Workplace strategy consultancy
Workplaces that fuel performance
We help you design a workplace that earns its keep — the right space, in the right places, shaped by evidence rather than opinion.
When do you need a workplace strategy?
Almost every project starts with a decision about property or people that’s already on the table. Find the moment that sounds like yours, and the study that answers it.
Lease breaks
Your lease expires in the next 24 months and you need to know how much space you’ll actually need before you commit to the next one. The data says start 24 to 36 months out.
The impact of AI
AI is changing what your people do all day, and you need to know what that means for headcount, tasks and how much office you’ll need.
Consolidation
You’re carrying more buildings than the business needs and want to know whether you can bring sites together, and what it would take.
Growth
You’re scaling fast and want the workplace and technology to keep pace without productivity slipping as you add people.
Flat productivity
Output feels lower than it should be and you want to find out what in the workplace is holding teams back, then fix it.
Employee satisfaction
Engagement scores or attrition are telling you the workplace isn’t working for people, and you need to know why and what to change.
Trusted by leading organisations across technology, insurance, energy, the public sector and not-for-profits
An independent workplace consultancy, advising on the workplace since 1992 across the private and public sectors. No fit-out to sell, no building to fill, just the evidence and the plan.
What is a workplace strategy?
A workplace strategy is the plan that decides how much space your organisation needs, where it should be, and how it should work, set by evidence rather than habit or guesswork.
Ours reshapes four things at once: the technology people use, the spaces they work in, the way leadership wants to operate, and the culture that holds it together. Done well, it gets you more from every place you work, for the business and for the people in it.
Whether what people use day to day supports the way you want to work.
The amount, type and shape of space, right-sized to real use.
An agreed, evidenced view of how the organisation wants to work.
The behaviours and practices that make a new workplace actually stick.
How a workplace strategy takes shape, from decision to plan
Four stages take you from the question on the table to an evidenced plan you can act on. The studies do the heavy lifting in the middle.
Initiation & visioning
We get your leadership team to agree what work should look like ahead, and surface where they don’t yet agree.
Discovery & studies
The evidence engine. We run the studies that fit your situation to measure how the workplace is really used and where it falls short.
Emerging findings
We test the options against cost, people, space and carbon, so the trade-offs are on the table before any commitment.
Workplace strategy
An evidenced plan across technology, space, leadership and culture, with the reasoning for the route we recommend.
What our workplace strategy consultants actually measure
Each one is a discrete, branded piece of evidence-gathering. Open any card to see exactly what it involves and what you walk away with. This is the part most consultancies leave vague.
01
Leadership & vision
Visioning
Getting your leadership team to agree what work should look like in the years
ahead, and seeing in black and white where they don’t yet agree.
Structured interviews and workshops with C-suite leaders to surface organisational priorities, the business drivers behind them, and an agreed picture of how the organisation wants to work in future. We capture each leader’s priorities and feed them into the Work & Productivity Profiler, so the spread of opinion is visible rather than assumed.
02
Leadership & vision
Work & Productivity Profiler
A survey that turns your leaders’ gut feelings into one ranked list of
priorities, and tells you how much they actually agree.
A structured survey of senior leaders that asks each of them to weight and rank the organisational capabilities that matter most, from productivity and talent retention to cost and sustainability. Each leader’s votes are weighted and totalled, then plotted on a single dashboard so the collective priority order is clear. We run an agreement measure (Kendall’s W) across the responses to show how united the leadership team really is, and a per-capability spread to show where opinion is split.
03
Futures & modelling
AI Impact Assessments
Working out, role by role, what AI actually changes about people’s jobs,
and what that means for how many people and how much office you need.
A function-by-function and job-by-job review of where AI changes the work, using AWA’s research base and assessment tools. We map current activities against what AI can now do, then model the knock-on effect on headcount, task mix and the amount of office space the changed workforce will need, a grounded view rather than a generic forecast.
04
Space & estate
Workplace Utilisation Studies
Measuring how busy every desk, meeting room and breakout space really is, so you
can stop paying for space nobody uses.
A measured snapshot of how well every type of work point is used, from desks and meeting rooms to social and collaboration spaces. We capture occupancy and frequency of use across the day and week, by space type and by floor, then break it down so you can see what’s busy, what’s empty and what’s the wrong size.
05
People & performance
Cognitive Wellbeing & Performance
Checking whether your office actually helps people concentrate and do good work,
or quietly wears them down.
An assessment of how well your workplace practices, processes, spaces and services support people doing their best thinking. We assess the environment and ways of working against the science of cognitive performance, drawing on the Body Budget tool to gauge the mental and physical load people carry, and pinpoint the demands that drain them.
06
Space & estate
Infrastructure Reviews
Checking your tech, HR policies and space standards are ready for how you want to
work, not how you used to.
