Hybrid office
How to plan a hybrid office, step by step.
How many desks, how many rooms and which floors you really need. A six-step plan to work through with your team, and how to answer each step with real data.
By Carles Morales, founder of Orpheus ·
Why the floor plan falls short
With hybrid working, the floor plan no longer tells you how much space you need.
The floor plan counts one desk per person and every day full. In the average Orpheus building, at the daily peak, it never gets past two thirds:
- 64%
- of desks taken on the busiest day (Tuesday)
- 45%
- of desks taken on an average day
- 14%
- of desks taken on Friday
Average Orpheus building: hybrid-working clients, measured before changing anything.
And every empty desk is still paid for. With rent, cleaning and energy at €28.4/m² a month, a desk costs about €280 a month. If only 14% come in on Friday, each person who comes in that day costs about €2,030.
The plan
Six steps, from data to decision.
You can draft the plan with your team or with an AI assistant. What no plan can make up is the data: how your office is really used.
- 01
Define the decision
Write down the question you want to answer and who decides: consolidating floors, renegotiating space, opening a site or redesigning a floor. That tells you what to measure, where and for how long.
With Orpheus: We pin it down with you in the first conversation.
- 02
Measure real use
Count people by floor, zone and room, hour by hour, every working day. Badge data, bookings and surveys tell you who might come in, not who is there. A few weeks are enough to see the pattern; avoid measuring only in unusual months such as August.
With Orpheus: Sensors with no construction work and nothing touching your network. Space shows data from day one.
- 03
Look for the peak, not the average
Size for the peak of each day and each week. The daily average includes the empty hours and misleads. See which day is busiest, how far Friday drops and which zones fill up first.
With Orpheus: Analytics: daily rhythm and each day’s peak, by floor and zone.
- 04
Review meeting rooms by group size
Compare how many people meet with each room’s capacity. If eight-person rooms are used by two, you have too many large rooms and too few small ones and phone booths. And count the bookings that stay empty.
With Orpheus: Meeting room analytics, and Meet to release ghost meetings.
- 05
Decide desks and floors
With the real peak you decide how many desks you need and what margin to leave for peak days. If you have 240 desks today and 154 are taken on the busiest day, that peak needs 154 plus the margin you choose. If some days are quiet, consider closing floors on those days: no heating or cooling, no lights and no cleaning.
With Orpheus: Space tells you which floors to open each day, and Guide steers people to the floor with room.
- 06
Change in phases and measure again
Roll out changes on one floor or one site, tell people where to go and measure again before extending it. The before and after is what convinces leadership.
With Orpheus: Guide at reception and on every floor, Meet in the rooms and Reports with the before and after.
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Checklist
Before you take the plan to leadership.
- The question, and who decides.
- A few weeks of real usage data, not bookings.
- The peak by day, floor and zone.
- Meeting room use by group size.
- How many desks and rooms, with what margin, and which floors to open each day.
- How it will be rolled out in phases and how the effect will be measured.
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Plan your office with what really happens.
Leave your name and email and we’ll tell you how to start.