A new workspace can strengthen your organisation’s objectives and give a significant boost to its corporate culture.
Whether it’s about creating new collaboration by breaking down silos between teams, enhancing informal communication by offering cosy meeting spaces, or changing the workspace concept, you are forced to rethink your organisation’s operations. It is the perfect opportunity to conduct a thorough analysis of your needs and choose a concept that best supports your organisation’s core processes.
The need for a tailored workplace strategy is a concept that has seen significant growth in the last 10 years. In the past, there was little attention given to the need for a specific workspace. Most workplaces were designed according to a very traditional and uninspiring pattern: a large, cluttered open-plan office – to cut costs – complemented by a few dull meeting rooms and, at best, a basic coffee corner. Based on the workplace environment, it was difficult to distinguish between different organisations. A bank, a city, or an energy company – they all had the same grey appearance. Even within the same sector, there was a lack of inspiration regarding the workspace, while, for example, insurance companies had to fight hard to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Cost reduction and uniformity were the dominant forces. Recent societal changes have made modern businesses realise that the workspace can be a powerful lever in their pursuit of sustainability or in their search for new talent. The workspace is, above all, a vector for the company’s values. It is a tangible expression of the desired corporate culture. How many companies claim to focus heavily on innovation and creativity but fail to even provide whiteboards in their meeting rooms?
We agree that the workspace is becoming increasingly important for any company that wants to stand out from the grey masses and actively seeks a balance between employee wellbeing and productivity. But how do we proceed concretely? What strategic questions should we ask to arrive at concrete insights and guidelines? What elements should we measure to achieve the perfect mix of workspaces?
A successful workplace concept begins with developing a clear vision that is supported by the top management. This addresses the first strategic question: “Why are we doing this?” or “Where are we heading as an organisation?” I like to compare the vision to an island: our organisation is a ship navigating through the waves. It’s crucial that we have a clear image of our destination. Drifting aimlessly on the ocean leads to demotivation, wasted resources, and time loss. Defining a clear vision for our new workspace is our top priority. Research has also shown that this vision must be defined by the top management. The leadership must also communicate the vision consistently, so the strategic importance of the project is clear to everyone in the organisation.

Armed with a concrete vision text, we are ready to address the second strategic question: “Who will be using the new workspace?” or “What are the typical profiles of our users?” If we want to tailor the workspace to best support the primary processes of our employees, we first need to gain a clear understanding of their patterns of activity in the office. We can recognise typical profiles in any organisation, such as “nomads” (often on other sites or with clients), “thinkers” (specialists with complex tasks requiring high concentration), “sedentaries” (administrative and support tasks), “exchangers” (coordinators who use the office for physical meetings), and so on.
We determine these profiles using a participatory method, where we map out employees’ activities during a typical workweek. This is the ideal opportunity to engage the managers in our organisation. We ask them to speak with their teams and discuss and investigate the employees’ activities. How much time do I spend in physical meetings per week? How much time do I need for focused work? Through these group conversations, we gather the necessary data for the entire organisation, which can be used to calculate essential ratios.
The third strategic question is not so easy to answer: “What is the expected occupancy of our new offices?” We can assume that the use of the workspace will fundamentally change (see model), but it is not easy to estimate what the future occupancy of our offices will be. Before the Covid crisis, occupancy measurements were often used to track the average and peak occupancy of an office. For 2 to 3 weeks, office and meeting room occupancy was observed, often several times per day. A distinction was made between workstations where someone was physically present and workstations that were “in use” but where the employee was not at their desk. This indicator is very important, as physical formal and informal meetings in the workplace have a significant impact on the actual occupancy of individual workstations. In the future, offices will serve even more as meeting environments, with the need for an individual workstation for each potential user decreasing.
With the strong increase in remote working, the occupancy of our offices has significantly decreased. Physically measuring occupancy in empty offices had little meaning during the crisis. Now that the occupancy of our offices is starting to rise again, the demand for precise occupancy monitoring is highly relevant. Many organisations opt to track occupancy in real time using sensors and registration systems. However, the analysis of user profiles can also provide a good indication of expected occupancy. We ask our employees to indicate how much time they will want to or be able to work from home in the future. By subtracting the time spent in meetings from the time they plan to spend at the office, we can determine the expected time employees want to spend on individual tasks and focused work. This often leads to an average of around 40% of work time spent in the office.
This is, of course, a theoretical approach to estimating average occupancy, and it would be risky to base our entire workplace concept solely on this indicator. Peaks in occupancy can occur, for instance, if employees prefer to be present on Tuesdays or Thursdays. And if all teams schedule their team meetings on Monday mornings, it can make the office particularly busy that day. We can manage these peaks by spreading office attendance and adjusting users’ behaviours. This requires active involvement from managers. We can also provide alternative workspace types: a large meeting room can become an individual work zone during peak times. A cosy coffee corner can serve as a landing space for the nomads.

The fourth strategic question is qualitative, not quantitative: “What exactly do our teams need to collaborate productively in the new workspace?” In other words, how should the workspace support the organisation’s primary processes? It is obvious that a Human Resources team has different needs than a sales team. The first group needs to be easily accessible in the workspace, while maintaining confidentiality. The second group may not come to the office often, but when they do, they primarily want to exchange information with colleagues and update their files.
Investigating the specific needs and expectations of teams is a delicate process. We must be careful not to create the impression that employees can submit a wish list with all their personal requests. This leads to false expectations, disappointment, and ultimately resistance. We need to explore the specific needs tied to the future-oriented activities of the team. How will these activities evolve in the future? Can we use the implementation of the new workspace to question these activities? Rethink them, reorganise them, or even eliminate them? Through targeted focus groups, we engage with the teams, inventorying processes and translating them into concrete and forward-looking features for the new workspace.
By mapping out the desired collaborations within the organisation, we address the fifth strategic question: “What is the desired proximity between the teams?” The optimal positioning of teams in relation to each other is crucial for streamlining processes within the organisation and shortening project lead times. It encourages spontaneous encounters in the office environment, giving a significant boost to creativity and innovation in the company.
To map desired interactions, a sociogram is often used. A working group engages in a discussion about the desired proximities within the organisation. The various teams are represented by coloured circles of variable size. These circles are placed on a white sheet of paper, with the distance between them corresponding to the desired proximity of the teams. Connecting lines depict the key communication channels between teams. The sociogram is a powerful tool that allows us to develop the new macro plan for our organisation in a simple workshop. A clear macro plan is an essential prerequisite for spatial planning of the new workspace.
The sixth and final strategic question is often referred to as the search for the “holy grail” of workspace development: “What mix of workspaces is needed to optimally support the functioning of the organisation?” In other words, which types of workspaces and how many of each type should we provide in the micro plan to ensure that different profiles can comfortably and productively do their work? This is certainly not an easy question, and in the past, little effort was made to answer it properly. Assumptions, trends, aesthetic influences, or business interests often dictated the design of the workspace. Very little attention was paid to the actual functional needs of the organisation.
Based on profiles, expected occupancy, and teleworking patterns, we can formulate an objective answer to this sixth question. By concretising, measuring, and simulating the teams’ activities, we can use a calculation model to identify the most suitable workspace types. Using reliable benchmarks, we translate these workspaces into the necessary areas. By carefully answering the six strategic questions, we can map the real workplace needs of an organisation in a participatory and scientifically supported manner. The detailed analysis leads to well-founded specifications that a designer can use to develop a future-oriented workspace concept in which our employees can thrive safely, productively, and efficiently.