After RTO: how organizations are optimizing workplace strategy in 2026

Six years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic left once-bustling workplaces largely deserted. Almost overnight, 42% of US employees found themselves working from home full time, according to research by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

This would prove to be just the beginning of a prolonged transformation in how people work.

Between 2019 and 2021, data from the US Census Bureau shows that the number of people in the US primarily working from home ballooned from 9 million to nearly 28 million. This abrupt shift in work models put office utilization in the spotlight. But even before the pandemic, many organizations struggled to understand how their space was actually being used. That challenge persists today, even though the return-to-office (RTO) push has subsided and work arrangements have largely settled.

This persistent issue – and the technology helping organizations address it – were at the center of “From Hybrid to RTO and Back Again: Optimization for Every Strategy,” a panel discussion at the recent Johnson Controls Digital Technology Conference. Featuring Johnson Controls leaders Jennifer Heath, Logan Petty and Neil Steele, the session explored how this sense of post-RTO stability may be obscuring the fact that the challenge of understanding how space is actually used has not gone away. 

“Since the pandemic, business leaders have been saying they want to see utilization back at pre-pandemic levels. Now, they’re saying, ‘We’re good. We're in the office all the time. It's fantastic,’” said Heath. “But the fact is that we’ve always overestimated how much people are really in the office. Utilization was never as high as they thought it was before the pandemic, and it’s not that high now.”

The panel kicked off with a look at how cultural and technology trends that began well before 2020 set the stage for today’s space management issues. They also explored how organizations can use data, analytics and intelligent systems to optimize space, improve usage and support evolving workforce needs – regardless of where employees are working.

The utilization challenges of flexible work pre-date the pandemic

As early as the mid-2010s, advances in cloud computing, mobile devices and global collaboration were already allowing more people to work from anywhere. At the same time, organizations were beginning to confront a persistent issue: empty offices. Even before the pandemic, many workplaces were operating far below capacity.

“In 2016, there were things happening in technology and in society that were enabling a different way of working,” said Jennifer Heath, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Johnson Controls. “So, even back then, the biggest challenge our customers were talking to us about was underutilized real estate.”

As organizations began adopting more flexible work models, they experimented with concepts like desk sharing, hoteling and activity-based workspaces – approaches designed to reduce excess capacity and better align space with actual demand.

Despite these shifts, most workplace decisions were still guided by assumptions rather than consistent, data-driven insights. As a result, many organizations continued to overestimate how their spaces were being used, setting up a growing disconnect between perceived and actual utilization.

A return to pre-pandemic workstyles

The workplace occupancy shock triggered by the pandemic made these earlier challenges seem inconsequential by comparison. What followed was a prolonged period of experimentation; organizations tried to entice employees back to the workplace, rethought office footprints and invested in digital tools to support distributed teams.

By late 2024 and into early 2025, many organizations began implementing or expanding stricter attendance policies. Employers from Amazon to SAP shifted from incentives to RTO mandates in an effort to reestablish consistency, better utilize office space and recapture the benefits of in-person collaboration.

Today, work arrangements have faded from the headlines, and most organizations report that attendance has stabilized. According to the 2026 AI & Digitalization report, 95% of employees are now in the office three or more days per week.

Measuring the gap between perception and reality

The panelists pointed out that the disconnect between perceived and actual space usage is not just anecdotal. It’s measurable.

“The assessment without the data always tends to be higher than the reality that the data paints,” said Neil Steele, Senior Director of Global Commercial Digital Sales at Johnson Controls. “We would ask clients, ‘What do you think your utilization is?’ and they would say 75%. Then we would measure the utilization manually and find that it’s actually 40%.”

That kind of gap has significant implications – not just for space planning – but for cost, energy use and long-term real estate strategy. Even as organizations increased office attendance requirements in 2024 and 2025, occupancy levels did not always rise proportionally.

“One organization switched their work model, requiring employees to come in an extra day. They should have seen a 20% increase in utilization, but the actual change was 2%. It barely changed at all,” said Heath. “The leaders of that company are making energy, facilities management and maintenance decisions based on the idea that there's going to be a 20% increase in utilization, and there isn't. They're making assumptions and they're paying for those assumptions because they're not rooted in reality.”

The importance of aligning space with intent

Another key insight from the panel is that workplace strategy cannot be separated from how employees actually use the office.

The panel emphasized that different work models fundamentally change space demand:

• When employees are in the office more frequently, individual workspaces are used more heavily
• When attendance is limited to a few days per week, demand shifts toward collaboration spaces

This dynamic means organizations must continuously reassess not just how much space they have, but what kind of space they provide. A static approach to workplace design no longer works in a dynamic environment.

“If your utilization changes, your space requirements change,” added Heath. “You have to align your strategy with that intent. The question is, how do you get all that utilization data?”

