It's no secret that workspace organization plays a big role in your team's productivity. If the environment around seems out of order, employees may find it difficult to concentrate on what's important for the business.
When it comes to organizing offices, it's worth thinking about maximizing all available space. And that doesn't necessarily mean to fill out every spot with a desk for each new employee to sit on. On the contrary, maximizing space utilization implies understanding how your office is actually being used: how often meeting rooms, desks, and other workspaces are reserved during a week.
The inclusive analytics of workspace usage helps to manage your business capabilities wisely and increase the satisfaction level of the team in the working environment.
Measuring the office: how it's been done
Measuring the office is the first step to maximizing the space. How to do it in the right way? The first thing that comes to mind is to find the cost per square foot. And this would make sense if you were to build an old-fashioned office with uniform desks and cubicles located next to each other. In such a case, the typical solution to maximizing space when measured by cost square foot is to fit in more desks and more people.
That's how it's been done traditionally, but this is not the best solution in terms of employees' satisfaction with the workspace and influence on their productivity.
Luckily, office culture changed and now people aren't tied to their desks, so cafes, recreation zones, different huddle spaces have started to pop up in modern offices. This makes employees' work life a lot more diverse but at the same time, complicated for employers and understanding such spaces' value due to their variety. What is the solution? The key to determining the worth of the workspace is to measure how it's being used.
To put it another way, measure its essential component - people. Employees and their interactions with office space are open-source to study. Understanding each person's behavior equips you with detailed real-time analytics that would definitely outperform static and outdated metrics. By having this approach, you get the most out of space utilization.
How do you know if you're maximizing your office space?
The answer to this question you can find by analyzing how your space is being used. Utilization analytics helps you to understand what kind of working environment will be the best for employees, what workstations they need to stay productive, and what office size is more appropriate. There are several simple questions that are very helpful when trying to figure out whether or not the office is being maximized.
- What are the most booked rooms? Why are they used more often than the others?
- How do employees use the equipment? What inventory can be cut off and which one is worth investing in more?
- What workspaces are unnecessary?
- How many team meetings are held during the week? Would it be appropriate to add more conference rooms?
- How do employees use their desks? How often do they visit the office? Should we add more desks or reduce their amount?
- How much storage to keep necessary for work items do people use? Do they need an additional place?
Answering these questions with the correct data available will lead you to create the most effective place to work that is arranged accordingly to people's needs and allow you to get rid of unnecessary.
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How will actively-based work help maximize your office space?
Office space monitoring and utilization help maximize both real estate and productivity. Not to mention the number of costs you can be saving on, which positively reflects on the business.
Here are some key suggestions to help you achieve space efficiency:
Only pay for space that's being used
If the office is overloaded with people, full of distractions, doesn't have a quiet place, employees will most likely escape to a better place such as home or the nearest coffee shop. It's impossible to keep the focus on a project when your surroundings are chaotic, isn't it? Having the right mix of spaces available for the team to be comfortably productive is crucial to ensure the organization isn't paying rent and utilities for unused space.
Capitalize on shared space
Hot desking and desk hoteling could be a great tool in your way to maximizing room utilization. With a help of usage analytics, you'll get to know if it makes sense to have reservable desks available for visitors or remote workers that sometimes would like to work in the office.
Stop pre-emptive moves
If you have a constantly developing company that gains lots of new employees every year, the easiest way would be to buy a bigger office space, fit in more desks and spend a decent amount of money investing in real estate. Why do such expenses when there's a way to make the most out of old workspace? Reinvent your current office through activity-based work: put in reservable desks for those who really need them, add on huddle spaces, phone booths, meeting spots, comfortable chairs to plop down and so many other solutions. It just takes some brainstorming!
Alter your office boundaries
Utilizing a working environment and having an elastic office model could be the solution for your business needs, even if a temporary one. An elastic model works when a company has a small office and if they need a place outside their four walls, they can get it on-demand with the help of space providers or prioritize remote work for employees. There may be a reverse situation. It is when your current workspace has more available spots than are currently being used by employees. Downsizing could be an unexpected solution you'll get thanks to office space usage analysis.
How can Unspot help?
The availability of the right software to collect necessary data will save precious time and show the full perspective on how people are interacting with the space. This is where Unspot steps it.
Learn how to adapt the office to your employees' needs using always up-to-date analytics for each room and desk. Get detailed reports to stay informed of space usage and make changes in the working environment, if there's a weak spot.
Unspot is advanced software that has an all-in-one solution for maximizing your office utilization. Let employees feel comfortable at their workplace by using Unspot app to reserve a desk or meeting room with just one click. At the same time, as an employer, you can have access to the team’s interactions with workspaces and get an understanding of how to design interior office layouts as efficiently as possible.
