are we measuring the right things?

Puzzle Partners
Aug 11
8 min read

introduction

The way we think about and measure success in commercial real estate is at an inflection point, yet many organisations are still measuring success using metrics that are no longer serving us well. Landlords focus on asset yield and occupancy, tenants on cost and utilisation, while employees want places which provide autonomy and connection, with little alignment between them. So, as the purpose of workspace rapidly evolves, are we measuring the right things?

Puzzle has had the privilege of working across corporate and public sector for more than 20 years. (We turned 21 this year). We’ve helped our clients deliver more than 1,400 workspace projects across all manner of business functions, geographies and for all levels of government. This means we’ve seen the good the bad and the ugly in workplace projects.

Our focus is on finding the right approach and solution for each challenge, organisation and situation.

We’ve been reflecting on what key factors make great workplaces, that people are drawn to and do marvelous work in. We’ve also been reflecting on the differences in approach between public and private sector workplaces.

We are passionate about workplace being a space for people to thrive, and believe we need to continue to make Australia one of the best countries in the world to live in.

the purpose of workspace is evolving...

Originally workspace was a place people had to go to do the work (access to tools, systems etc).
Became a place for management to see and measure people doing the work.
With technology and pandemic innovations, for many roles, we can do much of the work almost anywhere.

But do we want to be using space that way?

Being together in the office and working with colleagues is particularly important for people who are new to the organisation, new to role or new to a team where in person mentoring and incidental development can be fostered.

"Monday & Friday are basically empty... It's a cost of doing business..."

What’s happening over in corporate?

Moving to the concept of ‘workplace as a service’.
Creating spaces and ‘enabling conditions’ for people to do the things they do best together or in the office.
Building clarity around expectations and alignment to the things which are important.
Landlords providing more (alternate spaces for co-working, collaboration & agile settings). We are seeing closer Landlord | tenant partnerships where they are working to common goals.

Some large corporates are actively managing space and the way we attend by involving business units more in space management, with an objective of increasing usage and attendance across all days of the week.

do we need to earn the commute

People make the effort to come to the office to engage with and be around other people.

As part of making the office a place that is attractive for people to come to, the amenity needs to be as good or better than home.

In Canberra right now, there are currently other challenges making this harder (light rail works causing disruption, parking acreage being reduced in key areas). The difficulty and cost of commuting in other cities is also a factor.

Over many years, wellbeing and amenity has been removed from public sector workplaces (indoor plants, end of trip services, tea, coffee, even milk).

Sadly, we’ve become conditioned that it is simpler to remove these things from workplaces than having a harder more holistic conversation about the workplaces we want to provision (and align with the broader private sector | community)

things we measure

It’s important to make sure our workspace design is effective and using taxpayer resource well.

These are important measures, to provide results & demonstrate progress. But, they don’t show if people are using the spaces.

If we’re designing & building efficiently, then people don’t want to come and use it, are we designing and building for effectiveness too?’

Key findings of the 2025 Occupancy Report highlight ongoing efficiency improvements in the use of the Commonwealth’s property portfolio.

the national occupational density reached 12.5m² per workpoint in 2025, down from 13.1m² in 2024.
58.3 per cent of tenancies met the occupational density target of 14m² per workpoint, up from 53.9 per cent in 2024.
work-point vacancy decreased to -5.8 per cent, meaning that staff exceed work-points in aggregate.

Source: 2025 Australian Government Office Occupancy Report for tenancies with 500m2 or more.

1. Occupational Density is the square metres of usable office area divided by the number of allocated workpoints.

what aren't we measuring

Attendance
Utilisation
What spaces people value
Why people come to the office
How well this is working

These measures are less uniform and need to be more tailored to individual organisations and needs.

Many organisations are also considering:

A person’s role versus the criticality of being more/less in the workplace around others and using workplace facilities
The emotional and wellbeing benefits/detractors of its workforce commute and workplace

the size of the opportunity

Let’s focus our modelling on the ACT federal government workplace. It’s more than half of the national footprint.

ACT has 85,450 public sector work points
They are utilised approximately 60% of the time
Annual cost is approx. $716.8m
40% of $716.8m = $286.3m

We are not suggesting this is a saving, but rather that we should explore ways to use this investment more effectively

Source: 2025 Australian Government Office Occupancy Report

It’s simplistic to say ‘come to work on Mondays and Fridays’ (and also clearly not working!).

Mandates don't work

The 2025 State of the Service research found that flexible working arrangements contribute to an APS workforce that is highly skilled, engaged and representative of the community it serves. In 2025, 80% of APS Employee Census respondents accessed some form of flexible working arrangement.

An unintended consequence of these factors has meant that we’ve created an environment where it is more comfortable (better individual choice and control of factors such as temperature, background noise, light and workspace settings) at home than it is in the office. In combination with removing most workspace amenity (tea, coffee, beverages, snacks, milk etc), we’ve removed some of the reasons that people would want to make the effort to be in the office.

We need to make spaces people want to use and support things which are better done in person together.

