Because I like to stay in bed a little longer while on holiday, I walked to the pool around half past one in good spirits. Once there, I saw to my surprise that all the sunbeds were already occupied. I was immediately annoyed. Why does this hotel have so few beds? When I looked closely, I saw that all the beds were covered with a just a beach towel and that only a handful of people were actually present at the pool.
I don’t think I am the only one who gets frustrated about this. In fact, it appears that 80% of Dutch holidaymakers are annoyed by the same thing.
What is annoying is that we do not only experience this on holiday, but also in the office. In the office it is not 30 degrees and we obviously do not have a swimming pool, but with a bit of creativity you can swap workplaces for those sunbeds, and exchange the towels for reservations. Then we end up in a similar situation.
Imagine you want to schedule a meeting with one or more colleagues and you see that all meeting rooms are occupied. However, a walk through the office shows that this is not the case. Most rooms are empty and are the 'victims' of a no-show. In other words: the towels are on the chairs, but in fact no-one is there.
Employees get annoyed quickly. And because they feel that there is a lack of space, they complain. In many cases we see that workspaces within an organisation are not always used efficiently. In fact, the average workplace occupancy is often only 50%.
