Exclusive Case Study: Atlassian Humanized the Office with One New Metric

Putting “Per Visit” Metrics in Context

Before diving into Atlassian’s creation, it helps to understand that “per-visit” metrics are often used in real estate related to things we love to do: sleep, shop, travel, and party.

• Residential real estate and retail stores use cost-per-visit to represent the financial effort required to convince prospective buyers or customers to drop by.
• Hotels gauge their performance using revenue per available room (​RevPAR​).
• Event planners manage budgets with cost per attendee, as anyone who has planned a wedding or other significant celebration will know.

For the less-loved office, we historically measure costs, seats, or services per square foot, a set of metrics that tell execs very little about workplace value or experience.

The Genesis of Cost-Per-Visit

When Atlassian started planning to reopen offices in 2022, Annie’s team struggled to align multiple stakeholders (e.g., finance, HR, real estate) on what portfolio data was needed to get the CFO and CEO to decide how much real estate was still required.

“We had to understand and communicate the true cost of real estate in a world where we endorse the idea that employees can go to the office only when they want to,” Annie recalled. “And we had trouble comparing offices of different sizes and across tiers of cities.”

Rather than guessing, Atlassian started brainstorming for an intuitive measure based on existing data.

“We knew the total cost to operate each office, and we had utilization data, so we tried calculating the cost for every time someone visited the office. Surprisingly, that metric was the most effective gut check about a site's value and potential disposition.”

I immediately fell in love with cost-per-visit, sharing it on podcasts in ​March​ and ​July​ 2023. By October, ​Forbes​ and ​Fortune​ mentioned it, and CBRE put it in their 2023-2024 Global Workplace & Occupancy Insights ​report​ (image below).

But the details of how to calculate it have never been explained until now.

Do The Math: How Atlassian Calculates Cost-per-Visit

The math is simple—costs divided by visits—but the details are nuanced.

The cost side of the equation is fully loaded. It includes all office-related expenses attributed to a specific site, such as rent, depreciation, utilities, facilities management (staff and fees), food and beverage, and the workplace experience team (e.g., barista, reception).

“We wanted it to be a non-hypothetical question,” Annie told me about going all-in on the cost side. “If we are going to hold these very expensive assets and use them differently, optionally, we needed to know what they truly cost.”

As for visits, Atlassian uses IT/VPN data to identify distinct, company-owned devices as a proxy for attendance. Guest WiFi data is used to capture visitors and Atlassian includes on-site staff that most of my clients would exclude from badge data analyses.

Reports are run quarterly.

Leadership Buy-In and Lessons Learned

In addition to accelerating go/no-go decisions when they matter most, the indispensable alignment created by cost-per-visit has enabled Atlassian to add “other metrics that help us make clearer choices” on both sides of the equation.

Leadership engagement with the more dynamic nature of a per-visit (vs. per sqft) metric “supports early flagging, review, and dialing-in of variable service costs.” Same numbers that were always in the P&L, now with higher quality conversations.

For visits, simple daily counts evolved into dynamic profiling of how frequently and from how far away individuals are coming in. Annie said this helps determine “how engaged local community members are engaged with our office product.” The data also suggests why people come in. For example, offices with high out-of-town visitors are more for gatherings than ​Getting $#!t Done​.

Focusing on visits (who and why) inspires a human-centered discussion before introducing legacy metrics like ​density​ or headcount. The results have influenced footprint rationalizations, office redesigns, new house rules, ways of working experiments, and decisions about where gatherings occur.

Annie’s mic-drop moment in our call:

“This approach gives leaders access to their common sense and lets us present opportunities and challenges in the business of our office.”

Introduce Cost-Per-Visit in Your Organization

Atlassian’s cost-per-visit metric isn’t just a clever reporting trick—it’s a mindset shift. It moves the conversation about office value from abstract square footage calculations to tangible employee behavior. More importantly, it forces leaders to consider real estate an evolving product, with a hospitality mindset, rather than a fixed asset.

And it’s something that all internal stakeholders (e.g., HR, IT, RE/FM, Ops) can understand.

If your organization still measures office success by occupancy rates or headcount, it’s time to rethink your approach. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Gather Your Data: Fully loaded costs, distinct daily visitors.
2. Calculate Cost-Per-Visit: Start monthly to refine. Aim for quarterly in BAU.
3. Start a Conversation: Share across all stakeholders. Ask for feedback and questions.
4. Pilot Small Adjustments: Optimize services. Host events. Watch how the needle moves.
5. Communicate Transparently: Bring employees along for the journey.

Will you commit to trying cost-per-visit for your organization and share your experience? Or have you created another novel metric to demonstrate the value of the office? Please reply and let me know. I read every response to inform future articles.

- ​Phil Kirschner

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