This blog was written by Wouter van 't Grunewold, Market Intelligence Analyst and Femke Boon, Facility Manager in Savills Property Management department in the Netherlands.

As often noted, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the use of office space in the Netherlands. For example, Het Financieele Dagblad devoted an article on 16 December 2022 to the low occupancy rate of offices, but is this a true reflection of the market?

The office is simply no longer used purely as a workplace, but to a greater extent also as a place for meetings and creative thinking. Employees prefer to go to the office for interactions – to meet colleagues and clients. By contrast, work that requires focus is often performed at home. This makes high-quality, future-proof and flexible office space particularly popular. After all, the office building increasingly functions as a company's signboard, attracting both customers and potential employees.

Data on the occupancy rate of a representative multi-tenant office building in Amsterdam's South Axis district (CBD) shows that office occupancy rates have steadily increased from 44.9% in May 2022 to 66.5% in March 2023. Interestingly, the occupancy rate has remained stable between 60% - 70% since September 2022.

If we look at the number of visitors per day in the period January 2023 - March 2023, we see that the office is most visited on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Friday is the least visited day, with the visitor count 11.9% lower than on the busiest day, Thursday. The fact that Fridays are the least popular is a trend we see across most of Savills management portfolio. For example, ING recently decided to close its head offices completely on Fridays.

Given the stability in occupancy rates in the last six months, Savills expects employees to have returned to the office to a reasonable extent. We do not expect a return to occupancy rates seen pre-COVID-19.

Additionally, when looking at the most recent office take-up figures, it clearly shows that office space in easily accessible locations is most in demand. This involves office space that meets occupiers' sustainability requirements and is often located near multimodal public transport hubs. A trend supporting a return to the above office type can be seen from the occupancy rates of offices managed by Savills.

So, how can building owners cope with this structurally lower occupancy rate? For a building owner, it is important to make the building as attractive as possible for its users.

Think of shared facilities in a building such as flexible meeting rooms, a gym, catering, etc. This is part of how a building owner makes it attractive for staff to come to the office because they can make use of these facilities. Thus, the office is not only a place to work and meet but the employee can, for example, combine work with sports. These shared facilities will make it more likely to attract workers back to the office.

In addition, clever use of technology can help improve occupier experience. For instance, flexible parking software can offer a solution to make more effective use of parking spaces and thereby offer more parking options to employees.

Finally, as a building owner, you can also make provisions so that your heating/AC and electricity are not used unnecessarily. An example of this is applying Smart Building sensors so that energy needs are met in a more targeted way. This gives users more control over energy consumption and makes it easier to monitor their own sustainability targets.