Why utilization data is foundational

Throughout the discussion, one point remained consistent: optimization starts with visibility.

Utilization data – captured through sensors, booking systems and analytics platforms – provides the foundation for smarter decisions across:

• Space planning
• Energy management
• Maintenance and operations
• Employee experience

Without it, organizations risk managing buildings based on assumptions rather than actual behavior.

“So many organizations are working based off of assumptions, and there is a lot of cost and energy and space that is sort of hanging in the balance of those assumptions,” said Heath. “No matter what strategy you're embracing, you need that objective utilization data to understand how to best operate and optimize your space, your energy usage, your maintenance crews. All of it needs to be informed by that utilization data.”

The panel also highlighted the growing role of AI in making this data actionable – helping organizations move from simply understanding usage patterns to identifying opportunities for improvement automatically.

“People are wowed by the data. It’s such an eye opener, and there’s such granularity. But then they’ll often say, ‘So what?,’” said Steele. “I think that’s where the AI wave comes in to make some suggestive options for how it could be implemented. And again, that’s why it’s so important to have the benefit of the IoT technology, the number of data points, the accuracy, the reliability. When you have that granular data, the reality behind the statistical facts is hugely important.”

How sensors turn data into action

While space usage data is foundational, the panel emphasized that capturing accurate, real-time data requires the right underlying infrastructure – particularly sensor technology.

Logan Petty, Product Manager at Johnson Controls, highlighted that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. “We work with you to better understand your use cases to be able to supply the best sensors,” she said. “We offer a range, from desk sensors to people counters to open-area and environmental sensors.”

These technologies provide different layers of visibility. Desk sensors can determine whether a workspace is occupied, while people counters track movement through buildings and floors. Environmental sensors add another dimension, capturing factors like CO₂ levels, temperature and humidity.

“We actually marry this data with our utilization sensors,” Petty explained, noting that combining environmental and occupancy data can reveal important patterns – such as how crowded meeting spaces impact comfort and air quality.

This level of detail is critical. While tools like Wi-Fi tracking can provide a high-level view of building occupancy, sensors deliver the workspace-level, real-time insights needed to understand how individual spaces are used and make informed decisions about how to optimize them. This is where utilization data becomes utilization analytics – turning occupancy information into actionable insights that support better workplace decisions.

Measured – not mandated – is the future of successful work models

As workplace strategies have evolved over the past decade, one thing has become clear: there is no single “right” model. Fully remote, hybrid and in-office approaches can all succeed, but only when supported by the right data, tools and operational discipline.

“We want to uncover opportunities to improve performance across space, scheduling and experience. We want to understand bookings versus actual utilization. People are reserving spaces, are they really using them? Are people using spaces but not reserving them? There's a disconnect in some of the actions versus what we expect,” said Heath. “The actual utilization of your space should be the lens through which energy, capital expenditure and operational decisions are made.”

The next phase of workplace transformation will not be defined by mandates or perks. It will be defined by an organization’s ability to continuously measure, adapt and optimize its environments in line with business priorities.

Frequently asked questions

1. What is office utilization, and why is it important for workplace strategy in 2026?

Office utilization is a measure of how often desks, meeting rooms, collaboration areas and other workplace spaces are actually used compared with their available capacity. In 2026, office utilization matters because many organizations have stabilized return-to-office attendance without fully understanding how their spaces are really being used. Accurate utilization data helps workplace leaders make better decisions about space planning, real estate costs, energy use, maintenance and employee experience. Instead of relying on assumptions or badge data alone, organizations increasingly use workplace analytics, occupancy sensors and booking data to understand real usage patterns and align workplace strategy with business needs.

2. How do sensors and workplace analytics improve office space planning?

Sensors and workplace analytics improve office space planning by providing real-time, objective data on how spaces are used across a building or portfolio. Desk sensors, people counters and environmental sensors can show which spaces are occupied, when demand peaks, how meeting areas perform and whether environmental conditions affect comfort or productivity. This level of insight helps organizations identify underused spaces, redesign layouts, adjust seating strategies and support hybrid work models more effectively. It also helps facilities and real estate teams move from static planning to continuous optimization based on actual behavior rather than estimates.

3. How does AI help organizations optimize workplace performance after return-to-office?

AI helps organizations optimize workplace performance by analyzing large volumes of utilization, occupancy, environmental and booking data to identify patterns and recommend actions. After return-to-office policies, many companies still face gaps between expected attendance and actual space use. AI can help surface those gaps faster, highlight underperforming spaces, predict future demand and suggest improvements to scheduling, space allocation, energy management and operations. When combined with accurate sensor data and workplace analytics, AI enables organizations to move beyond simple reporting and take more proactive, data-driven steps to improve workplace efficiency, employee experience and portfolio performance.