Maybe this is not a big surprise: The office space workplace has changed. People no longer want to work in cubicles or, for that matter, traditional private offices. This is the new workspace reality and it is impacting the workplace. To be able to recruit and retain the best and the brightest, businesses need to leverage their office space by aligning the physical workspace with updated workplace strategies and transform their business to allow their employees to be more satisfied and productive.  Recent studies show that only about 30% of the workforce is engaged in their jobs. Make sure your workplace is not a part of that statistic.

Of course, there are employees, like reception and support staff, who still need traditional office space style workspaces and need to spend most of their work week at their desks or in the office due to the nature of their duties. A lot of this is generational. With 4 generations now in the workforces, multiple styles of work need to be accommodated. Most employees today, however, don’t need to spend nearly as much time seated behind desktop computers in the traditional office space workplace. Often, the best workplace for them is where they happen to be at the moment. For these employees, office hoteling is a good option for a company to implement. The office hoteling process allows the employee to log and reserve an office, work station or conference rooms as needed. A good broker, like the ones we have at OfficeFinder, will guide you to workplace strategists who will study your workspace, it’s density patterns and employee work habits before recommending a comprehensive strategy that will probably include ea  number of hoteling workspaces.

There are still cases where some office space can be used most effectively using bench seating, cubicles or even the traditional private office. Many younger workers today actually are most productive, tend to collaborate and share ideas more in an open work area. Reducing  distractions by having focus rooms is important to some workers while others can easily ignore interoffice sounds and want the easy communication and collaboration fostered in an open work area. If you have been reading my past posts, you will know that one of my favorite sayings is “Headphones are the new office walls;” a means to privacy.

On-demand work areas that can be used for a few minutes such as stand up workstations where an employee simply has a space to power or charge their laptop while doing a few minor tasks or making phone calls and picking up messages or snail mail will help enhance the efficiency of your office space. This type of work area requires very little square footage, leveraging your leased office space costs to the minimum you effectively use.

Choose office space that reflects the type of business you operate. Some companies, like legal firms and architectural organizations, need to hold a lot of meetings with clients in formal meeting area. These firms needs ample meeting spaces of various sizes but during periods that no meetings are scheduled, these areas can provide impromptu work areas that can be scheduled for use. These types of rooms also provide quiet space for those who need time to focus on tasks that office noise can prove distracting