This means more variety in settings: more than only workstations or offices with a few meeting rooms, and more other settings which support connection, collaboration, mentoring, problem solving. Do we need to consider some different measures to the workplace effectiveness mix?

We also need to make sure it’s worth being in the office to be with other colleagues – making the effort to come into the office to work alone and collaborate virtually with others (who are working from home) isn’t compelling. This involves intentional people centred conversations about what matters, why and how to solve the challenge as a team.

public servants are people too

We know this is a contentious things to say for some audiences.

But seriously, we need to think about how we want to work, what the workplace needs to offer, and make sure we aren’t creating sectors of “haves” and “have nots”. The private sector has been working hard to create places people want to come to work. We need to do this in public sector workplaces too.

The Public Service Act 1999 requires the Australian Public Service to build and support a workforce that reflects the community it serves.

Are we creating workspaces for the public service which reflect those that the broader community use?

good coffee - workplace amenity or productivity opportunity?

There’s an interesting productivity opportunity conversation which also beautifully aligns with the amenity conversation.

We traditionally avoid providing coffee | tea | milk | other beverages for non-coffee drinkers in the office (is it a good use of taxpayer money)?

We decided to model what the productivity opportunity cost of not providing this might be (see call out box below for our conservative assumptions and workings).

500 person organisation
20 mins round trip for external beverage vs 10 minutes internally
60% daily attendance
50% of attendees go for 1 beverage break
25% of attendees go twice
Assuming average salary is APS5
($85,000 ATO source) = 0.68c / minute
This equates to around $1,537 per day improved productivity opportunity by providing good coffee (tea, hot chocolate, sparkling water) & the right work settings in the workspace.
220 working days per year = $338,250 opportunity
Now let’s extrapolate that back across 85,450 work points per annum. We have an opportunity of $57.8million in lost productivity

If we reinvest $2-3million to make workplace amenity better for public servants, we could realise $55 million productivity benefit.

trust

There is a growing body of research showing that feeling trusted by leaders and the organisation is strongly associated with higher employee engagement, better performance, greater workplace satisfaction, stronger commitment, and lower turnover intentions.

How do we measure this?

We know that organisation who trust their people (and especially where their people also trust them) have better retention, higher staff satisfaction (and better financial performance?)

Perhaps trusting people with good office amenity is a good start!

let's talk about good ideas, innovation and the policy engine room for the nation

People being together is a key factor in problem solving, innovation and developing new ideas to maturity and implementation.

Steven Johnson² in his writings and research identifies several recurring patterns that foster breakthrough ideas:

The Adjacent Possible

Innovation occurs at the edge of what is currently possible, where new combinations of existing ideas can emerge.

Example: Apple iPhone combined multitouch screens, mobile internet, miniaturised sensors, and app‑based software into a single device.

Liquid Networks

Environments that allow ideas to flow and connect freely, enhancing creativity through collaboration and exposure to diverse perspectives.

Example: MIT’s Media Lab, which intentionally creates a fluid, interdisciplinary environment where ideas from art, engineering, design, biology, and computing mix freely and produce breakthroughs that none of those fields could generate alone.

Slow Hunches

Many ideas start as incomplete or vague thoughts that require time and interaction to mature.

Example: Charles Darwin’s long development of evolutionary theory.

Serendipity + Change Encounters

Random interactions and unexpected connections often spark innovation, highlighting the importance of open, flexible environments.

Example: the discovery of penicillin

Error + Experimentation

Mistakes and trial-and-error processes can lead to new insights, reinforcing the value of iterative exploration.

Example: Post‑it notes exist after a scientist at 3M accidentally created a failed glue (not the super strong adhesive he was trying for). Another scientist years later realised that this “bad glue” was perfect for removable notes. Iterative exploration turned a mistake into a global product.

Exaptation

Ideas or technologies developed for one purpose can be repurposed for another, creating novel applications.

Example: microwave oven. Radar systems were developed for detecting objects using electromagnetic waves, especially in military and aviation contexts. Engineers observed that radar waves melted or heated food items placed near the equipment.

Platforms + Connectivity

Modern tools, networks, and collaborative platforms accelerate the recombination of ideas, making radical innovation more accessible today.

Example: COVID‑19 vaccines were built using platform technologies (like mRNA) and global connectivity networks (genomic databases, shared research platforms, distributed trials) that allowed scientists to recombine ideas at unprecedented speed. Without these platforms, the vaccines would not have arrived in under a year.

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Johnson_(author).

workplaces and innovation

How are our workplaces intentionally supporting these kinds of interactions?

Could we be considering things like:

Bump spaces
Connection & collaboration
Digital & analogue
User adjustable

How might we evolve the broader thinking about what good workplace in a public service context can be?

This is complex, and there is no silver bullet. To borrow a framework from the Australian Federal Police, we need the means the motive and the opportunity.

Like anything worth doing, it takes intention, effort, perseverance, alignment and a coalition of the willing. But to make it better, we need to start. We have the motive, we’ve demonstrated here that we can find the means, now we need to consider the opportunity.