Guest article from Joe Malone BSc(Hons) ICIOB
Understanding
the existing core data for the building you inhabit may well highlight that it
is not fit for purpose or space inefficient; critical information if you are
reviewing plans for future accommodation that may well fuel your appetite for a
move
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| Source: http://www.sven.co.uk/ |
Many organisations, particularly
Government organisations are currently reviewing their office space
requirements with a view to rationalising and making efficiency savings but how
should you approach this exercise? Many organisations see this as a simple
exercise in reviewing their ways of working and you will commonly hear of
organisations looking to reduce their desk to staff ratio but organisations
looking to build or rent new office space have a unique opportunity to fully
consider how their buildings can contribute to space efficiency and the
starting point to this is first ensuring that your organisation has a robust
space standard. It consistently surprises me that so few organisations have a
space standard in place.
The
Space Standard
Essentially the space standard will
contain ideal core data drawn from best practice guidance produced by The
British Council for Offices and the Office of Government and Commerce.
The National Audit Office recently
published this report which again placed emphasis on government organisations
to start the space rationalisation process (Link)
The simple table below shows ideal
data drawn from best practice guidance and provides a template for space
planning. If you were planning to inhabit existing rather than new office space
then the Net Internal Area (NIA) of 10m² should be increased to 12m² and the
table should review actual core data for the building you inhabit. In fact
understanding the existing core data for the building you inhabit may well
highlight that it is not fit for purpose or space inefficient; critical
information if you are reviewing plans for future accommodation that may well
fuel your appetite for a move.
Aside from best practice guidance
there are some subjective issues based on the organisations culture and
aspirations for team working. Is there an aspiration to remove the perceived
management hierarchy by having managers share the same open plan floor space as
staff? Undoubtedly, open plan office
space is more efficient and encourages collaborative team working but are there
issues of business privacy that would prohibit this working arrangement?
Privacy is often the given argument for individual staff retaining their own
office space but it is seldom justified when shared but limited cellular space
can be booked by all staff members at suitable times.
Office
Ideal Core Data (New Space)
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Headcount
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190
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Minimum
legal requirement for office space provision per staff member
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11m³
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Office of
Government Commerce (OGC) and British Council for Offices (BCO) standard for
NIA per person (Average
public sector = 24m² per person)
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10m²
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Business
aspiration for efficiency savings
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30%
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Ratio of workstations
to staff
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7/10
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Number of
workstations to achieve 30% space efficiency
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133
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Cellular
space
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≤ 10%
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Meeting
Room provision
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Typically
1.2 m² per staff member
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Primary
circulation space as a percentage of total NIA (Normal range for efficient
buildings = 10-15%)
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≤ 15%
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Floor plate
efficiency (NIA:GIA)
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80-85%
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Flexible
partitioning
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Yes
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Local
Support Space
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≤5% of
Total NIA
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Central
Support Space
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25% of
Total NIA
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On Site
Parking Space provision standard
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1 space per
25m² of GEA
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Required
number of staff parking spaces
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100 (0.8
ratio spaces/desks)
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Ideal GEA
Required for staff parking
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1900m²
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Number of
single user offices
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6
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Number of
Meeting Rooms
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8
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Efficiency Savings on
Existing Office Space
You are of course limited on
efficiency savings that can be made on existing space, your floor plate
efficiency is generally fixed and you may be limited in changes that can be
made to cellular and primary circulation space etc. Those who inhabit more
modern buildings with flexible partitioning have a greater opportunity to make
physical changes to the floor space and therefore rationalise how they use that
space.
In general terms organisations will
look to review their ways of working and introduce clear desk policies,
increased working hours or mobile working so that they can reduce their desk to
staff ratio. The average cost of a work station is circa £4500 per staff member
so if you reduce the number of workstations by 30% then there are some
immediate and on-going savings in not providing or supporting these work
stations. If the object of this exercise is to free up space to achieve a
headline figure of say 6m² per staff
member then the question I would ask is, ‘What do you now intend to do with the
free space you’ve created?’ I come across this anomaly many times,
organisations want to achieve this headline figure but have no real plans for
the space created, moreover they have these hypothetical ideals of space per
staff member in mind without understanding the wider context of additional
space required for circulation and support.
If you rationalise and free up space
then make sure you can generate income from that space otherwise what’s the
point?
Efficiency
Savings on New Office Space
I’m currently involved with the
planning a new build office and if we use the ideal core data in the table we
see that we have 190 staff and a guide for 10m² of NIA per staff member. This
means we have to build an office with a net internal area of 1900m², or do we?
The reality is that we are still
looking to reduce our desk to staff ratio by 30% and it follows that we can
reduce the size of our building by 30% leaving a total requirement for only
1330m² of NIA. At our anticipated build cost of £836 per m² then this space
reduction would save around £550k on the cost of development. Whilst these
savings are incredibly attractive I should issue a word of caution… organisations
that take full advantage of these space savings can lose business flexibility!
Are you absolutely sure that there will be no future requirement for additional
space? It’s a fact that many public sector organisations have a continuous
downward trend in terms of the number of staff they employ but private sector
businesses looking for continued growth should bear in mind future space
requirements.
By rationalising and freeing up space,
organisations can create the opportunity for the co-location of services.
Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council recently took the opportunity to relocate staff from geographically dispersed
premises throughout the Rochdale area into a single Municipal Office providing
a single point access service to a mixed use development containing offices,
library, restaurants and cafés. They were fortunate in appointing an
architectural firm who are fully conversant with BCO guidance and best practice
and I’m sure that this was a critical success factor in their excellent new
office design. (Link)
The concept office design I created in Sketch-up had a greatly reduced footprint and reduced development cost due to the space
freed in the adjacent building and the glazed link provided to utilise that
space.
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| Source: Joe Malone |
Concept Office Design Utilising Free
Space Created in Adjacent Building
For
cash strapped public sector organisations looking to review their accommodation,
identifying space efficiencies for shared accommodation or co-location can be the
critical factor in gaining approval for new office development.
Joe Malone BSc(Hons) ICIOB
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