Planning a move next year? Here’s what to do now

Most organizations begin planning an office move by thinking about furniture, floor plans, or headcount projections. But after years of watching companies navigate relocations and hybrid transitions, one truth has become clear:

The biggest mistakes happen long before anyone tours a new building.

Companies struggling with moves aren’t lacking effort or intention. They’re lacking visibility. They make multimillion-dollar decisions based on what they assume is happening in the workplace rather than what employees are actually doing. If you’re planning a move to a new facility next year, start capturing the data you need today.

Start measuring the workplace now, not later

Hybrid patterns are unpredictable. They vary by team, project cycle, season, and policy changes. A single busy week or quiet month rarely reflects what your people consistently need.

Most organizations need several months of continuous utilization data to make accurate decisions about seat ratios, meeting room demand, and peak attendance. Without that baseline, future layouts are designed on guesswork.

Quantum Health experienced this firsthand. Leaders believed the company was out of space, and employees felt crowded. Once the team captured six months of badge data, they discovered average daily occupancy was below 50 percent. Instead of expanding, they implemented shared neighborhoods, improved flexibility, and avoided a renovation that would have cost $13.5 million.

Early measurement gives you time to validate assumptions, adjust designs, and avoid costly missteps.

Give people the systems they need before move day

One component to a successful move is getting your team on board early. By giving employees a way to navigate a new space, moving to a new site will be easier from an operations standpoint.

The key is to introduce these tools today, so that by the time you’ve relocated, they already know how to find their desks and coworkers. 

The opposite of engagement is inaction. After one organization we worked with introduced desk booking, desk utilization increased from 54 percent to 80 percent almost immediately. Employees finally had clarity on where to sit, teams coordinated better, and space became more predictable. Most importantly, they had a way to be autonomous in the office.

Validate your real estate needs

Organizations move to right-size after hybrid adoption, modernize outdated layouts, improve employee experience, consolidate locations, or support new ways of working.

Yet, without visibility into how people use space today, it is difficult to design a workplace that meets tomorrow’s needs.

HUB International discovered a major opportunity once they began measuring usage across their portfolio. Leadership routinely saw private offices sitting empty 30 to 50 percent of the time, even before hybrid work began. The assumption that everyone needed dedicated space simply wasn’t true. Data helped them rethink their workplace strategy and reduce unnecessary real estate costs.

Avoid errors that come from rushing a move

Organizations that do not measure early often recreate the problems of their old space. They bring too many assets, recreate outdated layouts, or underestimate how much change employees will experience.

In one organization, a lack of basic asset tracking led teams to reorder laptops and monitors simply because they did not know what they already had. Buying new equipment became the default even when inventories were full. Moves amplify this kind of inefficiency.

Procore takes a more strategic approach. Their real estate team uses detailed occupancy and cost data to understand how each location performs, negotiate better leases, and right-size with clarity.

Visibility not only prevents mistakes, it accelerates alignment.

Design based on how people actually work

A move is an opportunity to reset how work happens. But that only works if the new design reflects real behavior. Neighborhoods, collaboration areas, focus spaces, and seating ratios should be shaped by evidence, not intuition.

Many teams we’ve worked with leverage scenario planning to test and compare multiple layout options. This allows them to update plans in real time, adjust decisions based on utilization data, and save hundreds (really) of hours during each move cycle.

When organizations can experiment before committing to construction, the workplace becomes a strategic asset rather than a costly guess.

If your move is next year, the window to capture data is open now

A headquarters move is a commitment to how your people will work for years to come. Without early measurement, you are designing in the dark. With the right data, you can right-size with confidence, prepare employees for change, and enter the new space with clarity.

To design next year’s workplace, you need to understand this year’s behavior. The only way to do that is to start measuring now.

Want to learn how your team can start collecting data today to plan their move? Get in touch.