The challenge

A tech scale-up with 1,200 employees, growing to 1,300, believed its office was reaching capacity as meeting rooms felt full and peak days seemed congested. Leadership assumed relocation or expansion was necessary.

To validate this, they used Taxonomy with 700 Dynamics respondents, scaled to the full workforce using the Create Persona and Growth Multiplier features. They recognized that choosing to stay or move is not just about cost, but a decision influencing:

  • Space efficiency
  • Commuting impacts
  • Productivity alignment
  • Retention risk

What we assessed

  • Solo versus group activities. Most work occurred individually or in meetings of one to four people, not in large rooms.
  • Personality and sensory profiles. Big Five traits plus acoustic and visual comfort needs informed the recommended mix of settings.
  • Schedule behaviour. A slight mismatch existed, but leadership did not want to change hybrid schedules, so modelling kept schedules exactly as-is.

Simulation using Taxonomy

True space requirement

  • Current office: 11,500 m²
  • Assumed need: 13,500 m²
  • Actual need: 10,000 m²

Desk and sharing ratio

  • Recommended ratio: 1:1.4 (0.7 desk per employee)
  • Peak occupancy below 72%
  • 150 desks unnecessary, freeing 750 m²

Meeting rooms

  • 80% of meetings have one to four attendees
  • Right-sizing oversized rooms unlocked 405 m²

Circulation and support zones

  • Secondary circulation reduced from 20% to 18%, freeing 345 m²

Cultural alignment

With a push toward a more results-oriented culture, Taxonomy recommended more spontaneous interaction zones, fewer oversized formal rooms, and improved zoning, contributing to:

  • 7% improvement in productivity alignment
  • 5% improvement in retention score, driven by better cultural and behavioural fit

These insights were generated without occupancy analytics; adding them would refine actual versus reported use and the recommended configuration.

Recommendations

  • Stay in the current office.
  • Reconfigure: add small rooms and focus pods, right-size meeting rooms, reduce circulation, repurpose 350 desks.
  • Keep the current schedule, per leadership preference.

Results

  • The company can confidently stay.
  • Productivity score improved by 7%, driven by better space alignment.
  • Retention score improved by 5%, through better cultural alignment.
  • Commute impact unchanged, since location and schedules didn't shift.

Financial impact

By deciding to stay, the company avoided taking an extra 2,000 m², saving $1.2M annually at $600 per m², plus unlocking 1,500 m² internally.

Results exclude productivity and retention gains; even a 1% drop in turnover equals 13 employees retained, or $780,000 saved.