Restacking the workplace for a workforce transformation

By Chelsea Ingber• 5 mins read•April 12, 2022

Five colleagues discussing documents around a table in a bright office setting.

Key takeaways

Workplace restacking is a strategic process used to continuously reconfigure space, ensuring the physical office is an adaptive, high-performance destination.
Restacking reduces costs by driving space utilization, improves operational efficiency, and strengthens team collaboration and agility.
The Rapid7 case study proves that linking strategy with sophisticated technology enables the relocation of hundreds of employees quickly and seamlessly, with zero disruption.
AI space planning tools, such as stack plans and scenario modeling, remove manual guesswork, allowing FMs to instantly compare layouts and execute the restack with guaranteed accuracy.

Restacking the workplace is one of the best options for companies looking to optimize space in their office. It’s no longer a crisis response; it’s a required strategic capability for continuous optimization.

In a landscape defined by AI-driven agility and rising real estate costs, organizations must treat their physical space as an adaptive asset. Restacking is the strategic process of reconfiguring the office’s usage to improve space utilization and align the footprint with current business needs. It is the tactical decision that turns an outdated asset into a high-performance destination.

This article will explain the necessity of a modern workplace restack, detail the financial and operational benefits, and show how OfficeSpace’s AI space planning technology turns this complex challenge into a precise, data-driven solution.

What is workplace restacking?

Workplace restacking is the strategic reconfiguration of your existing office space to better align its use with your business goals and the current realities of a hybrid, agile workforce.

It is the necessary tactical decision that turns an outdated, costly asset into a high-performance destination.

What is the purpose of restacking the workplace?

An office restack is about rearranging and reshaping your physical space to meet the needs of your organization and your workers. The core purpose is not just to downsize, but to optimize, specifically by:

Improving space utilization: Ensuring every square foot is used efficiently, often by transitioning from assigned desks to flexible seating models.
Driving operational efficiency: Consolidating space requirements to reduce overall real estate costs and make the building more cost-effective.
Enhancing agility: Reinventing the floor plan to allow for different work environment types, like more collaboration zones or focus pods, adapting to dynamic team needs.

Smart restacking starts with smart space planning, including real-time headcount planning and rich data that teams can use to gain insights and make better decisions around space optimization.

What are the benefits of restacking an office?

The benefits of restacking an office will vary depending on how well an organization is able to use data to fuel any desired reconfiguration. But assuming that a restack project is undertaken for the right reasons and supported with the right data, companies can expect a wide variety of benefits from their new environment.

Namely, the benefits of restacking an office include:

Reducing departmental fragmentation, especially between floors
Reducing space needs, which can often lead to a reduction in both real estate costs and an organization’s carbon footprint
Preparing the office for growth and projected staffing numbers
Improving teamwork and collaboration and helping every team member do their best work, by ensuring they’re sitting with the right people in the right places, even in flexible seating scenarios
Easier move management and request management

Ultimately, the goal when restacking the workplace is to better align the office with how employees are actually using it. This improves workflow along with employee well-being, allowing for more collaboration in the workplace.

And since we know from recent surveys that the majority of workers want to work in some sort of hybrid office, restacking the office to better accommodate flexible working may even help companies better ride out the Great Resignation.

How Rapid7 relocated more than 600 employees

Agility is best demonstrated not by planning alone, but by flawless execution during critical change. Global cybersecurity leader Rapid7 exemplifies the achievement of this level of performance during a major organizational shift.

The challenge: Rapid7 needed a smooth transition when relocating 600 employees to a new headquarters. The complex logistics required meticulous planning, high accuracy, and fast alignment among department heads to avoid disruption.
The agile solution: Rapid7 used OfficeSpace’s stacking and scenario solutions to implement, plan, and execute the move seamlessly. They leveraged Scenarios to create multiple “rough drafts,” or virtual seating assignments, as the plans evolved, ensuring buy-in from team managers before touching a physical desk.
The outcome: The ability to pre-plan the move with data meant the merging process was simple and painless, enabling the relocation of 600 employees in just two days.

This case study proves that when you link sophisticated space optimization technology with clear strategy, you can achieve agility at scale.

By the time the move happened, the Scenario was entirely filled out so the merging process was simple and painless.
Andrea Diieso, Rapid7’s Workplace Experience Manager

How AI helps with restacking offices

Achieving agility requires technology that can handle the volume and complexity of an entire portfolio. This is why AI space planning tools are essential—they provide the visual clarity and predictive power needed to reconfigure space with confidence.

Stack planning: the visual roadmap

AI stack plans optimize your floor plan so it evolves with your needs. They are the best visual roadmap to restacking the office, providing a high-level picture of your entire workspace and departments. When powered by a tool like OfficeSpace, stack plans easily integrate real-time data from the office with your restack plans. This allows FMs to use simple drag-and-drop capabilities to move departments between floors and sites, quickly reorganizing the portfolio before making any physical changes.

Scenario modeling: testing before execution

Scenario modeling augments the stack plan, providing the critical comparison layer necessary for executive approval. When scenarios are used in conjunction with stacking, FMs can:

Compare different versions: Instantly compare multiple proposed floor plans and test the long-term impact of changes (like reducing headcount or consolidating floors) without affecting live data.
Generate proposals: Convert stack planning data into multiple, tangible floor plan proposals for stakeholders to review.
Implement confidently: Execute the chosen plan in just a few clicks using tools like Scenario Merge, guaranteeing accuracy from concept to completion.

Transform your portfolio with OfficeSpace

The OfficeSpace ecosystem provides the end-to-end solution for this entire process. Our platform is the unified canvas where AI space planning happens—integrating drag-and-drop stack planning with powerful scenario modeling. Our solution removes the guesswork, providing an intuitive user experience that is fast and reliable.

By leveraging OfficeSpace, FMs and company planners can generate intelligent plans, test them instantly, and seamlessly export directly to execution—all within one platform designed to turn your real estate into a performance engine.