Working out the probability of people working in the office

[CJohn]

Hello everyone,

I am posting from a small business with a tricky question that I am trying to work out. I would be ever so grateful if anyone could help me out on how to approach my issue. It is as follows:

Our company is moving to a new office. There are 64 people in the company, 14 of the employees are remote workers and will only have to come in occasionally. The remaining 50 will be based in the office, some of the time. We would ask them to work 2 days in the office, and 3 days at home. (There will be variances, but this is the general principle).

Therefore, if everyone works 2 days in the office (the 2 days will not be fixed, and will vary - so I am looking for an approximation), and 3 at home. How would I calculate the likely/approximate number of people who work in the office each day?

Is this even a probability question? If not, my apologies. If so, any thoughts on the calculation would be gratefully received! Thank you all.

 

[Dr.Peterson]

Each of the 50 spends 2/5 of his time in the office; so on average 2/5 of the 50 will be in the office at any one time (though that will probably vary depending on schedules). So you could guess 0.4*50 = 20 people in the office, assuming schedules are arranged to even out the number in at any one time.

This could become a genuine probability problem if, say, the schedules were random and you wanted to know how often you could expect 30 desks to be needed, or how many you could get away with if you didn't mind having an overflow one day a year, or whatever.

 

[CJohn]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply - I do appreciate it. This is very useful.