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Workplace strategy consultants
We work out how much office space your organisation needs, where it should be and how it should work, from evidence of how your people use it today. You get a costed plan before you sign a lease or move a team.
AWA Home › Services › Workplace strategy
The workplace decision is harder to call than it’s ever been
Most offices are busy midweek and quiet on Fridays, yet the rent is paid on every desk all week. Leaders want people in the office more often, and people need a good reason to come in. AI is changing what jobs involve, which makes headcount three years out hard to predict. Meanwhile the date of your next lease break or expiry is fixed.
You need evidence of how your people work now, from an adviser who is paid the same whatever the answer. We don’t design, fit out or lease buildings.
Trusted 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.
What is a workplace strategy?
A workplace strategy is a plan for the space, technology and ways of working your organisation needs, based on measured evidence of how your people work.
Ours covers four things together: the technology people use, the spaces they work in, how leadership wants the organisation to operate, and its culture.
Read our guide to workplace consultancy.
Technology
Whether what people use day to day supports the way you want to work.
Space
The amount, type and shape of space, right-sized to real use.
Leadership
Your leadership team’s agreed view of how the organisation should work, tested against evidence.
Culture
The behaviours and practices that help people make the most of a new workplace.
What a strategy works out
What the business needs
Future headcount and structure
Business scenarios
How people will work
How many offices
Where offices should be
What people need from the office
When do you need a workplace strategy?
Most of our work starts with one of these seven situations.
Lease breaks and expiries
Your lease ends or reaches a break within the next two years, and you need to know how much space to take before you commit to the next one. The work starts 24 months out, as our office lease event guide sets 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 a move would take.
Growth
You’re growing quickly and need the workplace and technology to keep up 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.
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.
Mergers and acquisitions
You’re planning a merger or acquisition and need to rationalise the combined property portfolio.
Not sure which fits?
Talk it through with us
Book a call
How does a workplace strategy project run?
The work runs in four stages and ends with a costed plan.
Stage 01
Initiation & visioning
We get your leadership team to agree what work should look like in the years ahead, and surface where they don’t yet agree.
Stage 02
Discovery & studies
We run the studies that fit your situation to measure how the workplace is used and where it falls short.
Stage 03
Emerging findings
We bring the study findings together, test the options against cost, people, space and carbon, and show you the trade-offs before you commit.
Stage 04
Workplace strategy
We give you a costed plan across technology, space, leadership and culture, and the reasons for the route we recommend.
Where it’s worked before
Four organisations that changed how they work, and what that did to the space they need.
28% less space
AWA has worked with the British Heart Foundation on its Smarter Working model since 2016. With headcount growing and the lease at Greater London House running down, the charity could make the case for less space rather than more. In 2020 its landlord proposed a move within the building to a single floor of 26,000 square feet, and the charity now holds 28% less space than before.
Read the case study
$100m saved a year
After Willis and Towers Watson merged in 2015, WTW wanted one way of working across a network of more than 600 offices, and a smaller property portfolio to match. AWA piloted the change in WTW’s London office, turned it into a playbook, and ran 26 local projects with WTW over four years, from the UK and Germany to the US, Mexico and Singapore. The programme took more than $100m a year off the run rate.
Read the case study
A workplace model the faculty tested
Academics in the University of Manchester’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, used to their own offices, were moving into one of the largest academic buildings in Europe. AWA has worked with the campus development team since 2018. Over an academic year the faculty ran a three-phase pilot, with AWA measuring desk use and feeding what each phase found into the next, so the new workplace model was tested and understood before the move.
Read the case study
A hybrid roadmap the business adopted
Central England Co-operative wanted to keep the practices that started working during the pandemic and to hold less property. Workshops with the leadership team and research with employees showed where the work could be done better, and the report AWA wrote became the strategy guide the business works from.
Read the case study
What our workplace strategy consultants measure
Leadership & vision
Business alignment
Getting your leaders to agree what work should look like, and where they don’t.
You get: a written view of how your leaders want the organisation to work, and where they differ.
What it involves
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. Each leader’s priorities feed into the Work and Productivity Profiler.
Leadership & vision
Work and Productivity Profiler
A survey that ranks your leaders’ priorities and measures how much they agree.
You get: a ranked, weighted list of leadership priorities and a hard measure of consensus.
What it involves
Every senior leader completes the Work and Productivity Profiler, which covers the capabilities that matter most, from productivity and talent retention to cost and sustainability.
Futures & modelling
AI impact assessments
Working out, role by role, what AI means for headcount and office space.
You get: a job-by-job model of AI’s effect on headcount, tasks and space demand.
What it involves
A function-by-function and job-by-job review of where AI changes the work, using the research behind our AI Impact Report and our assessment tools. We map current activities against what AI can now do, then model the knock-on effect on headcount, task mix and office space.
Space & estate
Workplace utilisation studies
Measuring how desks, meeting rooms and other spaces are used.
You get: occupancy evidence for every space type and floor, showing what’s overused, underused and mis-sized.
What it involves
A measured snapshot of how every type of work point is used, from desks and meeting rooms to social and collaboration space, taken with our utilisation measurement tool.
