How to make a seating plan for an office move
Short answer
Start six to eight weeks out. Size the floor to your busiest day, group teams into named zones, give assigned desks only to people who are in every day, and number every desk by zone.
Send the draft to team leads for corrections, then give the final numbered plan to the movers and IT a week before move day.
Step by step
Eight steps from floor plan to move day
- 1
Get the new floor plan, to scale
Ask the landlord, architect or fit-out contractor for the latest drawing. Check it against what is actually being built, because the layout changes during fit-out more often than anyone tells you.
- 2
Decide how many desks you need
Size to your busiest day, not your average one: assigned desks for people who are in every day, then shared desks for everyone else in on your busiest day, plus about 10%.
Use the desk calculator → - 3
Group teams into zones
Put teams that work together next to each other, busy teams near the meeting rooms, and focus work away from the kitchen and the entrance. Give every zone a name people will actually use.
- 4
Decide who keeps an assigned desk
Reception, facilities, finance, people who are in five days a week, and anyone with fixed equipment. Keep this list short, because every assigned desk is empty whenever its owner is out.
- 5
Number every desk by zone
Give each zone its own number range, such as 2-100s for Marketing on floor 2 and 2-200s for Engineering. Movers, IT and new starters can then find a desk from its number alone.
- 6
Share the draft and take corrections
Send each team lead their zone two to three weeks out and ask what's wrong. It is far cheaper to move a name on a plan than a person after move day.
- 7
Hand the numbered plan to movers and IT
Movers label crates by desk number, and IT sets up docks and monitors per desk. Both need the final plan a week before move day, not on the morning.
- 8
Plan to change it in the first month
Every seating plan is wrong somewhere. Expect to move a zone or two once you see how people actually use the floor, and tell everyone that up front.
Free template
A seating plan template you can open in any spreadsheet
One row per desk. It works for Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers, and it is what the movers and IT need from you.
| Column | Example | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| Desk number | 2-101 | Floor, then zone range, then desk |
| Floor | 2 | As the building numbers it |
| Zone | Marketing | The team or neighbourhood the desk belongs to |
| Desk type | Shared | Assigned or Shared |
| Assigned to | — | A name only for assigned desks |
| Equipment | Dock, 2 monitors | What IT has to set up |
| Near | Room 2B | Landmark so people can find it |
| Notes | Standing desk | Anything the movers need |
Move-week checklist
Seven things to check before the first morning
- Final seating plan sent to movers and IT
- Every desk labelled with its number
- Each team knows its zone and how to find it
- Assigned-desk owners told which desk is theirs
- Everyone else knows how to book a shared desk
- Meeting rooms named and listed
- A plan for the first week's inevitable seat swaps
Where the spreadsheet stops working
Move day
A spreadsheet is the right tool for planning. It is the wrong one on move day, when half the floor is shared and people need to see which desks are free today, not who was meant to sit where.
Gridero turns the plan into a bookable map of the new floor. Build it before the move and keep it hidden, give each zone to its team, then switch it on when you move in. See how it works for office moves.
Seating plan questions
When should we start the seating plan for an office move?
Six to eight weeks before move day. That leaves time to agree zones with team leads, take corrections, and get the final numbered plan to the movers and IT a week before the move.
Should everyone get an assigned desk in the new office?
Not in a hybrid office. Give assigned desks to people who are in every day or need fixed equipment, and let everyone else book from the team's zone. Otherwise you pay for a desk per person and most of them sit empty.
How should we number desks in a new office?
Floor first, then a number range per zone, then the desk. Desk 2-104 is floor 2, the 100s zone, desk 4. Numbers that encode where a desk is let movers and new starters find it without a map.
Is a spreadsheet good enough for a seating plan?
For the planning stage, yes. That is what the template on this page is for. It stops working on move day, when people need to see which shared desks are free today. That is the point to move the plan into desk booking software.
How do we decide which teams sit together?
Ask who each team meets with most, and put those teams side by side. Put teams that are on calls all day away from teams that need quiet, and keep the teams that use meeting rooms the most closest to them.
Plan done? Build the new floor before you move.
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