Author: stephanie_pounders

Here at Serraview, we’re fascinated by the workspace and the data it can provide – how it functions in order to help work and create a positive workplace.

Today, we know more than ever about the factors that contribute to productivity and collaboration in a workplace, but now that we have the data, we’re challenged to figure out what it all means. Once you understand that, you can make decisions about open office layouts, closed offices, collaborative spaces, and other usage and space planning questions. Companies that don’t use space planning and space utilization software like Serraview don’t necessarily have the data to make those informed decisions.

Let’s look at how office layouts have evolved and how (we believe) they will continue to do so.

A Brief Timeline of Office Layouts

When we consider “modern offices,” we go back a little over one hundred years to the early 1900s. These offices were modeled after factory floors, with long rows of desks and no walls or dividers—a completely open layout. Private executive offices overlooked these worker spaces.

In the 1950s-1960s, the office layout was still open, but the German “office landscape” concept brought executives out of their private suites and arranged assigned desks according to job function.

In the late 1960s, furniture designer Herman Miller introduced “modular business furniture” that was intended to promote collaboration and flexibility. Today, we call modular business furniture “cubicles.”

By the 1980s, “cube farms” were the norm (perhaps best displayed in the 1999 movie Office Space).

With the rise of the internet in the 1990s, the “virtual office” gained traction. Thanks to increased internet access, email, and cell phones, employees didn’t have to physically be in the office to get their work done. Some companies, trying to reduce real estate costs, started encouraging virtual or remote work.

Since the early 2000s, office design layouts have been shifting in all sorts of ways. Cubicle farms started to disappear in favor of open office plans. Trendy tech firms started building creative offices designed to cater to employees’ needs and wants.

Paying attention to your employees’ experience matters—learn why.

Current Trends: Open Office vs. Activity-Based Working

As open office plans grew in popularity, so did the backlash against them. In many cases, these office layouts discouraged collaboration instead of promoting it as promised. Frustrated by noisy spaces and lack of privacy, employees would stay hunched over their computers with headphones on if they wanted to get work done.

In contrast, the activity-based workplace recognizes that different types of work activities, and different types of employees, need different spaces. A marketing manager, for example, might divide her day into focused work, meetings, and collaborative work. In an activity-based workplace, the office layout would provide distinct spaces for each activity. She might start her day in a “quiet zone” workstation, move to a conference room for a couple hours, and end her day at a desk in the marketing department’s “neighborhood” where she can brainstorm and share ideas with her team.

What other advantages does ABW have over open office layouts? Find out.

The Pendulum Swing: Back to Equilibrium

It’s hard to predict what trends in office layouts will prevail over time. Right now, we’re seeing companies go to various extremes: Some are encouraging remote work as much as possible (some don’t even have an office at all; everyone in the organization works remotely), while others, including tech giant IBM, have reversed course and started mandating all employees work in an office.

Everyone is looking for the right mix of efficiency, productivity, collaboration, and innovation. IBM found that something was lacking when people weren’t interacting face-to-face. They needed to bring people back to the office to create “water cooler moments” of spontaneous collaboration and develop mentorship relationships. Other companies are depending on communication platforms like Skype and Slack to build that virtually.

If we expect anything, it will be a softening of extremes. A few companies will choose “all or nothing” when it comes to a traditional office or no office, but the majority will settle somewhere in the activity-based or hybrid office layout.

Tech Continues to Drive Change

One thing we can be sure of is that technology will be used in offices in more ways. Most importantly, in one sense, technology like Serraview’s space planning and space utilization software will become indispensable as companies seek those functional spaces that work best for their employees.

Getting accurate, real-time data about your space—everything from your building systems to activity in Conference Room B—will help you make evidence-based decisions about everything from lease renewals to reconfiguring a floor to getting new office furniture.

Learn how your workplace can attract and retain talent, enhance your employees’ experience, enable collaboration, and more—download our whitepaper on best practices for the modern workplace.