A review of current and planned technology, HR and space practices to see whether they support the way the organisation wants to work. We examine the existing technology, people policies and space standards, then set them against the future vision to find what’s missing, outdated or pulling in the wrong direction.
07
People & performance
Commute Studies
Mapping where your staff actually live and how long it takes them to get in, so
you can pick offices people can realistically reach.
An analysis of where your workforce lives and how they travel to work, mapped against your current and possible office locations. We plot the workforce against locations and travel options using the commute tool, producing maps and graphs that show who can reach which site and how easily, with the journey times, modes and catchment for each.
08
Futures & modelling
Carbon Workplace Modelling
Working out the carbon cost of each office option before you choose, so the green
impact is part of the decision, not an afterthought.
Modelling the carbon impact of different location and workplace options so it can be weighed alongside cost and people factors. We model the candidate options against the organisation’s carbon generation, including the commuting and building footprint each one carries, so the climate cost of each choice is on the table before the decision is made.
09
Futures & modelling
Scenario Modelling
Testing different ‘what if’ office plans on paper to find the one that
gives you the best balance of cost, people and space.
Modelling a set of workplace and property scenarios side by side to find the option that best balances cost, people, carbon and growth. We build the scenarios from the study data, draw on stack planning and demand-versus-supply forecasting, and model each one so the trade-offs are visible before any commitment.
Not sure which studies fit your situation? Start from the moment that brought you here, and we’ll shape the right set around it.
Talk through your situationThe tools behind the studies
The studies are only as good as what runs them. We have built and refined these tools over years of workplace consultancy, each one turning raw data into something a leadership team can decide on.
From mapping commutes to modelling a redesigned floor before a wall moves, these are the instruments behind the evidence we hand you.
Commute tool
Plots where your workforce lives against current and candidate office locations, then maps journey times and travel modes for each option as interactive maps and graphs.
Lets you choose locations people can actually reach, which supports attendance and retention. Cuts the daily friction of getting to work and de-risks a relocation before you commit to it.
Space modelling and stack planning
Models office floor plans before and after a redesign, showing desk-count deltas and reconfigured spaces, such as turning two 12-person meeting rooms into four 6-person rooms, and plans how teams stack across floors.
Shows the impact of a redesign before a single wall moves, so you can right-size with confidence. Surfaces the gain up front, such as a third more desks from the same footprint, before you spend on the fit-out.
Work and Productivity Profiler
Surveys your senior leaders to weight and rank the capabilities the organisation most needs, totals the votes onto a leadership priorities dashboard, and measures how much the team agrees using Kendall's W.
Gives the strategy a clear, evidenced mandate from leadership rather than a guess at what they want. Exposes disagreement early, before it surfaces partway through delivery and derails the programme.
Body Budget tool
Measures the mental and physical demand the workplace places on people, the body budget they have to spend through the day, as part of the cognitive wellbeing study.
Pinpoints where the environment and ways of working are draining people. Shows you the specific things to change to stop the workplace quietly eroding performance.
Utilisation measurement
Captures how well every work point is used, by space type and by floor, and breaks the occupancy data down across the day and week.
Replaces assumptions about how the office is used with measured evidence. Grounds every space decision in real behaviour, so you right-size on data rather than opinion.
Ten-year demand forecast
Forecasts your organisation's future demand for space against its current supply over a ten-year horizon, feeding the scenario modelling.
Shows whether you will be short or long on space years ahead. Lets you make property decisions on a forecast rather than a guess.
Built in-house, refined on real client work. The same tools run behind every study in the section above.
The numbers our workplace strategies have moved
Every strategy ends in a decision someone has to defend. These are the outcomes that defended them.
The British Heart Foundation right-sized its estate on the back of measured occupancy, not a hunch about how the office was used.
A global workplace strategy for WTW that took cost out of the property portfolio and kept it out.
AWA's benchmark across measured workplaces. Most offices are now paid for at roughly a third full, which is where the space-reduction case begins.
A level-by-level redesign took one banking client from 54 to 72 desks on the same footprint by reshaping the space, before a single wall moved.
More than thirty years measuring how organisations work and turning it into property decisions that hold up.
Sources: AWA client work and research benchmarks. Figures reflect realised outcomes, not projections.
A situation like yours, taken end to end
Each of these started with a property decision and a question about space. Each ended with a strategy the business could act on.
28% less space
British Heart Foundation
With leases coming up and more buildings than the work needed, the question was how much office the charity would actually use. An office utilisation study measured real occupancy across the estate, and space modelling showed what could come together. The strategy took out 28% of the space without taking the work with it.
$100m saved a year
WTW (Willis Towers Watson)
A global insurer carrying property cost across many markets needed a workplace strategy that held up portfolio-wide, not building by building. AWA modelled the demand against the supply and built the case for change. The result was $100m a year off the running cost, with the workplace still fit for how people work.
