Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
In the coworking world, “busy” does not always mean “efficient.” Many operators track occupancy, but very few have a clear handle on office space utilization — how often their rooms, desks, and shared areas actually get used. This gap creates costly inefficiencies, missed revenue, and underperforming square meters.
Suppose you’ve been searching for how to utilize office space more effectively or want ideas for utilizing excess office space. Let’s break down the utilization problems most coworking operators don’t realize they have and how to fix them.
Why utilization matters more than occupancy
Occupancy tells you how many people are paying for your space. Utilization tells you how your space is actually being used. In coworking, that difference is critical.
A space can be 90% occupied yet still have meeting rooms that sit empty, breakout areas that bottleneck, or private offices that never reach their potential. Occupancy shows financial commitment, but utilization reveals operational performance.
Utilization gives coworking operators insight into:
- Which rooms earn their keep, and which quietly drain revenue
- Where demand exceeds supply, especially for small meeting rooms
- Which areas sit idle, even during peak hours
- How members actually move and work throughout the day
- Where to repurpose or resize rooms to increase return per square meter
- Where occupancy shows you “we’re full,” utilization shows you whether your space is performing at its best and where opportunities are hiding.
The 3 biggest underutilization patterns we see in coworking
1. Larger rooms that don’t earn their space
Big meeting rooms often look impressive but they’re among the most underutilized assets in coworking. If a 10-person room is only booked for 2–4 people most of the time, you’re losing potential revenue every day.
2. High-demand small rooms that are always fully booked
Small rooms (2–4 people) consistently show the highest utilization. When you don’t have enough of them, members experience friction and operators miss out on bookings because demand outpaces supply.
3. Shared spaces that aren’t tracked
Lounges, phone booths, collaboration zones, and kitchens are core to the coworking member experience, yet most operators don’t track how they’re used. Without proper office space utilization software, these areas are often mis-sized or under-optimized.
These insights are crucial for adjusting layout, improving comfort, and maximizing usage during peak hours.
How to repurpose underperforming rooms
When certain rooms in your coworking space aren’t used often enough, it doesn’t always mean you need more members – it usually means the room isn’t meeting real demand. Repurposing underperforming rooms is one of the fastest ways to improve office space utilization without expanding your footprint.
Here are practical ways to realign your space with member behavior:
- Split oversized meeting rooms into two or more small rooms, which are almost always in higher demand.
- Convert low-usage private offices into dedicated desks, hot-desking zones, focus rooms or day offices where utilization is more consistent.
- Convert rarely used training rooms or event spaces into multi-purpose or bookable collaboration areas.
- Turn quiet, low-traffic corners into focus pods or additional phone booths.
- Reconfigure boardrooms into flexible spaces that support workshops, team huddles, and hybrid collaboration.
These changes don’t require major renovations — just a willingness to reshape rooms based on how people actually use your coworking space day to day.
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The impact of wrong-sized meeting rooms on revenue
Meeting rooms only generate strong revenue when their size matches what people actually need. When they don’t, two things happen: rooms earn less than they should, and bookings quietly slip away.
Here’s why the wrong room sizes cost coworking spaces money:
1. Rooms that are too big underperform
A 10-person room booked by 2 people might look “used,” but it’s not earning what it could.
Large rooms are expensive to fit out, and when they’re used for small meetings, you lose the higher-value bookings they were designed for.
2. Rooms that are too small create bottlenecks
If your space lacks medium or large rooms, bigger teams have nowhere to go. They look elsewhere, and those missed bookings never appear in your reports — but they still impact revenue.
3. Mismatched layouts reduce usability
A room that only works for formal meetings has limited demand. However, a flexible layout (modular furniture, soft seating, hybrid setups) increases how many people can use it and how often it gets booked.
4. Member frustration grows when room sizes don’t align with demand
You end up with small rooms fully booked and large rooms sitting half-empty. That imbalance affects member experience and financial performance.
How the Coworking Compass scores and benchmarks utilization
The Coworking Compass Report was built by Nexudus to give operators something they’ve never really had before: a simple, data-backed way to see how well their space is performing compared to others in the industry.
Instead of relying on guesswork, the Compass Report uses global coworking data to analyze how effectively your space is being used and then benchmarks your utilization against similar, top-performing coworking spaces.
Operators who complete the assessment gain insight into:
- Gaps in space and resource utilization — identify underused rooms or inefficient layouts.
- Strengths and weaknesses in your operations — see what’s working well (and what isn’t) across your space.
- Strategic action items — receive tailored suggestions depending on whether your space is still building, growing, or already mature.
- Operational priorities across four key pillars — utilization, revenue, automation, and pricing.
- Benchmarking against global data — compare your performance to millions of bookings from over 90 countries to see how your space stacks up.
