Turning Workplace Strategy into an Enterprise Design Guide
For enterprise organizations managing dozens of offices and hundreds or thousands of employees, a standard design guide can be an invaluable tool. It helps internal teams move faster, align nationally, and retain a sense of brand cohesion across sites.
But if the foundation of that guide is a default layout or a dated idea of seniority, it risks falling short of what modern work actually requires.
The best approach starts not with precedent, but with evidence. And we’ve found that the most successful design guides are those that are strategically standardized and locally adaptable, informed by how people need to work, not just where they sit.
Why Enterprise Workplace Design Guides Matter
Our enterprise clients often request design guides for good reason. These tools help internal ownership by enabling in-house design, project and FM teams to act autonomously within a defined framework.
They support scalability, allowing for rollouts across regions and business units to move more quickly. They offer clarity for vendors, landlords, and architects and ensure consistency in experience and compliance across a portfolio.
Activity-Based Working: Designing for Needs, Not Titles
While some organizations still ask us to include layouts that reflect leadership seniority, and we accommodate this where appropriate, we approach it as a design tweak, not the underlying framework.
The core of our methodology is Activity-Based Working: matching worksettings to workstyles, activities and interactions - not titles.
That means private spaces are available not just for executives, but for anyone who needs deep focus, confidentiality, or specialist functionality.
Leadership needs such as acoustic privacy and high-stakes meetings are real and valid, but they don’t dictate the core of the workplace model. Instead, they are thoughtfully integrated where and when they are truly needed.
Building an Evidence-Based Workplace Design Guide
Our enterprise design guides are not templates. They’re evidence-based playbooks that begin with deep engagement:
Workplace Experience Platform: Captures data about tasks, locations, collaboration needs, and builds personas and activity profiles.
Space Budget Module: Translates that data into a spatial recipe – how many seats, rooms, booths, hubs, and informal settings each team actually needs.
Concept Zoning & Neighborhood Planning: Zoned spaces around team needs and adjacencies, supporting both structured and serendipitous interaction.
Creating a Flexible Toolkit of Workplace Settings
Our worksetting taxonomy is wide-ranging and fully illustrated, ready to slot into any guide:
Focus Settings: Quiet Booths, Study Pods, Phone/VC Pods -
Individual Work: Open Plan Desks, Touchdowns, Perches
Collaboration Spaces: Informal Lounges, Media VC Rooms, Huddle and Project Spaces
Leadership-Ready: Private Offices, Boardrooms, Training Zones
Support & Amenity: Resource Hubs, Wellness Rooms, Tea Points, Storage, Reception
Each setting is matched with purpose and use case, acoustic and visual privacy levels, tech integrations, and planning examples. This enables procurement teams to select furniture and tech with confidence.
Translating Workplace Strategy into Interior Design
Once we’ve defined the spatial framework and functional requirements, we bring in interior design collaborators to add depth and character. This stage translates the strategy into spaces that reflect brand, inspire creativity, and elevate the user experience.
We focus on materiality, ambiance, and sensory design — elements that help people feel both supported and energized in the space. Approved vendor products are integrated at this point to streamline specification and procurement, while ensuring consistency across projects.
Balancing Workplace Standardization and Local Flexibility
What results is not a static document, but a flexible toolkit — one that brings structure without rigidity. These guides allow internal teams to design with confidence while adapting to local constraints, cultural nuances, or lease conditions. They’re detailed enough to offer guardrails, yet open enough to foster creativity and responsiveness.
The outcome?
Workplace experiences that are aligned to business goals, yet still tailored to teams.
Spaces that scale with purpose, not just preference.
Getting Started with an Enterprise Workplace Design Guide
If your business is considering a workplace design guide, or your current one feels out of step with how your teams actually work, we’d love to help. Our Workplace Experience platform, space budgeting, and layout planning tools create a ready-made foundation for any workplace playbook.
And when paired with the right design partner, it becomes a powerful blueprint for the future of work — wherever you work.
Let's turn your insights into action.