subject: Space Analysis And Workstation Requirements [print this page] Space Analysis and Workstation Requirements
Departmental managers must always be allowed to participate in planning activities, especially for Space Analysis and Workstation requirements. This will increase the level of engagement managing expectations and will also boost departmental productivity and ensure creative, cost effective solutions are proposed:
Some practical tips & advice for Space Analysis:
Plan space so that short term space requirements are isolated from longer term requirements to enable better future space utilization
Allocate approximately 25% of the space as circulation space.
Space should be allocated according to functional requirements (not organizational hierarchy)
Plan the size of smaller support spaces so that they can be interchangeable with workstations for people.
Space should be as flexible as possible to accommodate evolving business requirements:
Open space planning wherever possible
Reducing number of different sized spaces
Standardizing sizes of office spaces
Points to consider when defining Workstation requirements:
In order to create flexibility, promote air quality, increase natural light penetration and reduce costs, attempt to limit the number of enclosed workstations to 45% of the total workstations on a floor.
Enclosed offices should be positioned on the building core and provided with glazing to receive natural light.
Partitions in open space environments should be 1.65m or lower in height.
Attempt to standardize workstation furniture so that, when moves occur, only people need to move.
The following a rules of thumb to assist space planners and designers in determining how best to allocate workstations and space across an organization:
Management offices are normally allocated to roles who often host meetings with 2 to 4 persons and who have strong requirements for confidentiality, security, visual / acoustic privacy - best suits C level management;
Enclosed offices are normally allocated to roles who host meetings with up to 2 persons and again have requirements for confidentiality, security, visual / acoustic privacy - best suits HR and counseling;
Executive workstations are normally allocated to roles who are involved in concentrated multi source paperwork, compiling information, reading, writing, analyzing, calculating and referencing multiple sources of material - best suits most mid level management, professional or technical staff;
Medium size Workstations are normally allocated to roles who handle multi task paper intensive work telephone work, keyboarding, filing, sorting documents, handling mail, editing, operating equipment and scheduling - best suits roles including secretaries, administration and/or support staff;
Small Workstations are designed for specific task orientated work such as data entry or data processing - best suits roles including clerical / data entry staff;
*TIP* In larger organizations where the open floor plan has been adopted, multipurpose collaboration rooms can effectively host small groups, webinars and/or individuals requiring a level of privacy. This approach requires the right furniture, and communications infrastructure and equipment.
