Space management software: What space planning software is best?

Office space is an expensive investment, so you need to make sure it pays off. 

According to a 2023 survey by CBRE, only 40% of office spaces are occupied on any given day; the rest are sitting empty. That’s a lot of wasted resources and missed opportunities – either for better collaboration between coworkers or for space optimization. 

Thankfully, with the right space management tools, you can track space utilization and attendance, see whether your current office layout makes sense for your people, and turn your office into a place where your team actually wants to come to. 

We’ve rounded up the best tools to keep your workspace efficient and organized and make the most of each square foot. 

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Get to know space management software

So, what is space management software, exactly? 

Space management software enables you to plan, monitor, and optimize how your office is used and helps you make the most of your physical office spaces. It’s particularly helpful for hybrid work setups because it enables your people to book desks and equipment hassle-free and keep office ops running smoothly and efficiently. 

Ideally, it’ll also provide reports on space utilization and give you insights on how to make the most of your current space.

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Top office space planning software for hybrid workplaces

If you’re building a hybrid workforce, you need the right tech stack to pull this off successfully. Space management and planning tools are an essential part of this, as they enable your people to book desks and equipment and know when to come to the office if they want to see their coworkers – and give you an accurate idea of how your office is used. 

Below, you’ll find the top tools we recommend. We admit we’re a bit biased, but you’ll see why we’re putting Officely at the top of the list. 

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Officely: Flexible yet robust workplace management software

If you’re looking for a desk and room booking tool that you can implement immediately and have your people start using it on the same day (and continue using it without any added friction or effort), Officely is a top pick. 

Officely fits seamlessly into your workflows, because it lives where your team already is: in Slack or MS Teams. Or, simply put, your people won’t have to remember to open yet another app to book a desk or a meeting room; they can do that directly in the chat tool they’re already using. 

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There are plenty of things that Officely does. Namely, it: 

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• Enables your team to book desks, rooms, equipment, parking spaces, or even spots for their dogs, directly from MS Teams or Slack
• Gives them (and you) real-time information about who’s coming to the office and when
• Allows you to easily organize workshops, afterwork drinks, or other social events at work
• Gives you an accurate idea of how your space is used, so that you can optimize it further

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If you want to see for yourself how much easier it can be to manage your space usage with the right tool, sign up for a free demo – we’d love to show you around. 

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Othership: A good fit for distributed teams in the UK, Belgium, and Germany

Othership is a flexible working platform that supports remote and hybrid setups, especially for teams that are based in the UK. It gives users access to a network of workspaces they can book by the hour or day, enabling teams to stay flexible. 

It’s particularly useful for remote teams who need to meet up to collaborate from time to time but don’t have a dedicated office space, and less so for hybrid workspaces.

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Zynq Workspace: A full-feature solution for medium and large companies

Zynq Workspace is an office management platform for flexible workplaces and offers plenty of features, such as: 

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• Desk and conference room booking
• Visitor management
• Health and safety tools
• Collaboration tools
• Enterprise analytics on space utilization across offices 

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It helps you predict future space requirements and integrates with other software tools like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace, enabling you to sync data in real time. That said, it might be overbuilt and unnecessarily complex for smaller teams, making adoption a challenge. 

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HubStar: Desk booking with an AI assistant

If you’re looking for a solution that optimizes space utilization and helps you make your employees’ time in the office frictionless with the help of AI, HubStar is a good fit. It tracks how desks, meeting rooms, and other resources are used, giving you clear insights on how to optimize layouts, reduce wasted space, and create a better experience for your people. 

The platform is indeed impressive, but that comes at a cost: It can feel a bit complex to set up and use, especially for smaller teams. Plus, all its features might be more than what small teams need.

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Skedda: Ideal for floor plans

Skedda enables you to book and manage desks, rooms, and other shared spaces. It provides interactive floor plans, meaning that your people can visualize and reserve specific workstations they want. 

It offers customizable reservation rules and policies and can be used for coworking spaces, which can be pretty useful. 

However, users mention that once you start making a few changes at once to your floor plans, things easily get complicated and unintuitive. 

7 important features of office space management software

So, what exactly should you be looking for in an office space management solution? Below, we’ll explain what key features to consider, and how you can evaluate each. 

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1. Desk booking capabilities 

That’s by far the most important feature you need. To make sure your team uses the app you choose, you need to make sure that it’s intuitive and easy to use, and, ideally, integrates directly into your communication tools, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams. 

Officely does exactly that: It enables your people to book desks with a few clicks, without having to open another app. They can also see who else is coming in and decide when to go to the office. (After all, nobody likes to commute to an empty office, right?)

