For businesses planning a move or a refit
Workplace Strategy: How to Brief Your Next Office
Sviatoslav JerdetchiiCEO & Founder of Craftex. Updated , 5 min read
The short answer
A workplace strategy decides what your office is for, how much of it you need and which settings it should hold, based on how your people actually work. It becomes the brief your designer draws from.
- Start with data: who comes in, on which days, to do what.
- Turn it into a brief: headcount, settings, rooms and growth.
- Test the brief on real floor plans before you sign.
- Measure after the move and adjust.
A workplace strategy decides what your office is for and how it should work, before anyone draws it. It starts with how your people actually use space: who comes in, on which days, to do what. Then it turns that into the brief your designer works from.
Get the strategy right and the office fits the way you work for the length of the lease. Get it wrong and you pay for desks nobody uses, or run out of meeting rooms by Tuesday.
This guide covers the data to collect, the brief and the test fit. It comes from the team that designs and builds the office. Our office design consultants take a brief to a test fit and a fixed figure. Writing one now? Book a free design consultation and send us what you have.
What a workplace strategy is
A workplace strategy is a short written plan for your office. It answers four questions.
- Who is the office for? Teams, roles and visitors, today and over the lease.
- What do people come in to do? Focused work, teamwork, client meetings, training or making things.
- When do they come in? Which days are busiest, and how busy.
- What settings does that need? Desks, meeting rooms, phone booths, quiet rooms and social space.
It is not the design. It doesn't choose finishes or furniture. It sets the numbers and the mix that the design then delivers. The office then matches how the business works now, not five years ago.
Workplace consultancy is the work of gathering that evidence and writing it up. Some consultancies stop at the report. We take the brief on through space planning, design and the build. Nothing is lost between the people who plan and the people who build.
Collect occupancy and hybrid data first
The strategy is only as good as its numbers. Hybrid working changed them: the Office for National Statistics found 28% of working adults in Great Britain were hybrid working in October 2024. It was more common among managers and professionals.
That means attendance moves through the week. A headcount on paper no longer tells you how many desks you need.
- Occupancy counts: how many people are in, by day and by hour, over a few typical weeks.
- Booking data: meeting rooms booked against rooms actually used.
- A short staff survey: what people come in for and what is missing.
- Team interviews: which teams must sit together, and which need quiet.
- Growth plans: the headcount you expect by the middle of the lease.
Count in typical weeks, not holiday weeks. Look for the busiest day, because that is the day the office has to work.
Write the brief
The brief turns the data into numbers a designer can draw. Keep it short enough that the people who sign the lease will read it.
- Attendance: busiest-day numbers now and by the middle of the lease.
- Desk ratio: how many desks per person you are prepared to run.
- Meeting rooms: by size and number, from your booking data.
- Focus space: phone booths and quiet rooms for calls and deep work.
- Shared space: kitchen, breakout and client-facing areas.
- Adjacencies: the teams that must sit together.
- Technology: video calls, screens and storage.
- Limits: budget, move-in date and lease length.
Then size it. The British Council for Offices recommends 10 m² per person for general workspace. It says that density gives room for the mix of settings hybrid teams use. Our office space calculator turns your busiest day into square metres and square feet.
From brief to test fit
A brief proves nothing until it is drawn on a real floor. A test fit is that first drawing: your brief laid out on the plan of a building you are considering, with desk and room numbers.
Test two or three buildings side by side, before you sign heads of terms. The same quoted area can hold very different numbers. On one 720 m² floor we drew 84 desks in open plan, 60 in a hybrid with rooms, and 16 in cellular offices. Our guide to the main types of office layout shows all ten.
The test fit also shows what the building allows. Columns, the depth of the floor, the core and the landlord's rules can all cut desks or move rooms. When the fit works, the space plan, the design and the price follow from it. Our guide to office space planning covers those steps.
A brief written by a deadline
At Beaumont House in Kensington, the client had five weeks left on their old lease and more than 150 staff to move. There was no time for a long study, so the brief had to be clear from the first meeting.
It asked for teamwork on an open floor and private rooms for confidential meetings. We opened up the 750 sq m floor and used frosted glass for the meeting rooms. The office was built in three weeks. A clear brief is what made that pace possible.
Sviat and his team at Craftex were brilliant to work with on our office redesign. From the first meeting, they took the time to understand how we actually use the space rather than just pitching generic solutions. They came back with clever, practical ideas to maximise use of the space and get more employees and desks inside . Every step was handled professionally, and the process felt surprisingly smooth for a project of this size. They finished one week ahead of schedule, and the transformation is clear — our office feels brighter, more functional, and much more welcoming. I’d happily recommend Craftex to anyone who wants a reliable design team that also makes the journey enjoyable.
What to measure after the move
A workplace strategy isn't finished on moving day. Measure the office a few months in, once habits have settled.
- Busiest-day attendance against desks: are people turned away, or are rows empty?
- Meeting rooms: are they booked and used, or booked and empty?
- Settings in use: do phone booths and quiet rooms fill up?
- What staff say: a short survey on what works and what doesn't.
If the numbers drift from the brief, adjust. A few desks can become a meeting room. A meeting room can become two phone booths. Design for that from the start and the changes stay small.
Ready to turn your strategy into a floor plan? Book a free design consultation. We'll come back the same working day with the next step.