It’s not news that your office—its layout, style, decor, and overall design—can profoundly impact your employees and their performance. Your space planning design can help make this impact positive by encouraging productive and collaborative activities.

Space Planning Design for Business Needs

Ultimately, your office design should facilitate your employee’s work so the business can achieve its goals. Productive, engaged employees (i.e. those who can do their work better and faster) usually mean more business goals are met.

So, when looking at the space planning and design for your office, you must be clear on:

• Your business goals
• The work your employees need to do to achieve those goals

For example, one business goal might be to expand into a new market by the end of the year. To do that, your marketing team needs to be able to research and develop a solid marketing strategy. What does that research and development look like? Lots of time and space to brainstorm ideas? Onsite research in that new market? Maybe focus groups to test different strategies?

Once you understand your business goals and how they’ll be achieved, you can begin your space planning design to best facilitate that work.

Getting Good Employee Input

When you’re planning a change in your workplace, whether it’s relatively small or radical, getting and using input from employees is a good way to help them get excited about the change. The key is to get constructive input. There are three methods companies use most:

• Surveys: These can be very helpful, but it’s often challenging to design a survey that will give you complete and accurate data. Employees may not have time to fill out surveys, so you may have to offer incentives to get responses.
• Focus groups: Focus groups allow you to ask deeper, more specific questions to a select group of people that represent each department or business unit.
• Audits: Walking around your workplace, observing what people are doing—and asking them, what they’re doing and what would make their jobs easier—can give you a lot of good information. But, you’ll need to conduct this exercise several times to get a complete picture.

Space planning and utilization software, like Serraview, can provide an accurate picture of the type of work people are doing. Empirical data can illustrate how often employees are in meetings or conferences or how frequently they collaborate or work solo. Of course, it also will show many people or which teams are typically in the office on any given day.

The data you gain from strong utilization software can be invaluable. You may know, based on data that your utilization software provides that approximately 60% of your employees are in the office at a given time. But, does that mean 60% of every department? More likely, maybe 25% of your sales staff is in the office most of the time, along with 80% of your HR department, 50% of your legal team, and 40% of your IT department (except on the various days each week or month when different departments have “all hands” meetings). Utilization software will be able to provides specific data so your space planning design can account for the different needs of each group.

How does space planning software maximize ROI?

Create Water Cooler Moments—but Don’t Force Them

Most companies today want a space planning design that encourages collaboration, both planned (breakout or brainstorming rooms that teams can book) and spontaneous (cafe-like settings where people can stop and chat while having coffee). You should intentionally try to design a layout that encourages a certain flow through the space. You can add furniture and other items, like whiteboards, that will encourage people to share ideas when they meet. But don’t get so fixated on creating the “ideal water cooler” space, and don’t worry if the space doesn’t get used exactly as you intended.

Learn how to make your workplace go from lifeless to lively.

If certain spaces are being used differently than designed, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being used incorrectly. If a space is designed to meet people’s needs, they will use it—but their needs might not be exactly what you envisioned. Flexibility is a crucial element in every space planning design.

Flexibility does not have to mean a completely open office, or even an activity-based workspace. It just means that, as you design your space for your current needs and you keep potential needs in mind. This may mean choosing smaller desks for offices to make it easier to move them (and people) around. Or it may mean running cables and wires through ceilings to make it easy to convert an office to a conference room with video capability. You will not be able to plan for every possible scenario, but with some forethought, you can make it easier to adapt to different possibilities.

Strong space utilization software makes office space planning and design a snap—request a demo today and find out how.

You’ve made the switch to activity-based working and have reduced your footprint. You’ve removed desks and individual workstations, and now your people-to-seat ratio has been adjusted based on your usage data. You managed the transition well and your employees seem happy and productive.

Until…somehow, every department decided to schedule an all-hands meeting on the same day. Will there be chaos as everyone tries to find an open desk and sufficient meeting room space? Or have you planned for peak utilization of your building?

