POST-LOCKDOWN NATIONAL WORKPLACE REVIEW
This exercise to review 25 offices across the UK for an expanding group of property consultants proved to be hugely successful.
Working through the pandemic with our online workplace analysis toolkit, our aim was to understand how the organisation worked and to how we could inform the requirements of a future workplace, geared around their unique processes & activities. Furthermore, it was to understand how the effects of COVID-19 and remote working had impacted opinion and performance.
The response rate at 87% to our online survey offered tremendous gravitas to the findings and a strong degree of accuracy in terms of the conclusions. Backed up by key stakeholder interviews & online staff engagement workshops, we uncovered a series of potential strategies that will provide a pertinent & flexible series of solutions for the group to carry forward into their new world.
With a 52% increase in agile workers identified over the study, the results paved the way for new ways in working and various strategies put forward by Squaredot for the rationalisation of office locations.
Differing agility ratio's were calculated across the sectors, ranging from 2:5 to 3:5 (desks:people), which going forwards could be applied to each unique service line or location. And with office locations across the UK, each with unique requirements, this was about identifying the need for flexibility, both in how people work as well as where people work.
Essentially this was not only people profiling, this was also service line and location profiling.
Our review found a very rigid culture & physical environment within this group of property consultants. However, accelerated learning around remote working through the pandemic drove the desire to have more choice and work in a more agile way.
Following the initial workplace analysis, we went on to provide a Feasibility study, focusing on a range of different size offices, to illustrate what our findings could actually mean and look like. Our feasibility planning indicated how a varied mix of worksettings could support a new attitude to remote working and also pave the way to a restructure and possible consolidation of properties. We illustrated models for reduced space as well as re-purposing buildings to create new flexible working / business hubs.
Within the feasibility planning study we highlighted how our findings could work within one of their largest offices, a rigid space with a sea of 130 desks supporting 130 people. Our new model and planning strategy illustrated a flexible space offering the choice of 62 desks & 54 touchdown positions supporting the same number of people. In addition, a new business hub enabling clients & colleagues from across the country to drop in as required. A showcase for visitors & employees alike.
