An intelligent hot-desking model based on occupancy sensor data and its potential for social impact

Abstract

In this paper we develop a model that utilises occupancy sensor data in a commercial Hot-Desking environment. Hot-Desking (or ‘office-hoteling’) is a method of office resource management that emerged in the nineties hoping to reduce the real estate costs of workplaces, by allowing offices to be used interchangeably among employees. We show that sensor data can be used to facilitate office resources management, in our case desk allocation in a Hot-Desking environment, with results that outweigh the costs of occupancy detection. We are able to optimise desk utilisation based on quality occupancy data and also demonstrate the effectiveness of the model by comparing it to a theoretically ideal, but impractical in real life, model. We then explain how a generalisation of the model that includes input from human sensors (e.g. social media) besides the presence sensing and pre-declared personal preferences, can be used, with potential impact on wider community scale.