What Is Peak Utilization?

It’s the scenario above—when everyone, or nearly everyone, shows up to the office, expecting to have a desk or workstation. Will there be enough to go around? As companies adjust their people-to-seat ratio (on the understanding that, on average, 40% of their space isn’t being used) and move to hybrid or agile working environments, planning for peak utilization is a crucial exercise.

Change how you track space utilization to get a more accurate picture of your building usage.

What it Takes to Plan for Peak Utilization

There are two main approaches that go hand-in-hand:

1. Understand work patterns so you know when/how often to expect peak utilization

Each department likely has slightly different needs and work patterns. Maybe Monday through Thursday, you can safely assume that only half the Sales team will be in the office, but that department has a meeting every Friday and almost all of them will be there in person.

Maybe the Marketing team, which works next to Sales, also regularly schedules a team meeting the last Friday of every month, so you know that’s the day when that space will be crowded.

2. Encourage work patterns to keep resource utilization balanced

You could just accept that on that last Friday, Marketing and Sales will be fighting for space. Or you could share the data you have with Marketing and Sales to help them make a decision about their schedules.

Take a close look at employee work patterns so you know what to expect on any given day.

Activity-based working is not a one-size-fits-all—learn how it can be adapted for your company.

What’s Stopping Companies from Planning for Peak Utilization

Historically, getting accurate data on building usage required time-consuming manual audits. Now, thanks to space planning and utilization software and other technology, the bigger barrier is effective communication. Employees often resist being told to change the way they work—whether that means giving up their desk or scheduling meetings earlier or later to avoid overbooked conference rooms. Having a strong change management and communication plan will help you implement policies to handle peak utilization.

But What Do You Do When Everyone Shows Up?

Sometimes, no matter how much you plan and prepare, you’ll be surprised by a full office. If you’ve been creative and purposeful with your space planning, you won’t have chaos. Set up multi-use spaces that people can use: lobbies, hallways, cafeterias or breakrooms can all be outfitted to serve as part-time workstations or meeting spaces. Some companies can make use of outdoor spaces as well.

When you create multi-use spaces, make sure they will function well when being used for work activities. Check that your Wi-Fi can support them and that they have adequate technology available.

Communication for Resource Utilization

Having these multi-use spaces or a plan to handle peak utilization won’t do any good if no one knows about them. In addition to a communication plan that eases employees into new ways of work, your change management strategy should also explain how various spaces can be used and what to expect when office traffic is above average. You can also share your usage data with department heads so they understand how they can adjust their team’s work patterns to minimize occurrences of peak utilization.

Find out other ways activity-based working serves your employees. Download our guide to creating an activity-based working strategy in your office.

Although companies recognize the value of real estate, those costs are often one of the largest items on the balance sheet. Corporate real estate leaders are tasked with bringing the most value to the company while also controlling costs. Here are some ways you can cut your corporate real estate expenses (and as a bonus, most will also increase your ROI on real estate!):

1. Relinquish your lease or sell a building

Lease or mortgage costs are most likely the biggest corporate real estate costs you incurr, so on paper, this is the easiest way to cut costs.

Of course, in real life, moving—to a smaller space in your current building or to a new building altogether—is not easy. Lease renewals come up and they are renewed, even if the company knows they’re only using 50-60% of the space. To break this cycle, pay attention to your lease termination dates. Your opportunity to make strong business decisions, in most cases, is about 12-18 months from that date.

Using space planning software will help you identify how your space is being used or unused. If it includes utilization functionality, like Serraview’s workspace utilization software, it will also tell you when and how your space is being used. Both can also help you make better plans and decisions faster. With the right software and data, the decision cycle can be streamlined, saving time with the relocation.

Learn about the modern workplace strategies that can revolutionize your organization.

2. Review and renegotiate your lease options

If you decide to stay put, you can still negotiate for better rates or value-adds to your current space. Again, you need to pay attention to your termination dates and start this process early. Read your lease closely to understand all the available options and make sure you have strong understanding of your needs and usage. This is also an opportunity to rethink the utilization metrics you’re tracking.

