Office space management is two jobs that get sold as one. The first is allocation: who sits where, which team is next to which, and what happens when a department grows by four people. The second is sizing: how much space the organization should be holding at all, given how much of it gets used. Allocation is a weekly problem and sizing is a five-yearly one, and the second is worth far more money. This page covers both, in that order, with the free sheet on this site working the figure that the sizing decision actually turns on.
Office seat allocation software, and why a seating chart is a record
A seating chart drawn in a slide deck is a picture; a seating chart held against the space record is data. The difference shows up the first time somebody asks how many seats a team has across three floors, or what happens to the neighbouring team if this one grows. Office seat allocation software is worth its cost when moves are frequent enough that the picture is always out of date, which on most small estates is the point at which the organization passes about a hundred people. Below that, a spreadsheet against a floor plan is genuinely fine, and the sheets here do the arithmetic either way.
Office space requirements: how much area a person needs, and why it moves
Office space requirements are usually quoted as square feet per person, and the figure moves enormously with the mix: private offices, open desks, meeting space, circulation and amenity all count differently, and a hybrid estate with fewer desks than people breaks the ratio entirely. This site publishes no benchmark, deliberately. What is worth measuring is your own: total rentable area divided by the people who actually attend, alongside area divided by desks provided. The gap between those two numbers is the story.
Rentable area, and the part you pay for and cannot use
Rentable area normally exceeds the area you can put a desk in, because it includes a share of lobbies, corridors, plant and other common parts. That matters for the arithmetic in a specific way: a cost per square foot worked on rentable area and a utilization worked on usable area are answering different questions and cannot be divided into each other. Fix which one you are using before you produce a figure, state it next to the number, and keep it constant between years, because a quiet change of denominator is the most common way an estate metric becomes untrustworthy.
What the sizing decision turns on: money and office square footage
Not the percentage, but the money and the square feet. On the utilization sheet here, 180 desks with 108 occupied is 60% utilization and 72 empty desks; the space costs $2,333 a desk provided and $3,889 a desk actually used; $168,000 of a $420,000 running cost is carried by desks nobody sits at; and 5,600 of 14,000 square feet could in principle be released. Take that to a lease conversation and the discussion is about square feet and dollars rather than about whether the office feels busy, which is the only version of the conversation a facilities manager can win.
Questions people ask about office space management
How much office space does a person need?
There is no single answer and this site publishes no benchmark, because the figure moves with the mix of private offices, open desks, meeting space, circulation and amenity, and breaks completely in a hybrid estate with fewer desks than people. Measure your own two numbers instead: area per attending person and area per desk provided, and look at the gap.
Do I need office seating software?
Usually not below about a hundred people, where a spreadsheet against a floor plan holds up. Above that, moves become frequent enough that the picture is permanently out of date, and the value of seat allocation software is that the chart and the record are the same object rather than two things somebody reconciles.
What is the difference between rentable and usable area?
Rentable area includes a share of common parts such as lobbies, corridors and plant; usable area is the space you can actually put a desk in. Cost per square foot and utilization are frequently worked on different ones, which makes the two figures incompatible. Fix which you are using, say so next to the number, and keep it constant year to year.
What does the empty half of an office actually cost?
Work it rather than estimate it: the running cost divided by desks provided against the same cost divided by desks occupied. On the sheet here that is $2,333 against $3,889 a desk, with $168,000 of a $420,000 cost carried by the 72 desks nobody sits at, and 5,600 of 14,000 square feet releasable at that occupancy.
Can office space management software free of charge do the job?
For a small office, often. Below about a hundred people a spreadsheet against a floor plan holds up, and the free sheets on this site work the utilization and cost arithmetic without an account. Whatever you use, check that it exports the whole record.
When does office seating chart software earn its cost?
Above about a hundred people, when moves are frequent enough that a seating chart kept by hand is permanently out of date.