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Technology is changing our behaviors. More than 2 billion people now use cell phones along with an estimated 50 million PDA’s and 3.2 million Blackberries. We send an astounding 9 trillion emails a year.

Because technology enables us to do so, professionals are increasingly spending each day working out of several different locations, leaving personal workstations unoccupied for much of the work day. Carole Kassir-Garcia, a senior interior designer at Seattle's Collins Woerman, says their research shows that "people are away from their desks 40 to 60 percent of the time. They're traveling, in meetings, telecommuting, in collaborative spaces," not to mention taking the occasional vacation day.  

As a result, real estate is being reallocated. A recent survey of Fortune 500 real estate professionals conducted by CoreNet Global, the Atlanta-based association of real estate executives, found that 65% of those surveyed have stopped providing an assigned workspace to at least 10% of their workforce. The percentage is expected to grow to 25% by the end of the decade.

Whether people work in a dedicated space or at a different "hot desk" every day, the performance of that particular workspace is pivotal to organizational success because it's not just a personal workspace, it's a place where collaboration takes place: where we meet with coworkers who drop by to seek an opinion, bounce ideas around, ask for information or ideas. Knowledge work today demands this collaboration. Tasks are more complex than ever before and require the thinking, opinions and ideas of a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. The work requires the attention of not just one person, but several.

Making all the spaces that comprise the workspace more effective begins with understanding how and where employees are spending the majority of their time.