According to Office Finder, it's best to leave approximately 175 square feet of space for each person who works in your office. Leaders and executives typically need between 200 and 400 square feet. Open office workstations only require about 100 square feet per person. The average office size in North America is currently 150 to 175 square feet per employee.
Open office spaces for technology companies often use even less, 125 to 175 square feet per person. International offices are becoming even more efficient, with around 100 square feet per person. According to Zippia, companies must have between 150 and 175 square feet of office space to work in the most efficient way. Office Finder estimates that the range is “between 125 and 225 usable square feet of office space per person.”.
On average, this equates to 175 square feet per employee. Office Finder offers wide ranges for each category, which may confuse some employers who want an easy answer, but the truth is that the optimal amount of space varies from company to company. What common spaces, such as waiting rooms or conference rooms, are needed? Do you imagine large and extensive conference rooms, or do you prefer more conservative space planning? In high-density offices, it's common to have a conference room, private call room, or common area for every 10 employees, while a medium-density office would only need 1 for every 20 employees. Using 150 to 175 square feet per employee as a general guideline, the employer must determine the best way to distribute this space between common areas, shared workspaces and private offices.
Answering these types of questions will help you determine the size of the office and how much office space you need per employee. Consider everything you can, for example, how your company will grow (and what you'll need to manage that growth), how the economy will change (for your market and in general), and what kind of equipment and people your office space will need. In conclusion, employers should start looking for office space of between 150 and 175 square feet per worker. In companies with private offices, employees with private offices will get a higher proportion of the total space than those who are in cubes or workstations.
For best results, organizations must tour several office spaces within their given range and budget to establish what size and design best fits their needs and objectives. As a general rule, the denser the office space, the higher the percentage of total office space that should be allocated to common areas. Open office environments often require more areas to hold meetings, calls, or collaborative sessions than low or medium density offices. Few private offices use most of the space for rows of small desks, such as a call center might have.
Make sure that your office space is distributed in a way that best suits the work needs of your employees. While this calculator will provide you with an estimate of the amount of space your new office needs, it is based on industry standards and is not intended to be a definitive assessment. To know how much space you'll need per employee, you'll need to visualize your future office space. Private offices will take up more space, while open cubicles will absorb less, and a percentage of total square footage will be allocated to common areas, such as lobbies or rest rooms.
