As more and more companies are starting to embrace the benefits of implementing proptech, so too are they starting to accumulate more data about their properties and portfolios. To paraphrase Dan Ariely’s famous 2013 quote on the use of big data, property companies are not only talking about data, they are starting to use it and are aware that others are too. However, this doesn’t mean that using data in property isn’t challenging or beset with problems. There are many minefields to avoid out there – not least when it comes to using data obtained about people occupying your building or portfolio. The key is to always keep one eye on why you are measuring data and to be clear and transparent about its use, and above all else to use data ethically. The question is, how?
The benefits of obtaining information about a property are clear to many. It helps provide useful insights about what makes a property successful, whether to buy or sell an asset, whether a particular service is popular and how can it be replicated. As Drucker said over 40 years ago, what gets measured gets improved and now, more than ever, there are many things to measure.
Yet creating a coherent, data-rich platform with which to measure and present data is very difficult; there are many technical issues to overcome. How to collate, categorise, obtain and store data is beset with numerous challenges – all of which may be part of the reason why property companies haven’t yet fully embraced the opportunities. This is often held as yet another example of the world of property being slow to adapt to a digital world.
Yet the possibilities for using data in property offer a tantalising opportunity to gain additional insight into how property is actually used. Quite rightly, achieving net zero carbon is the significant target for a lot of real estate companies but while energy is frequently measured, rarely is it compared to how many people are actually using the space. With the BCO study showing that most desks are only occupied around 40-50% of the time – this means that there are a lot of spaces using energy inefficiently.
I often hear about real estate owners and occupiers ‘tracking’ the movement of workers in offices and almost always wince internally. I don’t like it, because the term ‘tracking’ is what hunters do when seeking prey, and to me this sends entirely the wrong message to the people using the building. Whether you feel like you are being tracked is heavily linked to Robert McGregor’s theories around motivation, whether you are Theory X or Theory Y.
Here McGregor believes that all humans are either Theory X – you believe that humans have little ambition, avoid responsibility and are individual goal orientated. You will tend to believe that your staff are lazy and work only for income. The opposite is true if you are Theory Y. You believe that workers enjoy their job and are motivated by the contribution they make to their company. When it comes to using sensors and data in a building then I think the same is true. You either believe that the use of data is somehow going to be used against you – for example, your boss noting that you are five minutes late, or it is for the greater benefit.
Covid-19 is undoubtedly going to shift a great deal of thinking about how and where we work. At the time of writing one of the government’s great hopes is the widespread take-up of the NHSX app to tell if they have been in contact with someone who has a confirmed case of the virus. The app will use a phone’s Bluetooth signal to understand who has been in contact with other people and will therefore know where you have been. This may mean that there is a wider acceptance in the use of data in our daily lives, but for others such as the singer M.I.A. she stated that she would rather ‘die than be chipped’.
What all of this highlights for me is how important it is to drive an ethical code of using data in real estate, and it is important that landlords are clear and transparent in the use of data. Fortunately there is already a useful guide; The Real Estate Data Foundation led by the excellent Dan Hughes has already asked its members to sign up to a set of guiding principles that apply not only to the landlord but it’s suppliers.
The ethics request that owners of buildings are ‘accountable, transparent, lawful, secure, confidential and private and proportionate’ in the use of data. I very much welcome this initiative and would urge as many landlords and property owners to sign up to this code as possible. If property companies are to start the journey in using occupier data, then it is important to make the first step in the right direction. For many GDPR was an unnecessary burden, but for me it came at the right time before people went too far in the accumulation of personal data.
If we are going to make the most of data, then surely the only way forward is to be ethical in its use.
James Pellatt is director of workplace and innovation at Great Portland Estates
