplace or what it offers — it's just that the tools on offer don’t make the juice worth the squeeze.
Where It Breaks Down: The Experience Gap
Even when workplace booking systems are deployed with the right goals in mind, they often fall short in solving the most critical piece of the puzzle: experience.
Not just the interface, but the entire journey of engaging with the workplace. From deciding to come in (or being told to come in), to finding a desk, to locating your team, to organising your day, finding lunch, a quiet place for your calls - experience is the thread that ties it all together.
And when that experience doesn’t feel seamless or worthwhile, people disengage.
1. If the Booking Experience Creates Friction, People Opt Out
Systems often ask users to jump through multiple hoops just to reserve a desk or room. When booking feels more like a chore than a convenience — with too many steps, unclear confirmations, or irrelevant filters — people stop using it. And once that habit breaks, it’s hard to rebuild.
That’s to say nothing of remembering to check in and out when you get there.
2. People Don’t Book When They Don’t See the Point
In many offices, utilisation is periodically (or permanently) low and people know there is very likely space available, so they don’t bother booking in advance. This casual behaviour can have real consequences though:
❌ You can’t find your colleagues if no one is booking
❌ Accurate capacity planning becomes guesswork (and no – badge data alone is not reliable)
❌ Facilities teams lose visibility over not only the total utilisation rate of space – but specifically, which resources are most popular and how unique teams use space
The perception that “I don’t need to book” ends up breaking the systems that rely on consistent input — and worsens the experience for everyone else.
3. Workplace Tools Don’t Match How People Actually Work
Systems often assume a tidy, linear workflow:
"decide to come in → book → check in → work."
Hybrid work is fluid. People make decisions last-minute, adjust plans during the day, or want to sit near whoever from their team is in. Tools that can’t adapt to that reality create friction instead of flow, making the workplace feel more rigid than flexible.
4. Generic Space = Generic Experience
In a truly hybrid workplace - who’s in, where they are, which space belongs to which team - changes every day.
Often, space booking systems don’t reflect that or don’t empower people to easily know where to go for the best experience. They treat every user the same, offering a generic experience that ignores team dynamics, collaboration needs, and personal working styles.
Context is limited, connections aren’t easily enabled, and value can be limited. When the office doesn’t feel like it is relevant to you, you stop showing up - and the system stops working for everyone.
5. Manual Systems Undermine the Experience
When users are expected to manually book, check in, or log their location, errors and gaps are inevitable. People forget. Or they skip it because “no one else is doing it” - or they just can’t be bothered. This not only undermines the data, but breaks features like wayfinding, space availability, and team visibility. The more effort a system demands, the less likely people are to engage - and the harder it becomes to deliver a great workplace experience.
The Impact of a Broken Experience
When workplace management tools don’t align with the way people really work, the consequences impact the whole organisation – output can suffer, workplace value isn’t realised and people can feel disconnected and/or irritated.
People experience friction: clunky systems, unnecessary steps, unclear value. They disengage - from the software, from the process, and often from the office itself when they don’t see value.
Facilities, CRE and IT teams lose visibility: without accurate data, it’s impossible to understand how spaces are used, what’s working, or what needs to change. Tools like colleague finders or team-based layouts lose their power when no one is consistently using the system. Things like badge data don’t cut it as substitutes for real data collection.
Leadership is left in the dark: without reliable insight into attendance patterns, preferences, or usage trends, workplace strategies become reactive at best and expensive mistakes at worst. Demands for the office to be about “collaboration” and “visibility” go unsatisfied as there isn’t really a clear way to bring the people that need to be together, together.
The result is a workplace that feels disconnected, underused, and hard to manage - even though the intention was the opposite.
To get workplace strategy right in 2025, the experience matters more than ever.
The experience of being in the office has to be both seamless and engaging. It really needs to enable people to achieve the goals set out by leadership for being in the office.
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The experience of using the tools needs to be seamless and effortless.
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The experience of moving through the office needs to be guided and easy.
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The experience of finding your team, your focus space, your reason to be there.
When those experiences work in harmony, people show up — and the workplace delivers real value.
When they don’t, it’s just another system people avoid, and another missed opportunity your business can’t afford with two such expensive asset groups – people and places.
Contact us today to learn more about how askAiB can improve the quality of your office experience and how our automation features can remove the need for users to remember to book, check-in and automatically know where to be to see their team!
