Office ENVIRONMENTS

Commercial spaces account for 20 percent of energy consumption in advanced economies such as the United States and and approximately one-sixth of energy consumption in developing economies.34 Around half of this energy is consumed in office spaces and much of it is wasted by heating, cooling, and lighting unoccupied offices. Intelligent energy management systems can be used to automatically sense when a room is unoccupied or occupied and adjust heating or cooling and lighting as needed.

Security cameras have been used to monitor activity in office buildings for many years. With IoT technology, such as pattern-recognition software, these security systems can be far more effective and less costly. Rather than having a security employee monitor the feed from cameras, an intelligent system can automatically detect anomalous patterns in the video data and immediately alert authorities of a possible intrusion. Such security systems can reduce the cost of human observation needed by 20 to 50 percent, leading to a potential savings of more than $6 billion in 2025.

IoT technology also enables companies to monitor activities of their mobile employees more closely and use the information collected for performance management. For example, companies could track the activities of field sales reps and implement performance improvement programs for each one

Today, organizations conduct periodic surveys of office workers to assess organizational health and use the results to make improvements in job design and processes. In the future, companies could use badges or fitness monitors (probably on an opt-in basis) to track activity and interactions among employees. Employers could use the insights to identify areas for improvement.