3. Audit your utilities regularly

You might be surprised to learn how long your HVAC system runs when very few people are in the office. Pay attention to your employees’ patterns and habits—which may change seasonally—and adjust your utilities systems. Depending on the size of your company and your current corporatel real estate expenses, this can translate to six-figure savings or more annually.

4. Reuse and recycle

When you’re redesigning your office layout, look for furniture vendors who purchase used or recycled desks and cubicles for repurposing. You can purchase recycled materials, especially if you need to reconfigure one floor, but are planning a bigger move in the next year.

Using recycled furniture or decreasing your utilities usage can have a bonus benefit of highlighting your sustainable practices. Both employees and clients or customers will appreciate your efforts.

Discover other ways your workspace influences your company culture.

5. Coordinate with other departments

When you cut corporate real estate expenses, be aware of how that might affect other departments. By shrinking your footprint and allowing people to work remotely, you save on your real estate costs while increasing spend in another department, such as IT. If you work together on moves and policy changes, you can find creative ways to save money.

6. Look for potential multi-use spaces

Maybe you know that overall, you’re only using 50-60% of your building, but it seems like the conference rooms are always booked and people are clamoring for more space. Can you instead use the space you have in different ways? Maybe you can make it easier for people to have meetings in the cafeteria or lobby by adding some new furniture.

Add Value by Reducing Corporate Real Estate Expenses

Cutting corporate real estate expenses no longer has to mean sacrificing a nice, well-provisioned office. Slashing expenditures instead can free up funds for offices that function better and make it easier for employees to get their work done.

With space planning technology, you can make better, more informed decisions about your corporate real estate expenses. Find out how.

Do you see corporate office space planning as a “necessary evil,” maybe one that takes too much of your time? Do you often get frustrated by mandates to “manage the space well” without the proper resources to deliver? Do you wish that getting groups of people to move from the third to the fourth floor wasn’t so complicated?

You’re not alone.

Many corporate real estate leaders have a love/hate relationship with corporate space planning—or at least, a begrudging like/dislike relationship with it.

But the truth is, paying attention to corporate space planning—in the right way—can make your life a lot easier. Here’s how:

• Build a business case for change initiatives
  Strong corporate office space planning practices will help you make informed business decisions. Whether your lease is coming up and you’re considering moving to a new space, you want to shrink your footprint in your current location, or you just want to upgrade your current workstations, you’ll be able to make strong arguments for your proposals.
• Address company changes proactively
  Instead of being caught off guard, you can plan ahead and be prepared for changes in the company structure or business goals.
• Escape the day-to-day churn of assignments and allocations
  If you’re challenged by corporate office space planning because you’re spending too much time dealing with move requests, it’s an indication you need to step back and look at the bigger picture: Why are people looking to move around so much? Are there patterns in who’s asking to move? Most employees don’t like moving their workstations, so it’s important to understand the reasons behind the requests.

Tips for Sound Corporate Office Space Planning

1. Don’t forget the human element

Many CRE leaders, over time, forget how challenging and emotional the moving process can be for employees, even if they’re just moving to a different space on the same floor, in the same building. When you’re in “corporate office space planning mode” and looking at data points on a spreadsheet and floor plans for hours, it’s easy to forget the labels and color-coded dots represent actual people.

Don’t underestimate the communication and change management required for even the simplest moves and reallocations. It’s always better to over communicate on the timing, expectations, and deliverables and make sure you’re emphasizing the “why” behind the change. Articulate the value for the company and the employees.

Learn how Suncorp uses Serraview’s platform to strategically plan and execute large moves.

2. Make the plan fit the people

One of the great things about activity-based working is its flexibility. There’s no one “right” way to design an office; there’s just the best way to make your workplace meet your employees’ needs. For example, if you want to move to an open floor plan with neighborhoods, but most departments have at least one employee who needs access to file cabinets, those employees need dedicated spaces. The solution? Neighborhoods with “anchors” or dedicated desks surrounded by unassigned workstations.

