Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Occupancy Planner

🎯 Role Definition

The Occupancy Planner is a strategic real-estate and workplace operations role responsible for analyzing, forecasting and optimizing how people and teams occupy company real estate. This role converts business headcount and team structures into practical seat plans, move projects and workplace strategies that maximize space utilization, control costs, and improve employee experience. The Occupancy Planner partners with Real Estate, Facilities, Human Resources, IT and business leaders to develop scalable occupancy models, maintain authoritative space data, manage moves and ensure compliance with seating standards and local regulatory requirements.

Ideal keywords: Occupancy Planner, space planning, workplace strategy, capacity planning, move management, space utilization, occupancy forecasting.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Facilities Coordinator or Facilities Analyst
Space Planning Technician or CAD/AutoCAD Drafter
Real Estate Analyst or Workplace Experience Associate

Advancement To:

Senior Occupancy Planner / Space Planner
Workplace Strategy Manager / Senior Workplace Strategist
Real Estate Portfolio Manager / Senior Facilities Manager

Lateral Moves:

Move Manager / Change Manager (Workplace)
Real Estate Operations Analyst
Workplace Experience or Employee Experience Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead end-to-end occupancy planning and space allocation for multiple sites or a global portfolio: gather headcount and team structure inputs, translate business requirements into seating standards and capacity models, and deliver optimized seat assignments and density plans aligned with workplace strategy and budget.
Build and maintain authoritative floorplate-level seating charts, CAD/Revit floor plans and digital plan sets that reflect current occupancy, future headcount scenarios, clear desk policies, and accommodation requirements for hybrid work models.
Conduct occupancy forecasting and capacity planning using historical utilization, headcount hiring plans and scenario modeling to identify surplus or deficit space 6–36 months out; provide actionable recommendations to Real Estate leadership.
Perform space utilization studies (sensor data, badge swipes, desk booking logs, and manual counts), synthesize findings into utilization metrics and trends, and recommend space reconfigurations or consolidation opportunities to optimize cost per employee and utilization rates.
Own move planning and execution for departmental relocations: develop detailed move plans, sequencing, packing/IT coordination, vendor scopes, risk registers and post-move validation to ensure minimal disruption.
Maintain and govern the CAFM/FMIS (e.g., Archibus, Planon, FM:Systems, Trimble) data model and occupancy master data; ensure data integrity across lease, asset and space inventories and integrate with HR headcount sources.
Produce and present monthly and quarterly occupancy dashboards and KPIs (occupancy rate, density, cost per workstation, desk utilization) using Power BI, Tableau or similar visualization tools to support portfolio governance and C-suite decisions.
Partner with HR and People Operations to align seating with org designs, new-hire onboarding, hybrid schedules and ADA/accommodation requests; ensure seating policies comply with corporate standards and local regulations.
Develop and implement seating standards, neighborhood design principles and workplace policies that balance collaboration, quiet focus, and flexible work requirements while controlling square footage per employee.
Translate lease expiries, renewal options and vacancy forecasts into strategic portfolio recommendations (sublease, right-size, renegotiate) in collaboration with Real Estate and Finance.
Lead cross-functional stakeholder engagements and governance forums (workplace councils, divisional moves committees) to prioritize space projects, resolve conflicts and socialize occupancy decisions.
Design and run scenario planning workshops to evaluate the financial and cultural impact of consolidation, expansion or hybrid work strategies; provide sensitivity analysis and recommended action plans.
Coordinate with procurement and vendors for furniture, signage, wayfinding, and move-related services; develop scopes of work, obtain quotes, and manage vendor performance and invoicing.
Execute detailed seat assignment and asset tagging processes, ensuring IT and facilities readiness for moves (network drops, power, provisioning) and updating CMMS/asset inventories post-move.
Create and maintain operational playbooks, move checklists, and standard operating procedures for occupancy planning, ensuring consistency across sites and continuity during staff turnover.
Manage workplace compliance and safety elements related to occupancy (eg. local code occupancy limits, emergency egress, social distancing guidance) and collaborate with EHS teams to remediate non-compliance.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives for space optimization through pilot programs (hoteling, touchdown zones, neighborhood models) and gather quantitative and qualitative feedback to scale successful patterns.
Support lease administration teams by providing accurate vacancy and occupancy forecasts that feed into financial modeling, budgeting and NPV calculations for lease decisions.
Conduct cost-benefit and ROI analyses for space reconfigurations, showing impacts on leasing costs, capital expenditures, operational savings and employee productivity.
Oversee the update and publication of wayfinding and seating documentation for employees and stakeholders — including interactive maps, desk booking integrations and FAQ resources.
Manage and mentor junior space planners, CAD technicians or contractors; allocate work, review deliverables and ensure adherence to corporate design and occupancy standards.
Ensure cross-system integrations (HRIS, CAFM, room booking systems, workplace apps) are accurate and automated where possible; partner with IT and data teams to enable single source of truth reporting.

