WSP Tagged 27,000 Desks Across 225 Offices to Answer the Question: Are We Leasing the Right Amount of Space?
Real estate is WSP’s second-largest cost after salaries. The global consulting and engineering firm has 72,000 employees across 600 offices worldwide, and for a company of that size, leasing decisions made without reliable data are leasing decisions made badly.
Five years ago, WSP deployed a desk booking and occupancy platform across its own portfolio to solve that problem. The platform now covers 225 offices and 27,000 tagged assets: desks, phone booths, conference rooms, and parking spots. WSP decided to buy, not build, partnering with a software company to make it happen.
The technical centerpiece is a dongle on each desk. When a laptop plugs in, the system captures not just that the desk was used, but which person used it, whether their manager was present, and whether their colleagues were there at the same time. Conference room bookings pair with occupancy sensors that automatically release no-show reservations. The result is person-level utilization data.
Three things have changed in WSP’s portfolio as a result. First, right-sizing: each office has a different workforce profile. Jay Wratten, Global Smart Places Lead at WSP, noted that an office full of geologists who spend most of their time in the field looks nothing like a floor of mechanical engineers — the data gives the team a defensible basis for matching space to the people who actually use it. Second, mix optimization: how many phone booths, single desks, and conference rooms does each office actually need? WSP adjusts on the fly when the data says something isn’t working. Third, acquisition consolidation: WSP is highly acquisitive. When they buy a company, they often inherit duplicate offices in the same city. The occupancy data lets them move quickly into leasing negotiations with real utilization numbers in hand.
The CFO-facing metric is straightforward. “The way you get this across to your CFO,” Wratten said, “is to show them the amount of square footage you are no longer leasing.” That’s the savings: not a projected efficiency gain, but space that’s gone from the lease.
WSP’s underlying philosophy, as Wratten put it, is that they’re not trying to fit people to the office. They’re trying to fit the office to the people who work there. The data makes that possible.
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Real estate is WSP’s second-largest cost after salaries. The global consulting and engineering firm has 72,000 employees across 600 offices worldwide, and for a company of that size, leasing decisions made without reliable data are leasing decisions made badly.
Five years ago, WSP deployed a desk booking and occupancy platform across its own portfolio to solve that problem. The platform now covers 225 offices and 27,000 tagged assets: desks, phone booths, conference rooms, and parking spots. WSP decided to buy, not build, partnering with a software company to make it happen.
The technical centerpiece is a dongle on each desk. When a laptop plugs in, the system captures not just that the desk was used, but which person used it, whether their manager was present, and whether their colleagues were there at the same time. Conference room bookings pair with occupancy sensors that automatically release no-show reservations. The result is person-level utilization data.
Three things have changed in WSP’s portfolio as a result. First, right-sizing: each office has a different workforce profile. Jay Wratten, Global Smart Places Lead at WSP, noted that an office full of geologists who spend most of their time in the field looks nothing like a floor of mechanical engineers — the data gives the team a defensible basis for matching space to the people who actually use it. Second, mix optimization: how many phone booths, single desks, and conference rooms does each office actually need? WSP adjusts on the fly when the data says something isn’t working. Third, acquisition consolidation: WSP is highly acquisitive. When they buy a company, they often inherit duplicate offices in the same city. The occupancy data lets them move quickly into leasing negotiations with real utilization numbers in hand.
The CFO-facing metric is straightforward. “The way you get this across to your CFO,” Wratten said, “is to show them the amount of square footage you are no longer leasing.” That’s the savings: not a projected efficiency gain, but space that’s gone from the lease.
WSP’s underlying philosophy, as Wratten put it, is that they’re not trying to fit people to the office. They’re trying to fit the office to the people who work there. The data makes that possible.
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This is a great piece!
I agree.