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2. Meeting room booking system

Chances are your office has a few meeting rooms – and that they’re an in-demand resource. To make sure everyone can use them without any scheduling conflicts and make the most out of their time at the office, you need to make sure your workspace management app features a meeting room booking system that’s intuitive and updated in real time (hint: Officely does). 

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3. Attendance visibility

Real-time attendance visibility helps you as much as it helps your employees. 

If your people know who’s going to be in the office, they’re more likely to come. Commuting is a big ask if they’re not going to be able to interact with anyone – and having employees sit alone in an office obviously won’t help you build a successful hybrid culture, either.

If you use a tool that tracks attendance visibility in real time, everyone will know who’s in the office, what fun social activities they have planned, and when’s the best time to come if they want to ask Ben all the burning questions they have on that new project.

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4. Space utilization data reporting

To be able to optimize your space and resources – and ensure you’re not paying for an office that sits empty most of the time – you need to know how your team is actually using it. 

Do you have five meeting rooms but never use more than three at once? The other two could probably be repurposed. Are your desks constantly overbooked? It’d probably make sense to add a few more. 

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5. Floor plans and visitor management solution

For bigger offices, floor plans and visitor management can be a great way to keep things running smoothly, ensuring your visitors won’t get lost. 

Visitor management also helps you keep your office secure and only let in people who have a legitimate reason to be there, while also providing a great visitor experience to those who do. First impressions count! If a candidate or a potential partner or client can’t find your office, doesn’t know how to enter, and struggles to find their way around, they probably won’t come again. 

Floor plans, on the other hand, enable you to decide exactly what the best use of your space is, and change things quickly when needed. 

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6. Integrability

Top space management software plays well with others – and the best tools will be accessible directly from your communication apps. Integrations are key not only for smooth office ops but also for high adoption rates: If employees need to remember to open yet another app to book a desk, they probably won’t. 

Look for tools that integrate well with the rest of your tech stack, too. Officely syncs with Slack, MS Teams, Workday, Remote, and more. 

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7. Ease of use 

Another thing you need to be mindful of if you want to ensure high adoption is the user experience. If users can’t quickly figure out what they need to do to book a desk or a room, they simply won’t do it, and your new app will go unused. 

That’s exactly why we’ve made Officely super simple to use: it’s built by a modern, flexible team for modern, flexible teams. Booking a desk takes only a few clicks and zero effort. 

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Insights: Why should I care about workspace management? 

To boost workplace efficiency, space management is essential. If each day employees are spending time wandering around, looking for a free desk (and hoping there is one), this not only feels frustrating, but it also saps their energy. 

To make coming into the office as seamless as possible, you need to manage the space you have in the right way – and use the best space planning tool.  

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Understand and optimize space allocation

An empty desk is more than just wasted real estate; it’s wasted money. When you track and analyze how your team is using your physical space, you can make the right decisions about how to make the most of it in a way that ensures every square foot serves a purpose. The right workplace management platform helps you do exactly that. 

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Encourage team collaboration 

Space management platforms not only help optimize space but also encourage office usage, and bring people and teams together for better and easier collaboration. And when people work together, their intrinsic motivation also increases. 

The way an office is laid out impacts your team’s ability to work together well. In a hybrid workspace, being able to chat with your coworkers when you come to the office without disturbing others is all the more important – so make sure you plan for areas where informal collaboration feels easy and natural. 

Increase productivity

While collaboration overload can tank your team’s productivity, so can the lack of opportunity to collaborate. It’s tricky to get the balance exactly right, but with the right office layout and desk booking system, you’re much more likely to achieve that. 

A well-managed office reduces distractions, gives people the ability to collaborate easily, and improves communication. Plus, it helps eliminate redundant meetings or time wasted in trying to figure out which meeting room is free and where to speak with a coworker without distracting everyone. 

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Improve employee satisfaction

Good space management means there’s always a comfortable area for workers that meets their needs. 

Nobody wants to struggle to find a desk or squeeze into a crowded corner to work. If you use the best practices of space management (and the right tools for it), your office will meet everyone’s needs and be a place that people actually like coming to. 

Ensure you have the right spaces for focused work, video calls, team meetings, and quick catch-ups. Happy employees are more productive and engaged, and that starts with providing them with a great workplace experience.

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Ready to optimize workplace management with the best space management software?

Great space management starts with the right mindset and tools. In this article, we’ve covered both – but if you’d like to see how these two come together, you can book a free demo to see Officely in action and learn how it can help you build a workspace that works for everyone on your team. 

From desk and room booking to real-time space utilization data and attendance visibility, it has everything you need to create an office space that helps your people do their best work, together.