When it comes to corporate office space planning, don’t get too attached to standard templates or common best practices. Be flexible and accommodate your organization’s and employees’ unique needs and preferences.

3. Look for underused spaces

If you’re not able to shrink your current footprint or move to a new location, look for opportunities to make better use of your office. Watch how employees work and interact with each other—are certain spots used frequently? What makes them “work” and how can you duplicate that in other areas? Are there random nooks and crannies that have potential to be meeting spaces, “phone booth” type areas, or brainstorming stations?

4. Think about boosting revenue, not just cutting costs

If you’re optimizing your current space, saving money is almost a foregone conclusion. In some cases, you may end up spending the same amount of money on real estate, but spending smarter. This means you may not see immediate bottom-line cost savings, but over time you’ll see increased revenue because your employees are more productive.

Most companies look at cost per square foot (or per square meter) or square feet/square meter per employee, but some are changing their perspective and looking at revenue per square feet/meter. Try it—and look for ways you can improve by providing better spaces to work

Of course, saving money is great too. Learn more about how corporate office space planning helps cut costs.

5. Evaluate and re-evaluate

You may have trouble with corporate office space planning if you’re trying to conform to business standards that are years, or even decades, old. Is your square-footage-per-person target based on a time when most employees used desktop computers, but now they mostly use laptops and tablets? Have you realigned business units without updating their space expectations and guidelines?

To ensure that your space planning decisions make sense, first use proper standards. And as business goals and company needs change, re-evaluate those standards regularly.

Learn more about how sound space planning can make your life easier—get in touch today for a free demo of our corporate office space planning software.

When you’re looking at commercial space planning software, you may be asking, “How easy will it be to upload and convert floor plan files? Is it more user-friendly than AutoCAD?” Important questions, sure, but first you need to take a look at what we call the “three pillars of space planning.” The most useful software will feature all three.

Pillar 1: Gathering Data

An incredible amount of data goes into corporate space planning—way more than just merging HR’s head counts with Real Estate’s desk assignments. At minimum, you need to collect actual usage data for the different rooms and spaces of your buildings. To be more effective, you can collect data from the devices employees are using, network or cloud usage, and from your building systems and utilities (lighting, HVAC, etc.).

With the latest technology, especially Internet of Things (IoT), businesses have access to more data about their offices and workforce than ever before, but it’s meaningless if they’re not able to collect and use it. If your space planning software isn’t able to bring all the data together in one platform, you won’t be able to make the most informed decisions.

Pillar 2: Analyzing Data

Corporate real estate teams used to manually organize and analyze the available data, which could be a simple, but time-consuming process. Now, even for small businesses, there’s simply too much information to consider, especially when you’re trying to keep up with all of the available data inputs and make smart decisions and projections. The best space planning software needs to use data science and machine learning to find links and patterns. It also needs to compare the real-time incoming information with historical data.

The analysis from your space planning software should be automated and ongoing so anyone in the company can access needed information at any time—examples include, a manager who wants an activity report on just her team, or the facilities manager checking on the usage of conference rooms while planning upgrades.  

Pillar 3: Taking Action

Once you have the data and it has been organized and analyzed, you’re in a position to make informed business decisions. You can now see more clearly how moving the sales team would allow for easier collaboration with the marketing team. Perhaps desks you thought were full are rarely used, and you can consolidate those workstations to create a new meeting space. If your lease is coming up for renewal, through data analysis, you would be able to determine whether or not it’s best to grow or shrink your footprint in the building.

How can you get started with an activity-based working strategy? Find out.

The final step in space planning is to actually plan the space in a way that increases worker well-being, job satisfaction, and ultimately, productivity. You should look for space planning software that allows you to easily experiment with different office layouts and configurations, estimate the costs and ROI of making your workplace more activity-based, and use your space more effectively.

