Office space planning: start with how people actually use the space
Good office space planning starts with one question: how should people use the space? How to find the answer before you draw a single floor plan. Squaredot | Updated 2026
Most office projects start in the wrong place. Someone opens a floor plan, counts the desks that will fit and works out how many meeting rooms can go along the wall. It feels like progress. But it skips the most important question in office space planning.
How should people use the space?
Answer that first and the floor plan almost draws itself. Skip it and you end up with an office that looks good on day one and frustrates people by month three.
Why office space planning goes wrong
Floor plans are usually built around numbers that are easy to get: headcount, desk count and square footage. The problem is that none of them describe how work actually happens.
Headcount does not tell you how many people are in on a Tuesday compared with a Friday. Desk count does not tell you how much of the day is spent on calls. Square footage does not tell you whether a team needs quiet focus, constant collaboration or a mix of both.
In the offices we have studied, even before COVID, utilisation typically sat between 35% and 55%. Since hybrid working, the pattern has become more uneven, with busy midweek peaks and much quieter Mondays and Fridays. Planning around averages, or around headcount, misses all of that.
Start with activities, not desks
A better starting point is to list what people actually do in the office. For most organisations, that includes:
Focused individual work that needs quiet and few interruptions.
Calls and video meetings, often several a day.
Small, quick conversations between two or three people.
Larger team sessions, workshops and planning.
Social time, which is often the reason people come in at all.
Each of those activities needs a different kind of space. When the office only offers one kind, usually rows of desks plus a few meeting rooms, people end up doing all five in the wrong places. Calls happen at desks. Two-person chats take over eight-person rooms. Focus work moves home.
In our surveys, 75% of people said they want a choice of settings for different activities. That is the clearest sign that the one-size-fits-all office no longer fits anyone.
How to find out how people really use the space
You cannot answer the question with assumptions. The answer has to come from evidence, and it is quicker to gather than most people expect. We use a mix of four methods:
Observation. Recording how each space is used across a typical period, including the peaks and the quiet days.
Surveys. Asking everyone how they work, what helps and what gets in the way.
Stakeholder interviews. Understanding where each team and the business as a whole are heading.
Engagement workshops. Bringing people into the process so the new space reflects how they want to work.
Together, these give you a picture of the office as it is actually used, not as the floor plan suggests.
Design for the peaks, not the average
One of the most useful outputs of this work is a clear view of the busiest days. If the office is full on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and half empty on Fridays, designing for the average leaves people fighting for space midweek. Designing for the peak, with flexible settings that work on quiet days too, keeps the office usable all week.
This is also where office space planning can unlock real savings. When the space matches how people work, many organisations find they need less of it, used better. In our recent studies, rethinking existing space showed possible savings of 29% to 46%.
Plan the technology at the same time
Once you know how people will use each space, you also know what technology it needs. A phone booth needs good acoustics, power and decent lighting for video. A team room needs a screen, a camera and audio that works for people in the room and on the call. A focus area may need very little at all.
When technology is added at the end, it gets squeezed in around a layout that was never designed for it. Since joining SPOR Group, we plan the space and the technology together from the start, so both work from day one.
Six questions to ask before you plan anything
If you are about to plan a move, a refurbishment or a new layout, start with these:
How should people use the space, and how do they use it today?
Which activities matter most for each team?
When are the busiest days, and how busy do they get?
What technology will help people work well in each setting?
How flexible does the space need to be as the business changes?
How will you know, after people move in, that it is working?
Get the question right first
Good office space planning is not about fitting the most desks into a floor plate. It is about understanding how people work and giving them the right places to do it. Get that question right and the rest of the project becomes much easier.
Planning changes to your workplace? Book a call with Chris and we will talk through where to start.
Want to see how UK offices are really being used? Our latest research is free to download.
