How do you best allocate people to place in an office building? How do you work out who works with who? We use Social Network Analysis to uncover the invisible collaboration patterns between employees to make evidence-based recommendations on stacking.

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Scenario – Who are moving in?
• Organisation with thousands of employees is undertaking a company-wide
workplace strategy initiative
• As a part of the initiative the HQ being refurbished and a shift to activity-based
working is introduced
• New HQ will cater for 2,800 employees. Who should move in?

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Traditional Stacking Problem
Problem with traditional
stacking approach:
• Observation-based
approaches
• Resource intensive
• Don’t know who works
with who
• Don’t know interfaces
to people in other
buildings
• Decisions are therefore
often biased and lack
evidence/data

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How do we address this?
• Very short survey (average 5 min to complete) to all relevant employees
– “Who are the top 10 people you collaborate with to do your job?”
– “How importance are they?” (High, Medium Low)
– “Would close(r) physical proximity help do your job better?”

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
Where staff are currently
located
Total number
of people
included on
map
Placement in
new building
Circles are Business Units
Size = # staff
Line = Collaboration
BUArea 40 has 112 staff
We move slider to uncover next
layer of collaborative relationships
Placement in
new building
See interactive map at
www.optimice.com.au/buildingdesign.php

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
Placement in
new building
New BU emerges on
map. BU Area 54 has 113
staffPlacement in
new building
We now have 462 people
in the building

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
No collaboration links, so
no constraints re
location
No collaboration links, so
no constraints re
location
More BUs emerge

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
More BUs emerge

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
More BUs emerge

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
More BUs emerge

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What does it looks like?
North Bank
More BUs emerge

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Benefits
• Data-driven approach results in better decision making
• Better ability to engage business representatives and explain reason for
proposed placement
• Much fasterthan traditional interview process
• Draw on input from all staff rather than a selected few

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Contact
Optimice: Cai Kjaer
cai.kjaer@optimice.com.au
www.optimice.com.au
Our Partners
dwp|Suters: Leone Lorrimer
l.lorrimer@dwpsuters.com.au
www.dwpsuters.com.au
Lend Lease: Natalie Slessor
natalie.slessor@lendlease.com
www.lendlease.com