Why Do I Need Special Space Planning Software for This?

There are two main reasons: one, because often, the data is stored with different departments. HR has head counts, IT has device and asset information, and Real Estate keeps tabs on building usage and systems. But all of that data should be considered with space planning and it needs to be integrated within a single platform.

The other reason is that the sheer volume of data large companies can get now makes it infeasible for people to manually collect and do anything with it. Space planning software can use algorithms and machine learning to identify patterns and links between data that most people would miss.

HR, IT, and CRE should all contribute to transforming your workplace: here what each brings to the table.

Adjusting for the Real World

Algorithms aren’t 100% perfect. Your space planning software isn’t going to broadly make decisions for you. You’ll still be using your experience and judgement to do that—but you’ll be making data driven decisions. A proposal with the analysis from your space planning software will carry more weight than one with observations and self-reported data.

But you can still look at that analysis and know what’s possible for your company. You can—and should—take into account individual personalities and preferences when making changes. 

Ultimately, corporate space planning software is a tool that helps improve the ROI of your real estate portfolio and other assets. But if your software doesn’t incorporate all three of the pillars above, you won’t be making the most of your investment.

Learn more about how Serraview allows you to gather, analyze and take action on crucial data your firm needs to make the right decisions—request a free demo of our space planning software.

It’s no secret that real estate is one of the biggest costs for any company. When you look at everything that goes into a commercial portfolio—the lease, utilities, technology, maintenance, security—it should be obvious that closely examining and maximizing that portfolio should be a priority. But many companies refrain from doing this or try to cut costs in other ways and lose out on significant savings. Let’s look at how office space planning can have the biggest impact on your balance sheet.

More Than Just the Real Estate

Of course, real estate costs extend beyond the lease and ownership-related costs. Corporate real estate spending includes utilities, building systems maintenance, administrative services, and security. And although it’s usually in a different budget, the technology to run and manage all those systems is also related. Companies can—and should—look for ways to reduce utilities and maintenance costs by running those systems efficiently, but in almost all cases, the biggest impact comes from reducing your total square footage.   

Case Study: See How Suncorp Significantly Reduced Costs with Space Planning Software

Make the Space Fit the Work

If we accept the industry norm that 40% of the space in traditional offices is underutilized, right-sizing your office will create multiple cost savings beyond simply reducing the number of hours the HVAC is running.

However, office space planning doesn’t simply mean using less space. More importantly, it means using the space more efficiently with an activity-based or flexible working environment. A corporate space assessment should start with determining the types of work activities that are performed, along with their frequency.

A coder might not need a large private office, but she will need space for two or three large monitors. Someone on your legal team who still works with physical documents, however, needs a place to store them securely and enough desk space to spread them out. And your marketing manager, who splits his time between individual focused work, group brainstorming, and meeting with partners needs a variety of spaces to serve those different purposes.

Once you’ve defined the types of work and work-related activities your employees do, you can begin planning the space to facilitate those activities. Most companies would see huge benefits from adding dedicated collaboration spaces that can be used for planned or impromptu meetings between teams. You’ll also want to account for personal preferences—extroverts may love working in an open setting, while introverts will want to know they can retreat to a quiet area where they can work uninterrupted.   

Other Office Space Planning Benefits

Once you complete an office space planning design, you’ll begin to see the payoff quickly in the form of a less expensive lease and lower utility costs. But you’ll see other intangible benefits.

With a well-designed office, people will be able to work better. Over time, you can expect to see a reduction in absenteeism and turnover rates because your employees are equipped to do their jobs with greater ease.

Your workplace is also part of your company brand. It will make an impression on everyone from prospective clients to potential investors and partners—so in addition to cutting costs, your office might be responsible for numbers on the other side of the balance sheet as well.

Want to learn more about the benefits (cost-saving and otherwise) of a well-designed office? Contact us today for a demo of our next-level office space planning platform.