Workplace Consultancy
Before you change your workplace, understand what needs to change.
A new workplace can solve a lot of problems. But it can also create expensive new ones if you start designing before you really understand what your people, property and business need.
That’s why we start with questions: how is your space actually being used? Where are people struggling? What does your business need in three years, not just today?
Spacio’s workplace consultancy service helps you answer those questions before major decisions are made.
We combine research, workplace strategy, space planning and human insight to create a clear direction for your workplace.
Workplace strategy that starts with your business
Connecting with the bigger picture
Workplace decisions can have a surprisingly big impact on everything from productivity and culture to property costs and recruitment. So they need to connect with the wider business strategy.
We look at where your organisation is heading, how your teams work and what your workplace needs to do to support that direction.
That might mean preparing for growth, consolidating space, helping people collaborate more easily, reducing unnecessary property costs, or simply creating an office people want to spend time in.
The answer is different for every business, which is exactly why we don’t start with a pre-designed solution.
Contact us
What can workplace consultancy help you solve?
Start with the problem. Then design the answer.
You don’t need to know exactly what your new workplace should look like before speaking to us. In fact, it’s often better if you don’t.
Workplace consultancy is there to help define the challenge before anyone starts drawing walls and choosing chairs.
We can help if you’re asking questions like:
- Do we actually need more office space?
- How much space will we need as the business grows?
- Is our current office being used effectively?
- How many desks do we really need?
- How should we plan for hybrid working?
- Why are certain areas always busy while others sit empty?
- Should we refurbish, relocate or stay where we are?
- How can we improve collaboration without creating more noise?
- What should our future workplace include?
- How do we get different stakeholders aligned around one brief?
Sometimes the best recommendation is a bigger workplace. Sometimes it’s a smaller one. Sometimes it’s simply a much smarter use of the space you already have.
That’s the point of doing the thinking first.
Understanding how your people really work
Because “we think people use it this way” isn’t quite the same as knowing.
People say they need more meeting rooms, but half the existing rooms sit empty. Teams say they need more desks, while occupancy drops dramatically on Fridays. Collaboration areas are introduced because everyone wants more collaboration, only to discover that nobody can find anywhere quiet to concentrate.
The only sensible place to start is with evidence.
Depending on the project, our workplace consultancy can draw on:
- Employee surveys
- Leadership and stakeholder workshops
- Staff interviews
- Workplace observation
- Utilisation studies
- Occupancy data
- Workflow analysis
- Departmental relationships
- Headcount and growth forecasts
- Hybrid working patterns
- Existing floor plans and property information
We combine what the data tells us with what your people tell us. Because numbers can show us what is happening. People usually tell us why.
Our workplace consultancy process
Research first. Design second. Better decisions throughout.
The exact process changes depending on what you need, but there is always a clear thread running through. Understand the organisation. Understand the people. Understand the space. Then work out what needs to happen next.
How much office space do you actually need?
One of the biggest questions businesses face is also one of the easiest to oversimplify.
“How much office space do we need?”
Headcount matters, of course. But so do working patterns, desk sharing, meeting habits, client visitors, growth plans, storage, technology, collaboration and the kinds of tasks people carry out throughout the day. A team of 100 people might need 100 desks. Or 70. Or 50. The right answer depends on how that organisation actually works.
Our office space consultancy looks beyond basic square-foot-per-person calculations to help you determine what the workplace really needs to contain.
That can be particularly valuable if you’re:
- Considering a lease renewal
- Looking for a new office
- Planning for growth
- Moving to hybrid working
- Consolidating multiple sites
- Trying to reduce property costs
- Refurbishing an existing workplace
ABOUT SPACIO
Hybrid working &workplace strategytogether
Hybrid isn’t a desk ratio. It’s a behaviour change.
Hybrid working changed the way many businesses use their offices. What it didn’t do was hand everyone a perfect blueprint for what came next.
Reducing desk numbers is only one part of the equation.
If people are coming into the office less frequently, the time they spend there often needs to work harder. They may need better spaces for collaboration, more places for calls and focused work, different technology, better booking systems, more flexibility between teams.
Our workplace consultancy helps you plan around how hybrid working actually happens in your organisation rather than adopting somebody else’s model and hoping it fits.
Because “three days in the office” doesn’t tell you much about what those three days need to look like.