People & performance
Cognitive Wellbeing & Performance
Checking whether your office helps people concentrate, or gets in the way.
You get: evidence of where the workplace supports or drains cognitive performance, and what to fix.
What it involves
An assessment of how well your workplace practices, processes, spaces and services support people’s best thinking, measured against the science of cognitive performance. The study includes our Body Budget tool.
Space & estate
Infrastructure reviews
Checking your technology, HR policies and space standards fit how you want to work.
You get: a list of the gaps in your technology, HR policies and space standards.
What it involves
A review of your current and planned technology, HR policies and space standards against the way the organisation wants to work, to find what is missing or out of date.
People & performance
Commute studies
Mapping journey times from where staff live, so you pick offices people can reach.
You get: a map of who can reach each possible office, with the attendance implications.
What it involves
We run your current and possible office locations through our commute tool and compare the catchment of each.
Futures & modelling
Carbon workplace modelling
Working out the carbon cost of each office option against your carbon targets.
You get: the carbon footprint of each location and workplace option.
What it involves
Modelling the carbon impact of each location and workplace option, including its commuting and building footprint, so carbon is weighed alongside cost and people before you decide.
Futures & modelling
Scenario modelling
Testing ‘what if’ plans to find the best balance of cost, people and space.
You get: a comparison of realistic options, with the trade-offs and a recommended route.
What it involves
Modelling workplace and property scenarios side by side to find the option that best balances cost, people, carbon and growth. Each scenario draws on the study data, space modelling and stack planning, and the ten-year demand forecast.
Not sure which studies you need? Tell us your situation and we’ll recommend the right set.
Book a callThe tools behind the studies
Commute tool
What it does
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.
Benefits
Lets you choose locations people can reach. Reduces the risk in a relocation.
Space modelling and stack planning
What it does
Models office floor plans before and after a redesign, showing the change in desk count and the reconfigured spaces, such as turning two 12-person meeting rooms into four 6-person rooms, and plans how teams stack across floors.
Benefits
Shows the impact of a redesign, such as a third more desks from the same footprint.
Work and Productivity Profiler
What it does
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.
Benefits
Shows where your leaders agree and where they don’t, before the strategy is written.
Body Budget tool
What it does
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.
Benefits
Pinpoints where the environment and ways of working are draining people. Shows you what to change.
Utilisation measurement
What it does
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.
Benefits
Replaces assumptions about how the office is used with measured evidence. Gives you the basis to right-size the estate.
Ten-year demand forecast
What it does
Forecasts your organisation’s future demand for space against its current supply over a ten-year horizon, feeding the scenario modelling.
Benefits
Shows whether you will be short or long on space years ahead.
An independent workplace consultancy that brings the evidence
We have advised organisations on the workplace since 1992. Our workplace consulting is science and research led, and every recommendation comes with its data.
For the business
- A property decision you can defend, grounded in measured occupancy.
- A recommendation on how much office space you need, and what consolidating or right-sizing would save.
- The carbon and cost of each option, side by side.
For your people
- Locations people can reach, mapped from where they live.
- A workplace measured against the science of how people concentrate and do good work.
- A strategy your leadership team has signed up to, with the points of disagreement named early.
Credentials
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Independent and global, 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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AWA’s Hybrid Working Index research underpins the studies and tools on this page.
Tell us the decision you are facing
One of our workplace strategy consultants will talk it through with you and recommend where to start.
Frequently asked questions about workplace strategy
What is a workplace strategy?
A workplace strategy is a plan for the space, technology and ways of working your organisation needs, based on measured evidence of how your people work. It usually starts with a property decision, such as a lease break, a relocation or a consolidation, and works back from how your people work to how much office space you need and how it should be configured.
What does a workplace strategy consultant do?
A workplace strategy consultant measures how your organisation works, then turns that into property and workplace decisions you can defend. In practice that means running studies of occupancy, commuting, leadership priorities and AI impact, and modelling the options so the trade-offs between cost, people, carbon and growth are visible. 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 months before lease expiry. That gives enough time to run the studies, understand how much office space you 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 or expiry 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, from desks and meeting rooms to 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?
There is no fixed ratio. It depends on how your people work. Average office attendance, the share of employees in the office on an average day, is 34% across the 19 countries in our Hybrid Working Index 4 (2024). Desk use, the share of desks in use, is a separate measure: 55% across the index and 49% in its UK offices. The answer for your organisation comes from an office utilisation study of your own estate, measured against your attendance pattern. We can give you a starting estimate from your headcount and floor area.
Should we downsize or consolidate our office?
Often you are weighing up both. 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 reach supports attendance and retention, and it lowers the risk of a relocation.
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.
Do you handle change management as well?
Yes. Change management is how the strategy is put into practice. Our workplace change management work covers leadership, communications and new ways of working, and the people who will use the new workplace help shape the strategy from the start.
What is the difference between workplace strategy and occupancy planning?
Occupancy planning is about fitting people into the space you have, deciding who sits where and 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.
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 at any scale. The case studies on this page run from a single charity headquarters to a global network of more than 600 offices.