As December rolls in and the year winds down — with many teams operating on holiday-light schedules and some offices half empty — now is a perfect time to reflect on how your workspace is used … and perhaps underused. The festive slowdown often makes underutilised desks, meeting rooms and empty zones particularly visible — a timely reminder that your office footprint may not reflect your actual needs.
That’s where visual space management becomes more than a “nice to have.” It becomes a strategic tool to understand what your space is doing — and what it isn’t.
The Problem: Hidden Inefficiencies in Plain Sight
Most organisations give considerable thought to hiring, IT infrastructure, and workflows — but often overlook the physical space people occupy. For many, floorplans get drawn once and then sit unused; desks are assigned without regard to occupancy, meeting rooms stay booked yet empty, and whole zones remain underused for weeks — especially around the end-of-year lull.
Meanwhile, real estate and facilities costs remain one of the biggest ongoing expenses after payroll. When your space usage is inefficient — under-utilised desks and rooms, redundant meeting areas, or unused square feet across floors — you’re effectively paying for space you don’t need.
But it’s not just about cost. Poor visibility into how space is used undermines your ability to plan for change, adapt to hybrid-working patterns, or shift to more flexible, employee-friendly environments. If desk assignments are static, but working habits are dynamic, you end up with imbalance — some desks overcrowded, others empty. And without real data, decisions end up based on guesswork rather than reality.
The Solution: Seeing Your Space, Clearly and Visually
Visual space management offers a simple — but powerful — lens: imagine your entire floor layout, team by team, desk by desk, shown on an interactive plan. Such visibility turns what was once abstract (square footage, seating capacity, room counts) into concrete, actionable insight.
With a proper visual system, you can:
- See which desks and rooms are regularly used, and which sit empty.
- Identify under-utilised zones — maybe a cluster of meeting rooms never booked, or entire desks going unused during quiet December weeks.
- Reallocate or repurpose space: turn little-used conference rooms into breakout zones or hot-desking areas; shrink or consolidate underused floors when re-negotiating leases.
- Align space with actual demand — not old seating charts or assumptions.
Visual space management lays the groundwork for data-driven workplace design, especially important in a world moving toward hybrid and flexible work models.
How Accordant by CadM Enables Smart, Visual Space Management
This is where Accordant shines. Accordant is a web-based workspace management platform that centralises floorplans, space allocation, occupancy data, booking, and move-planning — all in one system.
Here are a few ways Accordant helps you turn the concept of visual space management into reality:
- True Floorplan Visualisation & Space Allocation: You can upload your existing CAD drawings — or even use image/PDF uploads if you don’t have CAD — then visually define space types (desks, rooms, zones) and assign them to teams, departments or purposes. This makes every desk and room part of a living, manageable map, not just a static drawing.
- Real-Time Visibility & Reporting: Because everything is modelled visually, you can quickly see which spaces are occupied, which are empty — even generate reports on space types, allocations, and usage trends. This clarity helps you spot inefficiencies that would otherwise remain hidden until an audit, or worse, a lease-renewal.
- Occupancy & Utilisation Tracking: Import data from sensors, WiFi, badge swipes — or use the “Accordant Anywhere” app — to capture real-world usage. That way, you don’t rely on bookings or assumptions; you see how space is actually used day to day.
- Booking & Flexible Work Patterns Support: When holiday season ends and hybrid work kicks back in, teams shift in and out more frequently. Accordant’s desk and room-booking module (included in the subscription) allows staff to reserve desks or meeting rooms as needed — and keeps everything up to date on the visual plan.
- Move Management & Reconfiguration: If you discover large under-utilised areas — perhaps especially visible during December — Accordant makes it easy to plan reconfigurations, reassignments, or even downsizing. The “Moves & Changes” module has helped companies manage everything from a single desk swap to whole-office relocations.
The December Advantage: Use the Quiet to Reassess
December — with its quieter office floors, staff on leave, and reduced footfall — is arguably the best time to run a space audit. With fewer people around, you can more clearly see patterns of use (or non-use), test new desk-booking policies, or pilot new layouts with minimal disruption.
Implementing Accordant now offers two big advantages:
- You start the new year with a clear, data-backed understanding of your space — avoiding overcommitment to desks or meeting rooms you don’t need.
- You leverage a low-impact period (calendar slow-down) to begin reconfiguration, reallocation or consolidation — rather than trying to scramble mid-year with half the company back in full swing.
The Payoff: Smarter Space, Smarter Savings, Smarter Work
At the end of the day, visual space management — when done right — transforms your office from a cost burden into a strategic asset. With tools like Accordant, what used to be a static lease, a fixed number of desks and intangible assumptions becomes a living, breathing workspace map that adapts to changing needs.
In a tight economy, or in companies embracing hybrid work, that agility can make a real difference — for budgets, for employee experience, and for future-proofing your real estate strategy.
And what better time than this December — as one year ends and another looms — to take stock, reimagine your space, and start 2026 with purpose?