A workspace management system is the record a facilities or workplace manager keeps of the building as a place people work, and it is smaller than the vendors make it sound. Workspace management is four tables: the inventory of floors, rooms and desks with their areas and uses, the allocation of each to a team, the bookings and attendance the floor actually sees, and the contractors cleared to be on site with their dates. Everything sold as workspace management software, workspace management tools or workspace management solutions is a way of getting those four in and out, and workspace planning and workspace optimization are the arithmetic run over them. This guide takes the four in order and points at the worksheet that works each figure free.
The inventory and the allocation: what exists, and whose it is
Every floor, room and desk position with its square footage and its use, and the team or person each is assigned to. This is the denominator under every other figure a workspace management system produces, and the allocation is a claim about it: 24 desks on the third floor are marketing's. A system that lets the allocation float free of the inventory produces stacking plans that add up to more desks than exist, which is discovered on move day. Put one floor in and change its desk count; the allocation should complain.
The bookings and the attendance: what actually happened
Each desk booking is one person on one desk on one day, and filed against the desk the bookings become the attendance count: 84 in on an average day against 140 desks is 60% utilization, 126 on the busiest day is 90%, and 14 desks are spare. Kept week by week rather than reconstructed each quarter, the counts are the only evidence for the ratio the floor runs on. Workspace management software that cannot export the bookings as a table by desk and day has kept the paperwork and lost the point.
Workspace planning: the space a headcount needs
Workspace planning starts from the headcount and a ratio the attendance supports: 120 people at 7 desks per 10 is 84 desks; at 60 square feet a desk, with 1,800 square feet of meeting space, 1,500 of support and 25% circulation, it is 10,425 square feet and 86.9 a person. The office space per person worksheet on this site works it from your own figures with no account and publishes no standard; the ratio, the area per desk and the allowances are the organisation's own.
Workspace optimization: the arithmetic run the other way
Optimization is the same figures read from the attendance back to the floor. The busiest day needs 126 desks, so 14 of 140 are spare; the attendance supports 7 desks per 10 people, so a team of 36 needs 26 desk positions rather than 36; and a three-day rule for 180 people clusters to 158.4 on its busiest day, which 120 desks cannot seat. Each is a worksheet on this site, each is free, and each is a decision the manager makes with the figure in hand rather than a recommendation the software makes for them.
Questions people ask about workspace management system
What is a workspace management system?
A record of the floors, rooms and desks with their areas and uses, the team each is allocated to, the bookings and attendance the floor sees, and the contractors cleared to be on site, kept against the building and exportable. HardFM Pro keeps it for $24 a month for the whole team; the arithmetic over it is free on the page.
Which workspace management tools are free?
The three worksheets on this site: the office space a headcount needs and the square feet per person it implies, the utilization and sharing ratio from attendance, and the desks a return-to-office rule needs on its busiest day. No account, no card, and the answer is the whole calculation.
Does a workspace management system include room booking and visitors?
Not this one. Room booking and visitor sign-in are other products with other buyers. HardFM keeps the desks, who is booked into them, the occupancy and the contractor clearances, and stops there.