Mastering workplace design: Using data to create compelling office layouts

As your organization evolves, flexibility will be key—so don’t miss our final post on adapting your space to future growth and changing workstyles.

Actionable tasks:

• Create a workplace design “tiger team.” Form a cross-functional group with members from HR, IT, and Operations to collaboratively assess workspace needs. This will provide a range of perspectives to ensure designs meet team needs and organizational goals.
• Survey employees. Gather feedback on their workspace preferences and pain points to understand how they use the space and what improvements they desire. These insights can help you identify areas for enhancement that will boost satisfaction and productivity.
• Decide how to divide space to facilitate productivity. This will vary from company to company, so collaborate with execs and team leads to determine whether a team-based, department-focused, or project-oriented floor plan is best.
• Consider future company plans. For example, your organization may plan to establish new departments, business lines, or collaborations that could impact your space requirements and layout. Stay proactive by scheduling regular check-ins with key stakeholders to reassess needs as the business evolves.

Actionable tasks:

• Spot underutilized areas. Comb through your workplace data to identify spaces that can be repurposed into functional areas. For example, vacant storage rooms or empty corners could transform into focus zones for heads-down work or collaboration hubs to foster teamwork. 
• Assess high-traffic zones. Identify areas with heavy foot traffic that may need more room or alternative seating arrangements away from the noise. Adjusting these spaces can ease congestion and create a more pleasant flow throughout the office.
• Investigate low occupancy areas. Look into locations with low occupancy data to uncover the reasons behind the lack of onsite presence. Conduct employee surveys to gather insights on attendance challenges, such as long commutes or inadequate parking, and assess whether relocating those teams could be beneficial.

Actionable tasks:

• Draft a zoned layout. Create a plan that divides the office into distinct zones: collaborative, quiet, and social. Depending on your organization, you may also include additional zones, such as cafes and wellness spaces. This is a great time to work with a digital map for clarity and to help you visualize your layout. Work with team leads and executives to understand employee seating preferences, and if having assigned “neighborhoods” by department, team or initiative makes sense for certain teams to have dedicated work spaces near each other.
• Balance open and private spaces. Use data to find the right mix between open and enclosed areas. For instance, if meeting rooms are consistently booked, consider adding more. Analyze the capacity of the most popular meeting spaces to guide decisions on sizes and amenities, from phone booths to larger conference rooms with different seating arrangements.
• Conduct a stakeholder walkthrough. Walk through your current space with department heads or team leaders to gather input from key stakeholders on how they use it. Bring your floor plan and mark potential areas for collaboration, focus work, and communal spaces based on these insights.

Actionable tasks:

• Establish a regular review cadence. Schedule routine assessments of space utilization data to stay updated on evolving needs and ensure your layout remains relevant. Make sure to include your tiger team in these discussions to get a range of insights.
• Start tracking data trends. Regularly monitor occupancy and space utilization metrics to identify emerging patterns. Compile this data into reports that can guide future discussions on flexibility and adaptability, and share these insights with executives to highlight how your space is evolving and improving.
• Create a “future needs” checklist. Draft a list of potential future changes, such as team expansions or shifts in work styles, to keep on your radar. This will help guide tiger team discussions and planning around flexibility.
• Explore design trends. Research emerging trends in workplace design that promote flexibility, such as modular furniture or a virtual receptionist. These innovations can inspire potential changes in your space, which will help you create a more adaptable and efficient environment.

Actionable tasks:

• Focus on areas that are consistently occupied or underused. This could reveal the need for more seating in collaborative zones or opportunities to repurpose underused spaces into functional areas, such as focus spaces or meeting rooms.
• Look at when your spaces are most and least used. For example, say you notice certain rooms are fully booked in the mornings but empty in the afternoons. By identifying this, you can take action to improve your space usage, such as adjusting room booking policies or creating multi use spaces to accommodate different needs throughout the day. You could also explore other factors that might be affecting usage. In the example above, the empty rooms may be due to west-facing windows that lack adequate shades, making them uncomfortable to use.
• Set up a dashboard or use visualization tools. This will help you continuously monitor space usage, spot emerging trends, and make informed decisions as your needs evolve. Plus, having visual insights makes it easier to communicate space utilization trends to execs and other stakeholders. More on this later in the post.