What is Workplace Consultancy?

Workplace consultancy (WPC) is the name given to the detailed process and techniques used to understand your businesses workplace requirements. The process creates the foundation for a successful project. We find out everything there is to know about your current workplace, your staff and their future needs, and wider plans for the organisation in order to help you determine how it will impact your office space. 

Why should I appoint a Workplace Consultant?

Workplace consultancy helps you understand your business now so you can effectively plan for the future. We have done this many, many times, and have found employees will open up more to our independent consultants, providing valuable insights and helping you identify what works or doesn’t work in your current workplace environment. Our experienced team have found that more often than not, aspects that the senior team believe are most important in terms of investment are actually not seen as such by staff members. 

Common feedback is lack of natural light, poor heating and cooling or toilet provision, lack of meeting rooms, poor office acoustics. Do you truly know what your staff think of their workplace? Workplace consultancy can help you maximise your budget within the right areas, those that have the most impact to staff wellbeing, helping you retain and attract the top talent.

If a space utilisation survey is also completed as part of the workplace consultancy audit, the resulting data can also help you better understand how the space is used, helping you make decisions on optimum meeting room sizes and desk numbers, office design is indeed science! 

How does the process work?

The process begins by setting up a workplace transformation team, this team would normally have a representative from each department, a spokesperson for that particular team. Through a series of tools including online questionnaires, in person surveys, space utilisation audits, independent data is gathered regarding the workplace now and the potential future requirements. Future discussions will include predicted team growth and its impact on desk layout, wellbeing and meeting spaces. 

What can I expect from the process and how will it benefit my business?

Once the data is gathered it is analysed and presented in a detailed report with recommendations. This report can then be reviewed by your senior team and checked it is inline with the company strategy and any adjustments made. The data in the report can then be translated into a workplace consultancy organisation chart, which puts the business on a single sheet, clearly calculating the total square foot (sqft) now and projections for the future. This single sheet can aid decision making as its simple graphic format enables it to be easily adjusted, a great strategic tool to help companies evaluate their workplace strategy.  

Utilising the data from the workplace consultancy process, the sheet will calculate how much office space you need now and in the future, with the ability to add and remove areas or adjust the predicted growth as you firm up your total square foot requirements. The format also enables simple calculations to be completed, for example, assessing the split between office desking and meeting spaces and the impact of the predicted growth on the total sqft requirement, a great strategic tool for any growing business.