Hybrid working was supposed to make office use more predictable, but in practice, it’s done the opposite. Most organizations now have a version of a hybrid policy in place, but relatively few have a clear picture of how their offices are being used day to day.
The gap between planned use and actual use is where a lot of workplace decisions go wrong. Spaces get reconfigured based on assumptions, amenities get cut or consolidated in ways that don’t reflect real demand, and then people stop coming in, and nobody is quite sure why.
One of the clearest windows into office behavior is something most facilities teams already have access to but rarely think of as data: consumption. What people eat and drink, when and where, reveals a detailed picture of how an office functions.
The Gap Between Planned Use and Actual Use
Offices are still largely designed around daily attendance and predictable foot traffic through communal areas. However, these assumptions are no longer accurate.
What we are now seeing across sites is that attendance clusters heavily mid-week, while Mondays and Fridays tend to operate at a fraction of capacity. Within the mid-week boom, we usually see spikes around the morning and afternoon at the office coffee machine or fresh food vending machines, followed by a noticeable drop-off from mid-afternoon onward.
A significant proportion of employees are coming into the office for a defined reason, such as a team meeting, a focused work block, or a catch-up, and then leaving again within two or three hours. Full-day office working is less common than policies tend to assume, so amenities planned around a five-day headcount are often underutilized.
What Consumption Data Actually Shows
The data from workplace vending machines, commercial coffee machines, and micro markets doesn’t just track snacks and caffeine consumption, it maps out employee behavior.
Timing patterns and consumption logs consistently show hybrid workers arriving later than initially scheduled, with coffee machine activity peaking between 9:45 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.
Dwell time signals also emerge from purchase behavior. For instance, a single espresso points to a quick visit, whereas multiple transactions spread across the day, or a meal alongside a coffee, indicate a longer, more embedded presence.
Usage hotspots reveal where people actually gather, and consumption tends to concentrate around coffee stations and micro markets, which quietly function as the building’s social hubs. Consistently high transaction volumes in certain zones identify the real gravity of a space.
The data collected from business vending machines can also be used to highlight employee behavior versus stated intentions. Employee surveys routinely overstate office attendance, with people reporting they attend three days a week, while transaction records show two, usually Tuesday and Wednesday.
What people reach for when they’re in the building tells a more honest story than any return-to-office policy ever could.
What This Means for Workplace Design
If consumption data tells you how people are using your office, the next question is what to do with that information. For most hybrid environments, the implications are practical and immediate.
Breakout areas and collaborative spaces are most valuable when they’re positioned around where people naturally congregate. Coffee stations and micro markets consistently emerge as the center of office activity, so designing seating around these points, rather than tucking them into underused corners, better reflects how informal collaboration happens.
Kitchen and refreshment placement need more strategic thought than they typically receive. A well-placed, well-stocked refreshment point doesn’t just serve a practical need, it anchors people to a space and extends dwell time in ways that meeting rooms and hot desks rarely do.
The data also challenges the assumption that offices need to cater equally to every hour of the day. If activity consistently peaks mid-morning and drops sharply after 3 p.m., there’s a strong case for concentrating food and beverage options into those windows rather than spreading resources thinly across the full day.
Finally, the frequency of short, purposeful visits suggests that fixed desk ratios and full-day amenity planning may be calibrated to a pattern of office use that no longer reflects reality. Flexible spaces, drop-in areas, and lightweight refreshment options positioned near meeting rooms serve hybrid work far better than layouts inherited from a five-day week.
Practical Takeaways
If you’re responsible for a hybrid office environment and want to make better use of the data you already have, here’s where to start:
Don’t rely on attendance data alone. It doesn’t tell you how people are actually using the space.
Use consumption patterns as a basis for understanding real behavior. Purchase timing, transaction frequency, and location data reveal dwell time, arrival patterns, and where people gather.
Design your offerings around peaks, not averages. The days and times that consistently drive high consumption are where your office experience lives or dies.
Treat food and drink areas as experience infrastructure. The quality, variety, and placement of refreshment options directly influence how long people stay, how often they return, and how valued they feel.
Review the data regularly. Hybrid behavior shifts with seasons, team structures, and business cycles. A snapshot from six months ago may not reflect what’s happening now.
Hybrid Offices Aren’t Static
The organizations getting the most out of their office space right now aren’t necessarily the ones that have spent the most on redesigns. They’re the ones paying closest attention to how their spaces are being used and adjusting accordingly.
The teams and companies that treat their offices as something to be observed and responded to, rather than set and forgotten, will consistently create better environments, and consumption data is one of the simplest ways to start doing exactly that.