+33% desks, same footprint
Global banking client
A growing team and no appetite to take on more floors. Working level by level, the redesign reconfigured meeting and desk space, for example turning two large meeting rooms into four right-sized ones, and added around a third more desks to the footprint already paid for. The before-and-after is drawn out earlier on this page. Client anonymised pending sign-off.
Read the full case studies, or talk to the team about the trigger that sounds like yours.
An independent workplace consultancy that brings the evidence
We have advised organisations on the workplace since 1992. The work is science and research led, and the recommendations come with the data behind them.
For the business
- A property decision you can defend, grounded in measured occupancy rather than assumptions about how the office is used.
- A clear read on how much office space you need, and what consolidating or right-sizing would save.
- The carbon and cost of each option quantified side by side, so the trade-off is on the table before you commit.
For your people
- Locations people can realistically reach, mapped from where they live, which supports attendance and retention.
- A workplace measured against the science of how people concentrate and do good work, instead of the assumptions baked into the floor plan.
- A strategy your leadership team has signed up to, with the points of disagreement surfaced early rather than glossed over.
Credentials
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An independent global workplace consultancy, advising on the workplace since 1992.
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Science and research led: every recommendation is backed by the study and the number behind it.
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The original work on the DNA of work has evolved into the studies and tools you see here, applied to how organisations work now.
Tell us the decision you are facing
If one of the triggers on this page sounds like you, that is usually the right time to talk. The first conversation is about your situation, and there is no pressure to commit.
Questions buyers ask before they get in touch
The questions that come up most often about workplace strategy, and our straight answers to them.
What is a workplace strategy?
A workplace strategy is the plan for how your places of work, your technology and your ways of working should change to support the business. It usually starts with a property decision, a lease break, a relocation, a consolidation, and works back from how your people actually work to how much office space you need and how it should be configured. Done well, it is grounded in measured evidence rather than assumptions.
What does a workplace strategist do?
A workplace strategist measures how your organisation really works, then turns that into property and workplace decisions you can defend. In practice that means running studies, occupancy, commute, leadership priorities, AI impact, and modelling the options so the trade-offs between cost, people, carbon and growth are visible before you commit. AWA has done this as an independent workplace consultancy since 1992.
When should we start a workplace strategy before our lease expires?
As a rule, start 24 to 36 months before lease expiry. That gives enough time to run the studies, understand how much office space you actually need, model the options and act on the answer, whether that is renewing, relocating or consolidating. Leave it later and you end up committing to space before you know what you need. A lease break is the most common trigger for a workplace strategy.
What is an office utilisation study?
An office utilisation study, also called an occupancy or desk utilisation study, measures how well every type of work point is used, desks, meeting rooms, social and collaboration space, across the day and the week. It replaces assumptions about how busy the office is with measured evidence, so you can see what is overused, underused and the wrong size. It is usually the foundation for right-sizing the estate.
How much office space do we actually need per person?
It depends on how your people work, not a fixed ratio. Average global office attendance now runs at about 35%, so most organisations are paying for far more space than they use on any given day. The honest answer comes from an office utilisation study of your own estate measured against your attendance pattern. Our benchmark and the free download on this page give you a starting read on how much office space you need.
Should we downsize or consolidate our office?
Often both are on the table, and the answer comes from the evidence rather than instinct. We measure how the current estate is used, map where your people live so the location works for them, and model the scenarios side by side, including the cost and carbon of each. That tells you whether you can bring sites together, by how much you can right-size, and what it would take to do it well.
What is a commute study and why does it matter?
A commute study maps where your workforce lives and how they would travel to each possible office location, with the journey times and travel modes for each option. It matters because a location people can actually reach supports attendance and retention, and it takes the guesswork out of a relocation. It is also where the people case and the carbon case for a location meet.
What is an AI impact assessment for the workplace?
An AI impact assessment reviews your organisation function by function and role by role to work out where AI changes the work, which tasks it absorbs, which roles change in nature, and where the volume of work shifts. We then model what that does to headcount and to the amount of office space the changed workforce will need. It connects the AI-and-jobs question to your actual property demand, which most of the macro forecasts never do.
Do you handle change management and the move itself?
The workplace strategy is the plan; making it stick is the next part of the work. We support the change with the leadership, communications and ways-of-working pieces so the new workplace is used the way it was designed to be. The strategy is built so the people who have to live with it have already had a hand in shaping it, which is what makes the change land.
What is the difference between workplace strategy and occupancy planning?
Occupancy planning is about fitting people into the space you have, who sits where, how floors are stacked. Workplace strategy is the bigger question of how much space you need at all, in what locations, configured for which ways of working, and why. Occupancy planning and stack planning sit inside a workplace strategy as tools; they do not replace the strategy itself.
What sectors and sizes do you work with?
We work with organisations across technology, insurance, energy, not-for-profit and the public sector, from single offices to global property portfolios. The studies and tools are the same; what changes is the scale. Named workplace strategy work on this page runs from a not-for-profit estate to a global insurer's portfolio.