As an average, office space per person is generally around 200 sf per employee in the United States. When planning your office space, it’s important to consider typical configurations within your industry, as well the various roles and positions within your organization.
How the space is utilized varies across industries and the following graph from CoStar, highlights the average range by industry.
A typical workspace allocation by position, along with the respective configuration, is as follows:
Source: U.S. General Services Administration Workspace Utilization and Allocation Benchmark Study 2012
When beginning a preliminary space analysis, start with the benchmark allocations above and modify accordingly. Click on the image to the right for a tool to help you analyze your organization’s space requirement.
The U.S. GSA surveyed various private and public organizations and their results show that the Executive’s office typically is in the range of 225-400 USF in the U.S, with the exception of certain firms that choose to use an open plan or shared workspace configuration.
Michael Staskiewicz, CCIM is the Managing Broker/ Senior Vice President of The Garibaldi Group and Founder of EffectiveWorkplace.com. Michael helps innovative, purpose-driven CEOs clarify the strategic plan for a world-class work environment, so they can attract the best talent and reduce voluntary turnover.