Secondary Functions

Provide ad-hoc occupancy and utilization analysis to support executive reviews, M&A integration, or divestiture planning.
Support space budgeting and capital project prioritization by estimating renovation costs, fit-out timelines and move-related expenses.
Participate in workplace design reviews to ensure proposed layouts meet occupancy planning guidelines and future scalability requirements.
Assist corporate real estate in benchmarking portfolio performance against industry metrics and peer companies.
Contribute data and requirements for corporate sustainability and ESG reporting related to space efficiency and energy intensity per headcount.
Develop training materials and conduct sessions for building managers and local site leads on occupancy processes, seating policies and move protocols.
Support the implementation and configuration of space management and desk booking platforms, testing workflows, and documenting requirements.
Facilitate coordination with local property managers and landlords for move logistics, improving access and ensuring site readiness.
Maintain audit trails and documentation for occupancy decisions to meet internal controls and finance audit requirements.
Act as a contingency move director during high-impact relocations or emergency re-housing scenarios (eg. building incident, rapid team growth).

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced space management and occupancy modeling using CAFM/FMIS tools such as Archibus, Planon, FM:Systems or Trimble (experience maintaining space hierarchies, room and seat attributes).
Proficiency in CAD and Revit for producing and updating floor plans, as-built drawings and seat assignment overlays (AutoCAD/Revit drafting and markups).
Strong Excel skills including pivot tables, advanced formulas, dynamic arrays and scenario analysis; ability to build headcount models and sensitivity tables.
Data visualization skills with Power BI, Tableau or Looker to create executive dashboards, occupancy heatmaps and time-series utilization reports.
Familiarity with workplace reservation and hoteling platforms (Condeco, Robin, Teem) and ability to integrate booking data into utilization analyses.
Experience working with HRIS and headcount data sources (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle) and conducting data reconciliation to ensure single source of truth.
Basic SQL or data query ability to extract and join occupancy, booking and badge datasets for analysis.
Knowledge of lease terminology, vacancy calculations, and how occupancy forecasts impact lease and financial modeling.
Move management and project management skills: ability to create detailed Gantt schedules, resource plans, risk registers and run logistics for multi-site moves.
Familiarity with sensor-based occupancy measurement technologies and analysis (IoT, badge swipe analytics, occupancy sensors) to validate utilization assumptions.
Understanding of building codes, ADA compliance and workplace safety requirements that impact seating and capacity decisions.
Experience with space standard development and workplace strategy frameworks (neighborhoods, touchdown ratios, collaboration ratios).

Soft Skills

Excellent stakeholder management: ability to influence real-estate decisions with senior leadership and partner across HR, IT, finance and business units.
Strong verbal and written communication: present complex occupancy scenarios simply to executives and prepare concise move instructions for employees.
Analytical mindset with attention to detail and a comfort working with imperfect or incomplete data to produce defensible recommendations.
Project leadership and facilitation: run move committees, scenario workshops and cross-functional reviews to reach timely decisions.
Change management orientation: coach teams through seat reassignments and new workplace norms with empathy and clear messaging.
Problem-solving and negotiation skills when balancing competing space requests, budget constraints and timeline pressures.
Time management and prioritization: manage multiple concurrent moves and planning cycles with clear milestones and deliverables.
Continuous improvement mindset and curiosity: propose process automations and data quality improvements to elevate occupancy planning efficiency.
Collaboration and team mentoring: develop junior planners and vendors, providing clear feedback and standards enforcement.
Confidentiality and professionalism when handling sensitive headcount, org change and space allocation decisions.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Facilities Management, Real Estate, Architecture, Urban Planning, Engineering, Business Administration, Data Analytics, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Architecture, Facilities Management, Real Estate, Urban Planning or Business with concentration in workplace strategy.
Certifications such as Certified Facility Manager (CFM), Workplace Strategy Professional (WSP), or CAFM training (Archibus/Planon) are advantageous.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Facilities Management
Architecture / Interior Design
Real Estate / Urban Planning
Data Analytics / Business Analytics
Engineering
Project Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7+ years in space planning, workplace operations, facilities management or real estate operations (may vary by organization and portfolio size).

Preferred:

5+ years of progressive experience in occupancy planning, space management or workplace strategy in a corporate/hybrid/multi-site environment.
Demonstrated experience with CAD/Revit, CAFM systems, BI reporting and move management for medium to large portfolios (10,000+ seats preferred).
Track record of delivering space consolidation, utilization improvement, or major workplace transformation projects with measurable cost savings or utilization improvements.